Day: June 24, 2005

Media Monitor – Journalism \Systems\ Go Critical – June 24, 2005

Sherie Gossett at Accuracy in Media (AIM), 6/24/05:

Veteran journalists are speaking out boldly and courageously [about bias and loss of credibility]. “No more conning the public,” wrote award-winning journalist and author Bonnie M. Anderson in her groundbreaking book “Newsflash.” “We must begin with honesty,” she says. “…No more pretending to be fair and balanced when there is a political agenda.”

May I add no more pretending to be sure about things that we can’t be sure of or that the writer is not sure of.  This is Journalism 101, I presume (never had the course); so I say what’s presumed taken for granted (for granite?).  But it’s at the heart of the bad-story problem, is it not?

Media Monitor – Journalism \Systems\ Go Critical – June 24, 2005

Sherie Gossett at Accuracy in Media (AIM), 6/24/05:

Veteran journalists are speaking out boldly and courageously [about bias and loss of credibility]. “No more conning the public,” wrote award-winning journalist and author Bonnie M. Anderson in her groundbreaking book “Newsflash.” “We must begin with honesty,” she says. “…No more pretending to be fair and balanced when there is a political agenda.”

May I add no more pretending to be sure about things that we can’t be sure of or that the writer is not sure of.  This is Journalism 101, I presume (never had the course); so I say what’s presumed taken for granted (for granite?).  But it’s at the heart of the bad-story problem, is it not?

Very strange

The top (latest) posting on this blog is coming up with a long black space between title and text.  Don’t know why, except that it happened after I Blogjet’ed direct from Firefox browser.  Will have to quiz a guru about it.  Meanwhile, down you go to the truly latest posting.

Liberal perspective, part 2

Chi Trib Perspective editor on presenting conservative commentators cheek by jowl with liberal ones:

What you are asking is almost impossible, lining up point-counterpoints on issues.  . . . there isn’t always an available counterpoint . . .  Perspective is one of the most popular sections of the Sunday paper because (a) people agree strongly with what it says and (b) people disagree strongly with what it says.

But you could double both pleasure and fun if you also had conservatives agreeing and liberals disagreeing.  On the availability question, for cryin’ out loud, just Google conservative think tank and see what you get.  (Deal Hudson at  thewindow@morleyicc.com would be a natural as counterpoint to Bob McClory in re: the pope, for instance.)  Indeed, #3 Daughter has come to me for names on issues to be discussed on the Neil Lehrer call-in show on WNYC-FM, an NPR station.  You call around for ideas.  It’s what producers and editors do.

Media bias

Chi Trib’s Rick Morrissey, “in the Wake of the News,” — which once carried “dumbbell pomes” by Jasbo of Old Dubuque — writes of Chisox being ignored by NBC’s Bob Costas at a golf tournament giving interleague baseball scores — Yankees over Cubs, Red Sox over Pirates, and that was it.  Chisox, baseball’s winningest team, had beaten the Dodgers, but so what?  “Probably an oversight” by the experienced, sophisticated Costas, one of the best known faces and names in sports TV, says Morrissey.  Right, and a perfect non-political example of media bias.  Costas just doesn’t think of the White Sox.  They don’t enter his mind.  He has his interests, and they aren’t one of them.  At the top of his game, you might say, he’s biased.  It happens.

Very strange

The top (latest) posting on this blog is coming up with a long black space between title and text.  Don’t know why, except that it happened after I Blogjet’ed direct from Firefox browser.  Will have to quiz a guru about it.  Meanwhile, down you go to the truly latest posting.

Liberal perspective, part 2

Chi Trib Perspective editor on presenting conservative commentators cheek by jowl with liberal ones:

What you are asking is almost impossible, lining up point-counterpoints on issues.  . . . there isn’t always an available counterpoint . . .  Perspective is one of the most popular sections of the Sunday paper because (a) people agree strongly with what it says and (b) people disagree strongly with what it says.

But you could double both pleasure and fun if you also had conservatives agreeing and liberals disagreeing.  On the availability question, for cryin’ out loud, just Google conservative think tank and see what you get.  (Deal Hudson at  thewindow@morleyicc.com would be a natural as counterpoint to Bob McClory in re: the pope, for instance.)  Indeed, #3 Daughter has come to me for names on issues to be discussed on the Neil Lehrer call-in show on WNYC-FM, an NPR station.  You call around for ideas.  It’s what producers and editors do.