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Originally Posted by flamingdog
People are so quick to jump down the throats of reporters. Hey, get this: They were just doing their jobs.
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You know, the media can only exist if you consume it(and I'm not singling you out, crow_daw, just your quote illustrates this). It's paid for by advertisers who are fed the viewing/readership figures of the networks.
Just think about how the chain, the cycle, works. If people would stop rampantly buying shit, stop giving their money to the corporations that are paying for this shit in the first place, just for once get off their asses and do something other than consume every media fad that comes along (I'm looking at you, must-watch hyped to the gills bite-size premiering-this-week don't-miss-it everyone's-talking-about-it TV drama), every hour of glaze-eyed TV joy they can get, then maybe these rolling news channels wouldn't have the draw for monolithic companies' advertisements and therefore, wouldn't have the resources and power - or indeed, the need - to report so competitively and so quickly, and thus to get it wrong so often.
Is that worth thinking about? Maybe we're the ones fucking ourselves? Am I off-base?
It just gets my goat when all the news media are doing is feeding our need - our desire - to be salaciously and voyeuristically entertained, then we round on them, just for doing what's asked of them. We need to make our minds up about how our world ought to work, I think.
Never mind, what's on TV?
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flamingdog,
I wasn't intentionally ignoring your post, I just got caught up with what Shakran said. Sorry about that.
I think you make a good point, but at the same time, I believe that we're only as knowledgable as the media allows us to be. When I use media in this context, I'm referring to all media - print, radio, television, entertainment, etc. It's impossible for those who wish to be informed to inform themselves of all events that may affect them. We rely on the media to do that. We expect that the information we entrust them to will be accurate and truthful. What I've found in some reading that I've done is that media outlets often use other media outlets as sources of their own information. This pretty much explains how they got this story wrong. A lot of times, the thinking is that if one source is reporting it, then they must have checked their facts and the information is accurate. We are not informed that their sources are simply another media outlet whose information may or may not be correct. Then, once a story is repeated enough by numerous outlets, it suddenly becomes "fact."
There is a book I would suggest reading that deals with this kind of lazy journalism. It's titled
Don't Believe It.
I understand that the reporters on tv are in a studio reading information that their given, so the blame really shouldn't fall on them, but the reporters in the field (I'm looking at you, Geraldo) are the ones who need to be held responsible. Once that falls down, I'm guessing the blame falls on the producers of news shows who rush information on the air before confirming it's veracity.
Granted, if we didn't watch as much television as we do, then there would be less need to please advertisers and ratings whores. However, I still don't believe that our fascination with television excuses reporting erroneous information under the guise of "scooping" a story.