Friday, January 6, 2006
verification? accuracy?
The story of the miners is horrible enough, the stuff of which heart-wrenching folk songs and movies are made. Mining is vital work but really really difficult and nasty and dangerous. For news people to compound all that and ignore rigor about verifying sources, let alone accuracy, is simply beyond the pale. (Anyone know what that reference means, by the way?) To Janet Malcolm, Joseph Ellis, Jason Blair, Mike Barnacle, Dan Rather/Mary Mapes and the memo, the Jeffrey Starr letter and what the NY Times didn't include, the Today Show and the canoe, the wildly untrue reports from New Orleans, etc., add the rushed, inaccurate and therefore inhumane reporting from Tallmansville, West Virginia. Haven't mainstream journalists learned from the self-aggrandizing and rush to scoop impulses that imperiled other illustrious writers? What will it take for them to take three deep breaths and check sources (as they are taught to do, for heaven's sake) before going to press? And just out of curiosity, when was the last time you read or saw entirely correct reporting about a story you knew well? If we're going to continue to keep informed about our ever-smaller world, shouldn't those telling us the details be sure to get the details right? How shall we show that we expect no less?
Technorati tags: disasters, msm
Labels: hypocrisy, reflections
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