The way to respond to accusations of fictional news reporting is to double down on accuracy, objectivity and remaining calm. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to harm itself through self destructive behavior typical of middle school drama, such as this fiasco from the NY Times.
Three glaring errors seen in main stream media over about a 24 hour span. Embarrassing. None of these examples should have occurred.
Journalism today: “If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views — you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers.”
Social media is the new battleground. It’s being used to push people over the edge, to threaten violence against others, and in some cases, leading to actual violence. A controversial video clip that spread online in the past day was pushed by what appears to have been a fake account.
In 2012, an editor for The Oregonian newspaper died of a heart attack. The paper printed his obituary citing his wonderful career, awards and track record. Left out of the story was the married editor died in the arms of his prostitute, a fact which another editor deliberately covered up.
CNN botches percentages and numbers. Big time.
USA Today publishes a headline saying the world’s oceans are “boiling”. Seriously?
Bloomberg news makes up a false headline news claim (based on zero evidence) and then uses their own fake news headline to justify banning all hobbyist model aircraft. Bloomberg is a fake news service based in the United States.
British media went crazy this past week, and doxxed a falsely accused innocent couple of flying drones over Gatwick Airport. Piers Morgan and The Mail both called the innocent couple “morons”. Journalism stoops to new lows the same week as Der Spiegel admitted its four time Reporter of the Year recipient had made up perhaps all of his stories or major parts of his stories. It’s fictional news all the way down …
A “star” reporter and editor at Der Spiegel has admitted to fabricating his stories over a period of many years. He was the four time winner of Germany’s “Reporter of the Year” award and a two time winner of CNN’s Journalist of the Year. Yet the journalists who selected the winner never saw problems. Think of the role that such fake news plays in shaping public opinion, and its sharing on social media as part of propaganda campaigns.
CBS 60 Minutes editing leaves out critical context from Elon Musk interview, making it look like Musk said things that he did not actually say. Whether its “social” media or “main stream” media, neither can be trusted.
Did you know the 7.0 magnitude quake in Alaska today was caused by climate change? Me neither, but according to a journalist, it was! Human induced plate tectonic drifting.
The survey appears to have found that over half of Americans postpone preventative checkups when they are not experiencing any health problems which is different than avoiding seeking care for an active health care problem.
The distinction is that in many health care visits, a patient is experiencing something wrong and visits a provider to hopefully find a solution.
In a preventative check up, a patient goes to a provider and asks the provider to find something wrong with them.
We do not understand why the media is so careless with facts that are easily verifiable. Keep this in mind when you read any news report – chances are, much of it is not correct.