Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Morning everyone, I'm writing an essay for my journalism class and I'd like to do it on bad journalism. I have a few examples to work with, like the godawful Today Tonight, which any smart Australian knows not to listen to. Do you folks overseas have any good examples of bad journalism, such as misinformation, over-assumptions, or bungles?
People are like dice, a certain Frenchman said that. You throw yourself in the direction of your own choosing. People are free because they can do that. Everyone's circumstances are different, but no matter how small the choice, at the very least, you can throw yourself. It's not chance or fate. It's the choice you made.
Ha Ha cheese is still in school.
But in all seriousness i think some bad journilism is cnn.
they never get there facts straight and always protect the liberils
-to many points to bother to count.
mattyrm wrote:i like the idea of a woman with a lobster claw for a hand touching my nuts. :-)
People are like dice, a certain Frenchman said that. You throw yourself in the direction of your own choosing. People are free because they can do that. Everyone's circumstances are different, but no matter how small the choice, at the very least, you can throw yourself. It's not chance or fate. It's the choice you made.
Watch Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, and Screenwipe, he will definitely be able to point out some serious errors.
In fact you could even try E-mailing him through the BBC, or through his shows e-mail if there is one (there has to be). I think you stand a chance of getting a really good response, but who knows?
Cheese Elemental wrote:I hear bad things about FOX. Just how bad is it?
Do you really want to know? Because it is just that bad, regardless of politics they are the most unprofessional bunch of gits I have ever seen bringing skewed news to the screen.
Here is some serious nonsense... imagine WANTING to leave the Iraq war... THE MADNESS!!!
I could write a book on exactly how crazy this guy actually is, like with serious notes from doctors and gak. I recommend not listening to anything he says, on the grounds that he is absolutely bonkers crazy tits ass backwards nuts, and in SUCH a subtle way too.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 03:22:02
Good examples of bad journalism? Pick just about any science journalism from a major metropolitan newspaper. Better yet, visit Fark.com and click on the Geek tab.
I think you'd be harder pressed to find an example of good journalism.
Correction: July 22, 2009 -- An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.
I could give the United Press thing a pass.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 03:38:01
“It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood” -- Karl Popper
Nurglitch wrote:Good examples of bad journalism? Pick just about any science journalism from a major metropolitan newspaper. Better yet, visit Fark.com and click on the Geek tab.
I think you'd be harder pressed to find an example of good journalism.
I agree 100% and I think it would be a very fun project at that. If you review the recent changes in the media at large, you begin to see a drastic move into the surrealistic prenstationism (sure it isn't a word, but you better believe it you will die). As long as you do not include earlier reporting (the golden age so to speak... guy says what is happening, and I listen) you will find that most journalism is quite sparse nowadays, ESPECIALLY from the television.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/07/27 03:47:18
Wrexasaur wrote:Watch Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, and Screenwipe, he will definitely be able to point out some serious errors.
In fact you could even try E-mailing him through the BBC, or through his shows e-mail if there is one (there has to be). I think you stand a chance of getting a really good response, but who knows?
Cheese Elemental wrote:I hear bad things about FOX. Just how bad is it?
Do you really want to know? Because it is just that bad, regardless of politics they are the most unprofessional bunch of gits I have ever seen bringing skewed news to the screen.
Here is some serious nonsense... imagine WANTING to leave the Iraq war... THE MADNESS!!!
Hmm... looks like John Stewart was the reason for that... odd
Actually Crossfire was on CNN, not Fox News. Fox News is not the best source for journalism, I will agree to that, but neither are the other cable TV sources. As a professional journalist myself, I can say that almost all sources of journalism have poor examples, even The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London, which I consider to be the best papers in the world by far. Fox News and CNN are both fairly evenly matched in their quality, they have professional journalists like Anderson Cooper and Sheppard Smith, and they have pundits like Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck, who are by the way not journalists in any way shape or form, rather they offer opinions on current events and ideas. MSNBC has such poor quality I hardly consider it to be worth mentioning, everything, even basic news, is done so through a political filter. The LA Times isn't exactly a beacon of journalistic integrity itself, but there are worse papers, the Daily Oklahoman and the Minnesota Star Tribune are generally viewed as the worst. I hope this helps, if you want specific stories that are just plain bad, I will be happy to recommend a few.
DR:80+S(GT)G++M++B-I++Pwmhd05#+D+++A+++/sWD-R++T(Ot)DM+ How is it they live in such harmony - the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.
- St. Thomas Aquinas
Warhammer 40K:
Alpha Legion - 15,000 pts For the Emperor!
WAAAGH! Skullhooka - 14,000 pts
Biel Tan Strikeforce - 11,000 pts
"The Eldar get no attention because the average male does not like confetti blasters, shimmer shields or sparkle lasers."
-Illeix
Yeah, the quality of media is a serious concern. Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465013058/ref=s9_simz_gw_s6_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1SWMKPSQATREARS2NR0J&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846, is an excellent book that really attacks the quality of scientific media. There is a large section dedicated to the media, where the authors assert the media is only passingly interested with proper, technical reporting - that is hard and rates poorly compared to more exciting stories. While the book covers a lot of other ground and much of it is quite partisan, I think the book is touching on a greater truth about about the state of modern journalism and it's place in the public debate.
It's produced people who think autism has any relation to vaccines. It's produced global warming denial. It's produced people who think abstinence only sex education reduces teen pregnancy. It's produced people who think US healthcare gets anywhere near value for money compared to country's with 'socialised' medicine. These are basic, fact based points that have been studied by the scientific community endlessly... yet when these studies reach a somewhat illiterate scientific media more interested in manufacturing contraversy, and against the PR machines of insider interests, the information that reaches the public is generally quite, quite useless.
Now, it's important it isn't just the fault of the media alone. The scientific community have often shown disdain for informing the public. And those PR machines would distort the argument somewhat anyway. And most importantly, the general population is getting the media it demands - it watches crap so the media provides more crap. I mean, this is a big topic but the first reply post is 'hurr hurr cnn is bad it protects liberils'.
garret wrote:Ha Ha cheese is still in school.
But in all seriousness i think some bad journilism is cnn.
they never get there facts straight and always protect the liberils
I thought you guys were supposed to hate MSNBC these days? The 'FOX isn't bad look at CNN' argument is so 1999.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote:Yeah, the quality of media is a serious concern. Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465013058/ref=s9_simz_gw_s6_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1SWMKPSQATREARS2NR0J&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846, is an excellent book that really attacks the quality of scientific media. There is a large section dedicated to the media, where the authors assert the media is only passingly interested with proper, technical reporting - that is hard and rates poorly compared to more exciting stories. While the book covers a lot of other ground and much of it is quite partisan, I think the book is touching on a greater truth about about the state of modern journalism and it's place in the public debate.
It's produced people who think autism has any relation to vaccines. It's produced global warming denial. It's produced people who think abstinence only sex education reduces teen pregnancy. It's produced people who think US healthcare gets anywhere near value for money compared to country's with 'socialised' medicine. These are basic, fact based points that have been studied by the scientific community endlessly... yet when these studies reach a somewhat illiterate scientific media more interested in manufacturing contraversy, and against the PR machines of insider interests, the information that reaches the public is generally quite, quite useless.
Now, it's important it isn't just the fault of the media alone. The scientific community have often shown disdain for informing the public. And those PR machines would distort the argument somewhat anyway. And most importantly, the general population is getting the media it demands - it watches crap so the media provides more crap. I mean, this is a big topic but the first reply post is 'hurr hurr cnn is bad it protects liberils'.
garret wrote:Ha Ha cheese is still in school.
But in all seriousness i think some bad journilism is cnn.
they never get there facts straight and always protect the liberils
I thought you guys were supposed to hate MSNBC these days? The 'FOX isn't bad look at CNN' argument is so 1999.
Oh come now, you can't be serious. The media's job is not to report on science, it is to report current events, that is why we have peer edited journals and reviews that are specifically created to release important findings from the scientific community. Quite honestly I don't care, and neither do many of the American people. I am a free-lance historian and a journalist, and I have more important things to worry about then the latest research findings, if I find them interesting I will look into it more myself. The media cannot be held responsible for the public's inability to be properly educated on all levels on all things, the very idea that it should be or can be is pure ludicrous. The access to scientific journals and reviews is quite open and any concerned individual would have easy access to the latest information and updates.
On a side note, the media did not "create" global warming denial. It merely published the other side to a contentious and controversial subject. There is a significant part of the scientific community, including the creator of the theory of global warming, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb. As one climatologist once put it, "We do not know enough about the Earth's atmosphere to declare that is man made. These periods of warming and cooling are natural fluctuations in the Earth's global weather patterns." Two prominent examples were the Great Famine, around the turn of the first millennium AD and the "Little Ice Age" roughly 500 years ago. The Mini Ice Age is what the Earth is currently heating up from, and that is in fact a real event. I do not claim to believe one side of the issue or the other, I am just tired of the arrogance that pervades the debate, it is clearly not settled. 500 years ago the scientific consensus was that the Earth was flat, but we found out that wasn't true. Lets not make an inquisition out of this, rather lets be open minded and listen to both sides of the debate. Humility is still a virtue. As far as your other issues I could write paragraphs on my thoughts on them, I just am to lazy right now.
DR:80+S(GT)G++M++B-I++Pwmhd05#+D+++A+++/sWD-R++T(Ot)DM+ How is it they live in such harmony - the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.
- St. Thomas Aquinas
Warhammer 40K:
Alpha Legion - 15,000 pts For the Emperor!
WAAAGH! Skullhooka - 14,000 pts
Biel Tan Strikeforce - 11,000 pts
"The Eldar get no attention because the average male does not like confetti blasters, shimmer shields or sparkle lasers."
-Illeix
JEB_Stuart wrote:Oh come now, you can't be serious. The media's job is not to report on science, it is to report current events,
Hang on, what? You're saying the media has no place in taking stories from science and presenting them in a format readable to the common man? That no new research or scientific finding could be 'current events'. Are you saying there's no such thing as scientific journalism, because if so then I have to wonder why newspapers keep including sections called ‘Science’.
Quite honestly I don't care, and neither do many of the American people. I am a free-lance historian and a journalist, and I have more important things to worry about then the latest research findings, if I find them interesting I will look into it more myself.
If you don't care, then your welcome to not read it, and encouraged not to form opinions. But for the people who care enough to read about the issue, I think there's an expectation that journalists accurately and completely represent the science being studied. I've noticed that isn't always the case, and lots of people out there are saying the same thing and saying this is an issue.
The media cannot be held responsible for the public's inability to be properly educated on all levels on all things, the very idea that it should be or can be is pure ludicrous.
Good thing I didn't say that then. Good thing that I actually said 'Now, it's important it isn't just the fault of the media alone. The scientific community have often shown disdain for informing the public. And those PR machines would distort the argument somewhat anyway. And most importantly, the general population is getting the media it demands' and recognised that multiple groups and factors caused this.
But are you saying the media plays no part in the current level of public knowledge?
The access to scientific journals and reviews is quite open and any concerned individual would have easy access to the latest information and updates.
Yes, and generally that information is of a highly technical nature, written for experts in the field and therefore presuming considerable knowledge in the field in question and an understanding of the context in which the issues are being discussed. Most people do not have that level of expertise and this is why scientific journalism exists, to present that stuff to the general population by giving the report context and using simpler, less technical language.
On a side note, the media did not "create" global warming denial. It merely published the other side to a contentious and controversial subject. There is a significant part of the scientific community, including the creator of the theory of global warming, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb. As one climatologist once put it, "We do not know enough about the Earth's atmosphere to declare that is man made. These periods of warming and cooling are natural fluctuations in the Earth's global weather patterns." Two prominent examples were the Great Famine, around the turn of the first millennium AD and the "Little Ice Age" roughly 500 years ago. The Mini Ice Age is what the Earth is currently heating up from, and that is in fact a real event. I do not claim to believe one side of the issue or the other, I am just tired of the arrogance that pervades the debate, it is clearly not settled. 500 years ago the scientific consensus was that the Earth was flat, but we found out that wasn't true. Lets not make an inquisition out of this, rather lets be open minded and listen to both sides of the debate. Humility is still a virtue. As far as your other issues I could write paragraphs on my thoughts on them, I just am to lazy right now.
I thought you didn't care about science. And yes, humility is a virtue, but so is honesty. It would be disingenuous of me to pretend the 'there's no global warming oh but wait okay yes there is but man isn't doing it' argument had any merit. Climatology has long since moved past the debate over 'no global warming' or 'man isn't doing it', and is now building models to properly model the full effects of emissions on the changing climate of the planet. The debate now is over the extent of man’s effect, in order to properly assess the extent of the solution required.
But for the record, to address you arguments above;
"A significant part of of the scientific community".
97.4% of active climatologists agree climate change is real and caused by man. You won't find that kind of consensus on much in science, it is absolutely overwhelming. The scientists who hop out in front of the media to argue against climate change are typically geologists or belonging to some other field. Few are climatologists, and if they are they’ve generally been out of the field for ten years or more. Among the people who are actively studying this issue right now there is consensus.
‘These periods of warming and cooling are natural fluctuations’
There are natural fluctuations, where temperatures will increase and fall over very long periods of time. The medieval warming period was measured over 500 years. Right now we’re looking at a significant increase in temperatures over the course of a few decades, and the rate of increase in temperature is increasing. The rate of increase we are seeing right now is unprecedented.
‘The Mini Ice Age is what the Earth is currently heating up from, and that is in fact a real event.’
No, it isn’t. The assertion of a mini Ice Age is quite dubious, as no properly defined periods exists where weather was consistently cooler. There were several bouts of cold weather documented in parts of the Northern hemisphere during this time, and a few periods of cold weather have also been identified in the Southern Hemsiphere during this time, they are far less common and do not match up with the cold spells in the Northern Hemisphere – indicating most of the recorded temperature drops were far more likely to be due to local variables. Further, while models indicate the fluctuations in the Sun may have led to less heat reaching the Earth, this can account for no more than 0.4’ maximum. The recorded temperature variations in the Northern Hemisphere during this time are most likely due to changes in atmospheric circulation, as less heat was carried from the tropics to Europe.
So, basically, the mini-Ice Age is not ‘in fact a real event’ at all. That’s the kind of claim made in scientific journalism that’s causing so many problems.
‘Lets not make an inquisition out of this, rather lets be open minded and listen to both sides of the debate’.
Which sounds fine, until you put in the context of what it really means. It means we should sit by and wait as each and every ‘sceptic’ comes out and says their piece, doesn’t matter if they’re actually qualified or not, doesn’t matter if they’re using the same tired old arguments that have been endlessly disproven. We should just keep delaying action because there will always be ‘debate’, as long as year. Unfortunately, there is urgency on this issue, every year we delay will costs billions of dollars down the line. We have to stop with the manners and the ‘every opinion is valid’ fuzzy non-thought and call it as the extreme fringe it is, show how unscientific their arguments are and move on with actually solving the issue.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Nonsense like this should be clearly presented as NOT FACT... LIES TOTALLY!!!
(Yes a bit of a joke... hurr hurr...)
I actually liked this movie but it honestly offended by its presentation... the funniest part is that is probably turned people off to the idea of global warming (RENAME IT PLEASE! It is an umbrella theory ffs, proven or not) and the need for action by pure ridiculousness alone. It was a mockery of the global warming community via Hollywood if I have ever seen one.
What I want to see is more scientific debate on the news, and less involving the presenters spin on the situation. I like those "average" people that get their own shows where they can talk about history or science in depth and with an ability to draw you in by making it understandable. If I see charts I want them to make sense, not overwhelm me by sheer mass. Who can read all that nonsense on the news, it is like being in a damn space ship though...
More fact, less fiction, basically making journalists more responsible to their stories. Sure you are a "unbiased" representative of the community, but on top of that it is your job to present the World we cannot see. That is how I see it, and I think a lot of people would agree. If I want sensationalist news I will read the Sun or whatever other grimy nonsense at the checkout stand. When I turn the TV on I am immediately bombarded with nonsense from all angles, and though I can turn it off if I want to, everyone around me who does watch it will be impacted by it. I hate cable TV, and I can honestly say it is the worst part of the media I can know of (you know besides the alien part). People leave the TV on in my house and just leave the room... I see this a lot, and I have an aunt that used to leave the TV on nearly all the time. It is disruptive to say the least, and it seems to overwhelm the logical side of your brain and latch onto your not-so-logical side...
DERRRR!!!
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/07/27 09:33:19
-to many points to bother to count.
Alpha Legion - 15,000 pts For the Emperor!
WAAAGH! Skullhooka - 14,000 pts
Biel Tan Strikeforce - 11,000 pts
