Posted on 07/09/2008 12:48:56 PM PDT by bs9021
Modified Media Mea Culpa
by: Malcolm A. Kline, July 09, 2008
A veteran journalist has found his profession wanting in fulfilling its basic mission—in Great Britain. Oddly, his book, Flat Earth News, is unavailable in the United States, although many American media critics might find that his findings hold true on this side of the Atlantic as well.
Nick Davies asked researchers at Cardiff University to analyze coverage at The London Times, the Guardian, the Independent and the Daily Mail. “They found that a massive 60 percent of these quality-print stories consisted wholly or mainly of wire copy and/or PR material and a further 20 percent contained clear elements of wire copy and/or PR to which more or less other material had been added,” Powers reports.
Thus, about 12% of the stories in the Cardiff data base could be classified as what we now call “enterprise journalism” and what was once known as “shoe-leather reporting.” The Cardiff researchers did point out that British reporters today have about two-thirds less time to check their stories as their media counterparts did 20 years ago.
Nevertheless, “The researchers went on to look at those stories which relied on a specific statement of fact and found that with a staggering 70 percent of them, the claimed fact passed into print without any corroboration at all,” Powers writes. Indeed the Guardian is so infamous that there is even a web site devoted exclusively to exposing its inaccuracies called guardianlies.com.
Of course, neither Powers, as quoted, nor another veteran journalist, John Mecklin, in his glowing review in Miller-McCune magazine, mention how many of these publications and their favorite sources are decidedly left-of-center.
Their point about the astounding degree of neglect for essential reportorial practices remains valid...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Very interesting research. Today’s “reporters” don’t let the facts get in the way of good “story”. Thanks for posting.
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