Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Is Journalism Dead in America?

or just clueless, I mean fact checker? Local TV news gets punked on airline pilots' names in the tragic SF crash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kfhfxNIMJjA#at=12

all the stations want to be so fast to break the news that nobody fact checks anything

Well- at the end of the day we would have to say that "Sum Ting Won" with the journalist that actually aired this. Largely because you would think that he or she would recognize the absurdity of the analogy regardless of the humor it invoked everywhere.

That was hilarious, Mac! Great find!

However, to answer your thread's title's question here, need I remind you that THIS is not a new phenomenon, as this very famous picture from the year 1948 might best demonstrate...



(...yep, even "The Greatest Generation" blew it sometimes!)

The answer is yes, and no.
As far as news organization go , yes.
As far as the blogosphere, its never been better.

You know D, the debates between people on different sides of issues usually reveals the truth of a matter. Especially for those who read the whole thread. Where in major media its probably just spin or a fluff story.

When it comes to news I am more of the opinion that "the truth is out there". Unfortunately we are left to find the truth ourselves and even more unfortunately we all seek our own version of truth.

Unfortunately, "Journalism" left the news a long time ago. The mantra "if it bleeds, it leads" has caused almost every organization to send out their hacks for shoddy reporting of hearsay and innuendo. Ad revenue is driven by the information obsessed public and when the two meet we have exactly this sort of thing. The only difference is that if it were a front page slight of you or I, and not this international blunder, then the retraction would be printed on page 53.

Thanks to the media there are a lot of misinformed voters out there.

mike

Hack news and sensationalism is nothing new. Check out any historical facts dealing with the "Hearst" newspaper machine of days long gone. However, I do think the real news organizations in the 60s and 70s, really cleaned up their act. Said time period was their heyday. Since, they've slipped back into their muddy trenches. But as with lawyers and laws, we get what we deserve.

Yep Rich, when ya have more people caring about the latest developments on the "Kardashian Front" than substantive news, and with the News divisions of the Major Media now under the umbrella of their "Entertainment" division(and unlike during that old "Edward R. Murrow" era I previously mentioned in which the news divisions were separate entities which were NOT solely profit-oriented), and which by necessity today ARE ratings oriented in order to pull in the biggest bucks possible for their shareholders, then THIS is what you end up with.

(..aah, but then again, money IS everything in our culture, ya know...just ask anyone who thinks ANY regulation of big money interests is "the Devil incarnate", THEY'LL tell ya...I mean, whaddaya wanna do, "kill the Economy" or somethin'?...yep, give the people what they want and EVERYBODY'S happy...well, except for people who prefer to THINK about the "real" issues and their possible causes and effects, anyway!)

Once news became a for-profit enterprise it compromised the ability of broadcast news to operate as journalism. The 24 hour news cycle has compounded this effect and now we are left to fact check for ourselves.

It's not just America, though, just look at what the Murdock empire has done to reduce veracity in Britain.

The thing is if an organisation came out and focused on the facts it would be hugely successful.
But the other organisations would try to tear them down instead of get honest. They are as corrupt as politicians are.

"News" has always been "for profit." At least in America. Pravda and the BBC were/are government owned. I'm not sure either could be counted on for unbiased reporting. Here in the US the early newspapers were highly partisan and made no attempt to pretend otherwise, much like many of the papers in the UK. They still are, but pretend not to be. Broadcast news has always had an agenda, but as long as there was no countervailing outlet no one noticed. Now that there are choices the biases are evident. With regard to the current attacks on "The Murdock Empire," press scandals are nothing new in Britain, or the US for that matter. General US Grant called them spies during the late unpleasantness in the 1860's. The NY Times was eager to print illegaly obtained highly classified material less than 10 years ago. The more things change, the more they remain the same.