I was checking out Dan Gillmor's new collaborative journalism effort, Bayosphere, and came across his own personal thoughts on the Newsweek debacle. I agree with him about the unnamed source part but looking at their apology it also seems as though this is a story from one source. I did not attend journalism school but isn't the idea of having corroborative sources part of the whole 'pillars of journalism' thing?
Obviously this story shows how dangerous getting a story wrong can be but I've been beating my head for 5 years now over the laziness of reporting in this country. When people are allowed to repeatedly tell lies to the media (recent example being that filibuster was never used in judge nominees or republicans didn't block any, etc) and then the media simply repeats the lies with no attempt at checking the statements there is a huge problem. Except dorks like me, the public generally doesn't have the luxury of time to check statements they hear in the media, that's why there is supposed to be honor in the profession - its a national trust. What's going on in journalism schools? How does this laziness continue?
Journalistic note: it only took me a second to find out how to correctly spell Dan Gillmor's name. if I were a full-time journalist I bet it wouldn't take me much longer to find out how many judges Republican's blocked from reaching an up-or-down vote during Clinton's presidency.
A couple minutes later I have already found out that "Doctor" Frist voted for filibuster (attempted but failed) against Clinton's nominee Judge Richard Paez in 2000 - all this shit is recorded for posterity. Its easy.
Posted by dmason at May 16, 2005 10:58 AM