Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Carlton
This is the fundamental problem.
Anything that is reported by the press on which I have the slightest bit of experience will easily be proven as totally wrong. This generally is related to anything concerning an aircraft or a jet engine.
The requirement for accuracy is simply dismissed out of hand in favor of sending something...........anything.........out over the airwaves. The lack of any desire for a correct report is simply unacceptable, IMHO.
Sorry, but the pressure to meet a deadline doesn't give you carte-blanche to put out the first line of BS that comes into your head.
Your profession is suffering an ongoing degradation of respect due to such behavior...........and the profession has certainly earned it.
Considering that the average American is a moron, you might as well just make up the entire article with virtually no investigation whatsoever...........because............it doesn't matter.  |
Unfortunately Brian your last statement has a lot to do with why this approach to journalism flies. No, deadline isn't an excuse to throw things together haphazardly. But generally the reporters who do so, and get away with it, get the farthest. I was slow and meticulous and extremely careful to get facts and quotes perfect ... to the point where I researched things I wasn't familiar with. And I failed as a reporter. It's pretty cutthroat. That's not to say honest, intelligent writers can't make it, because I know several. And even the best make hilarious mistakes sometimes ... or are asked to cover something above their heads. If someone asked me to do a story on jet engines and have it in by 5 p.m. tomorrow, along with two other stories on topics I didn't know anything about, I'd probably screw up, too. It used to be the case that we had writers and copy editors with a wide variety of expertise, so you could match knowledge with subject. Now we've got a tiny handful of reporters who have to cover everything, and they have to do it in time to get a "Web update" or Twitter. That's one of the reasons I lost interest in being a reporter. I don't want to fasttrack a story just to "Twitter" it to our "readers."
It doesn't help the editing side, either. I used to spend a lot more time on every story. Now, 10 p.m. hits and I've got to edit half the paper, lay out two late-breaking pages on slow, crash-happy equipment, and oh, post a Web update somewhere in there, before 10:40. I'm meticulous bordering on obsessive compulsive, and I'm far from lazy and not stupid. But you'd better believe I've made some embarrassing mistakes over the past few months, even on topics I'm very familiar with.
That said ... there are some writers, and photographers, who are just lazy. Always have been.
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