Archive for ‘Accuracy and Ethics’

Most reporters and editors are liberal — a now-dated Pew Research Center poll found that liberals outnumber conservatives in the media by some 5 to 1, and that comports with my own anecdotal

Source: Former NPR CEO opens up about liberal media bias | New York Post

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest WikiLeaks release shows CNN reaching out to Democratic officials to suggest questions for host Wolf Blitzer to ask Donald Trump in an interview, a practice the network defended Monday as “completely unremarkable” and sound journalism.

Source: WikiLeaks show CNN reaching out to Dems for Trump questions

Should there have been firings at Rolling Stone? – Columbia Journalism Review.

Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia School of Journalism Report | Rolling Stone.

» [UPDATED] Kentucky newspaper retracts ‘major error’ in police story, fires two staffers JIMROMENESKO.COM.

Charlie Hebdo terror attack: Tough decisions for news outlets.

This is useful to us for two reasons:

1. Substantively it shows the dangers of weak reporting and editing standards. The original reporter, Erdely, said she agreed not to contact the accused. I don’t care what the accusation is, that’s journalistic malpractice. Now it appears either she didn’t contact the friend like she said she did or she was duped by an imposter or the friend is lying. The first should be a career-killer.

2  This story deftly reports the facts and allows readers to draw conclusions. The reporter doesn’t say it, but his story allows the savvy reader to recognize that it’s possible the accuser fabricated at least part of the original story to make her friend jealous and more interested in her. Might not be the case, but it’s conceivable.

U-Va. students challenge Rolling Stone account of alleged sexual assault – The Washington Post.

Rolling Stones Rape Story Fails Victims – Bloomberg View.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Michael Crichton

As the great Louis Jordan warned, “Beware, brother, beware!”

Falling Off the Bone Brisket : TMBBQ.