What the news is missing
posted by CCI just found this article on what we are missing in news reports.
A very interesting read, and I think every reporter should be forced to memorize it.
Then, maybe, I wouldn’t be in this situation of knowing the details of how Sri Lanka ended their civil war, the names of the people on both sides, and yet still have absolutey no idea of the social, political, or geographic circumstances that led to the rise of the Tamil Tigers in the first place – should I be happy that a country is united, or should I be crying for a people who’s independence has been crushed?
You would think that with the hours of news coverage, and pages of print coverage on the topic, somebody would have got around to mentioning how it started, but in the last year of reporting not a single article I have seen nor programme I have listened to felt the need to talk about that.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I checked the definition of news from the dictionary:
a report of recent events
b : previously unknown information
c : something having a specified influence or effect
It seems that the news stories are derailed from the those definitions. They should not be called as news anymore.
On the upside, with the technology today, you can get lots of updates on an event from people around the world; you just have to go through the weeds to find the truth.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:29 am
An interesting and thought-provoking article that takes a hard look at what is being reported as news. The author seems to have a handle on how news was reported in the days when Watergate was uncovered by reporters. I agree with Ling’s statement that what we often get should not be called news. It is easier and cheaper to bounce from ‘quoted source’ to ‘quoted source’ than to do the indepth research needed to fully inform the public by reporting news the way Ling defines it.