In the last couple of weeks, I've had two clients get caught up a the snares of the media. On both occasions there was an incident. And on both occasions, the story was printed or aired with gross inaccuracies, misrepresentations, factual errors, and downright misinformation. In one case, the story spun among the anchors and pundits until the actual events were strung so far from what happened that you almost wanted to laugh - except your client's rep was on the line because Fox put some ditzy blonde at the news desk who only knows how to posture and editorialize and not ask intelligent questions. The other client ended up on the front page speared on the pen of an entry-level reporter who based her entire story on first-person claims in what was undoubtedly a reach for investigative journalism that came off reading like Nancy Drew taking on the establishment.
Don't take this post to mean I'm all big business and protecting The Man. But it's made me wonder how the 24-hour news cycle - no, more like the mili-second news cycle - has changed the concept of accuracy in reporting. With the pressure to break news online, to be the first to the world with a piece of news, more and more reporters are doing "incremental reporting" - publishing a story immediately online and building it as more information becomes available. And some do it well - the wires like AP and Reuters.
But there's also this race to expose and criticize at any cost - to be seen as the voice of the little person against the big bad corporations. I confess I usually believe those stories where your average joe is the victim of the faceless machine. But, to my astonishment, I'm finding that in some cases, the facts are being wrenched. It's emotive journalism. And, while I'm peeved about my clients, I admit that it's much more than that worrying me. How much of other news stories is spin and conjecture? And how do we know? And who do we believe? When these stories shaded with the reporter's feelings, with the subject's feelings, are presented as news, we become numb to the fact that there are no facts. Everything is so fast, so soundbyted that we just assume that if its "news" from a "news source", it's news. And we don't have time to dissect it and evaluate before it sinks and becomes something we heard from somewhere.
We need news. We need news to inform us about the world - and at times to expose corruption and scandal. But we need to be able to believe, too, and I'm not sure there's a clear-cut rule for how to do that anymore.
All this to say, just like your mama told you: don't believe everything you hear - you hear now?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Stop the Presses
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2 cat calls:
It's even more worrisome to me that there are SO many people out there that don't catch onto this fact, that what they're being fed may not be exactly true. They don't think, they react. It makes people so susceptible to manipulation... and perpetuates that culture of fear we have going on.
oh! i totally do! AND- i just finished reading about the origins of friday the 13th and the superstition behind it and how so many journalists even prior to this age took other journalists scholarships for truth which just spun the whole superstitious package into the future- totally inaccurately- not to mention those pesky fiction writers cementing it into history once they heard about it- who knew that telephone game we heard as a kid was sage advice-- wait, where do you work? are you defending tobacco?
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