In the I-can’t-believe-they-published-that file comes an extraordinary rant by Conal Hanna in the Brisbane Times, complaining that – gasp – people lie to journalists!
Journalists have long been the butt of jokes comparing their trustworthiness to used car salesmen.
But now, dear reader, I can safely say: who are you to talk?
Three times in the past two months the media has been left red-faced after taking the testimony of members of the public at face value.
…and, you know, not doing their job in verifying that testimony.
Seriously, almost every line of that piece is comedy gold – I hardly know which ones to quote. How about – “Clearly journalists still retain some degree of responsibility for fact-checking.” You think?
Eventually a hurt and, apparently, genuinely puzzled Conal asks -
Where do we go from here? Can journalists take anyone at face value anymore? Do we need to verify every eyewitness we speak to? What do you think?
OF COURSE YOU BLOODY WELL DO! That’s what is supposed to separate journalists from, I don’t know, tape recorders.
I’m torn between tears of derisive laughter and tears of despair.
18 Comments
And wasn’t that aptly demonstrated with Chk Chk Boom girl…
I’m not so much worried about people lying to journalists, what I’m worried about is journalists lying to people. The entire carcass of what’s left of Flairfax is guilty of that.
Tee, do you think you might occasionally pretend not to be a troll?
Just for variety’s sake?
Got any examples of those “lies”, tee?
This is ridiculous. Next step: “it’s not the journalists’ fault that they write such nonsensical/contradictory/blatantly false pieces of analysis and opinion; it’s society’s, for failing to give them interesting issues to talk about.”
Toaf:
Start with the first page and work your way through even to the sports section.
Catshid:
Can you not pretend to have something to say instead of wasting valuable space trying to control everyone else. You’re a freaking commenter here like me. If the thread owner thinks it’s ok to go through then it’s ok, so stfu with the troll crap ok. Don’t like what I write, then don’t freaking read it.
Indeed, I am a commenter. And I find it cogent to comment that you are both a troll, and, it seems, a delicate flower.
Unless you have some examples for us. I mean, actual examples with reasoning, not just “but anyone with an ounce of sense agrees with me, so if you disagree with me you must not have an ounce of sense. I RULEZ AT LOGICK0RZ!!eleven!”
We disagree with the Fairfax papers ourselves, you know. I personally would reserve “the entire carcass of {whatever} is guilty of [lying]” for Fox ‘News’, except there is nothing for it to be the carcass of. And as bad as The Age might sometimes be, I’ll still pick it over The Oz or the Herald-Sun. And having seen the ‘choice’ in Adelaide (the ‘Tizer makes the Herald-Sun look restrained and rational), I’m quite glad that The Age exists.
Unless there was something you wanted to add about Limited News papers?
(PS: electrons are cheap, numbnuts.)
now now children play together like nice trolls
I have a bit of sympathy for the journo’s: these days getting news published before other media groups is a major driver. The problem is, all of them seek to get ‘breaking news’ out before the others without doing a thorough checking of the sources. The internet has a lot to do with this, what with instantaneous publishing. They should check, but the fear of missing out on a ‘exclusive’ breaking story corrupts them somewhat. Not all mind you, but enough.
With print, there were deadlines but never instantaneous deadlines.
“In the I-can’t-believe-they-published-that file comes an extraordinary rant by Conal Hanna in the Brisbane Times, complaining that – gasp – people lie to journalists!”
Plato’s “Golden Rule” “Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you.” aka The Ethic of Reciprocity. http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm has a long list of the same Rule in other religious/ philosophical texts.
I can’t find any note which excludes journalists; although Hanna is far from the only journalist who expects the public to cop the cr#p but be all honest & truthful in return: an Exclusive Order of Journos who Lie & Equivocate: But expect everyone else to tell them the truth, the whole truth etc in return perhaps?
I think you’re right that it’s the motivation to break news that drives the lack of fact-checking, but I also think that their focus on news-breaking is the problem.
This comes back to the argument in Hartigan’s Press Club address (and the statements of Christian Kerr and others before that), that what the media does and bloggers don’t is break news. I’d suggest that the traditional media has two things that most of the blogosphere doesn’t: (i) the connections to pick up newsworthy information, and (ii) the resources and expertise to do in-depth investigation of that information.
Even if a news outlet breaks a story, it’s going to be picked up by every aggregator and every other media outlet in no time. I don’t see how being the first to publish gives much of a competitive advantage. And if people want unconfirmed reports of news the instant it happens, they can use Twitter and skip the newspapers and traditional media sites altogether. Publishing unconfirmed information so that they can say, “First!” isn’t journalism.
“Publishing unconfirmed information so that they can say, “First!” isn’t journalism.”
And there should be a cost – ie, if you get it wrong, we don’t say “oh well, at least you were first”; we say YOU SHOULD HAVE CHECKED. As we should. There should be a disincentive to publishing unverified crap.
Because erroneous information is at best worthless, at worst dangerous – even if it is first.
“erroneous information is at best worthless, at worst dangerous “.
Similarly, an erroneously held truth can be more damaging than a falsehood.
Er, lost me there AR.
“Erroneously held principle”, fair enough; truth expressed with an intent to mislead, or clever choice of words to disguise the truth (equivocation/ semantics), yep; a truth used out of context so the meaning is distorted, OK; but “erroneously held truth” has beaten me. Examples?
Got to agree with Jeremy.
Journalism today sucks.
Catsidhe @7 As a non-conservative libertarian, tee despises both sides of politics and, no doubt, both Fairfax and Murdoch papers. However, he is so pressed for time what with his busy schedule of free-market-espousing and burger-eating that he only has time to criticise one side in any debate. So I’m sure he would love to have a go at News Ltd, but, oops, there’s socialists to thwart!