Posted on 06/05/2005 7:18:08 PM PDT by weegee
In 1981, rising young reporter Janet Cooke of the Washington Post made up an 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy and won a Pulitzer.
When her falsification was discovered, she went into exile for more than a decade, but her journalism career remained dead.
•More recently, USA Today star reporter Jack Kelley was forced to resign after editors learned he had fabricated multiple stories. The newspaper's top editor also resigned.
•New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned when it was discovered that he had been making up parts of stories, including one about the Rio Grande Valley family of an early casualty of the Iraq war. The Times' two top editors also resigned.
•Stephen Glass was fired from the New Republic when editors found he had made up all or part of 27 of the 41 articles he wrote for the magazine. Even worse, he suffered the ignominy of being portrayed in a movie, Shattered Glass, by Hayden Christensen.
Fictional science in lab In all four cases, when editors learned of one fabrication they conducted thorough investigations and discovered others by the reporters.
By contrast, consider what happened to Houston crime-lab analyst Vipul Patel when it was discovered he made up results for tests of drugs based on what the arresting officers told him, without bothering to do the actual work of testing those drugs.
He got a three-day suspension. He's still working at the lab.
And you know the investigation those editors did after they found the reporters had engaged in a single fabrication?
Houston police officials never did such an investigation of Patel's other work. My colleague Steve McVicker reported Thursday that officials couldn't say why.
To their credit, Patel's supervisors caught his dishonesty before submitting his report to prosecutors for use against the suspects.
And to their credit, some of his supervisors thought he should be fired immediately.
Fictional victims don't sue We don't know the arguments for not firing Patel for the simple reason that the people who made the decision have not spoken. But the argument for firing him or anyone else in law enforcement who lies is this: It's at least as important that law enforcement officials be truthful as that journalists be truthful.
When reporters make up stories, they are almost always feel-good stories. In the cases where reporters make up bad things about an individual, you can bet that the individual is fictional.
That's not because the lying reporters are nice men and women. It's because one way to make sure you get caught is to invent stories that defame someone who may sue for libel.
Fictional victims of libel don't sue.
So when reporters make up stories, it is rare that individuals get hurt. The ones who get hurt are every other reporter and every newspaper whose credibility is taken down a notch.
That's why infractions are treated so harshly. That's why not only Blair had to leave the Times but the top bosses as well.
When a police officer, a lab technician or a prosecutor makes up a story, chances are there's an accused person who is the intended target of the lie. The false story is designed to send that person to prison.
Yet consequences for lying by justice personnel are rare while proven incidents of dishonesty — such as brutality cases in which accounts given by officers are clearly contradicted by videotapes — often go unpunished.
Given the clear and personal harm to the accused, why are authorities so often lax about lying?
I think one strong reason is that criminal justice personnel come to believe the guy is obviously guilty anyway.
So by going the imaginary mile to make sure he's taken off the street, the liars are actually doing a service to society.
Most of the time they're probably right. The guy is guilty. But the lie is costly nonetheless, and not just because sometimes the accused is innocent.
It's for the same reason that newspaper executives react so harshly. It's costly because it shakes the faith of at least some members of the public.
Perhaps more importantly, when those in authority tolerate lying in the ranks, they encourage corruption. Breaking the code of honesty cannot be done with surgical precision. It can spread like an infection.
You can write to Rick Casey at P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210, or e-mail him at rick.casey@chron.com.
The Comical is always good for a laugh.
All Casey did was show how the left has a history of using their position in the media to lie to the masses.
Detecting Bias in the News
At one time or another we all complain about "bias in the news." The fact is, despite the journalistic ideal of "objectivity," every news story is influenced by the attitudes and background of its interviewers, writers, photographers and editors.
Not all bias is deliberate. But you can become a more aware news reader or viewer by watching for the following journalistic techniques that allow bias to "creep in" to the news:
1. Bias through selection and omission
An editor can express a bias by choosing to use or not to use a specific news item. Within a given story, some details can be ignored, and others included, to give readers or viewers a different opinion about the events reported. If, during a speech, a few people boo, the reaction can be described as "remarks greeted by jeers" or they can be ignored as "a handful of dissidents."
Bias through omission is difficult to detect. Only by comparing news reports from a wide variety of outlets can this form of bias be observed.
2. Bias through placement
Readers of papers judge first page stories to be more significant than those buried in the back. Television and radio newscasts run the most important stories first and leave the less significant for later. Where a story is placed, therefore, influences what a reader or viewer thinks about its importance.
3. Bias by headline
Many people read only the headlines of a news item. Most people scan nearly all the headlines in a newspaper. Headlines are the most-read part of a paper. They can summarize as well as present carefully hidden bias and prejudices. They can convey excitement where little exists. They can express approval or condemnation.
4. Bias by photos, captions and camera angles
Some pictures flatter a person, others make the person look unpleasant. A paper can choose photos to influence opinion about, for example, a candidate for election. On television, the choice of which visual images to display is extremely important. The captions newspapers run below photos are also potential sources of bias.
5. Bias through use of names and titles
News media often use labels and titles to describe people, places, and events. A person can be called an "ex-con" or be referred to as someone who "served time twenty years ago for a minor offense." Whether a person is described as a "terrorist" or a "freedom fighter" is a clear indication of editorial bias.
6. Bias through statistics and crowd counts
To make a disaster seem more spectacular (and therefore worthy of reading about), numbers can be inflated. "A hundred injured in aircrash" can be the same as "only minor injuries in air crash," reflecting the opinion of the person doing the counting.
7. Bias by source control
To detect bias, always consider where the news item "comes from." Is the information supplied by a reporter, an eyewitness, police or fire officials, executives, or elected or appointed government officials? Each may have a particular bias that is introduced into the story. Companies and public relations directors supply news outlets with puffpieces through news releases, photos or videos. Often news outlets depend on pseudo-events (demonstrations, sit-ins, ribbon cuttings, speeches and ceremonies) that take place mainly to gain news coverage.
8. Word choice and tone
Showing the same kind of bias that appears in headlines, the use of positive or negative words or words with a particular connotation can strongly influence the reader or viewer.
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/handouts/crime/detecting_bias_news.cfm
Yeah, but he also pointed out serious wrongdoing in a big-city crime lab. Sending some guy to prison based on manufactured evidence is a worse crime than Janet Cook's invention of an imaginary drug addict. Fictional characters can't sue, yes, but they also can't have their lives ruined.
"When reporters make up stories, they are almost always feel-good stories."
Well, if your favored ideology states that America is the root of all evil, and hearing made-up stories that back up that belief makes you feel better, then sure, I guess you could call them "feel-good stories".
Qwinn
Didn't Alan Freed and Joseph McCarthy die saddened alcoholics after they were unjustly cast as villians?
One can only hope the same fate befalls Dan Rather.
Didn't the NYT have a reporter who made up "feel good" stories about Stalinism? While Stalin was starving to death millions of Ukrainians? Guess Duranty didn't hurt anybody. Just propped up a murderous dictatorship and convinced a lot of Americans that Communism actually worked (hah!). No biggie.
Back in my lib days I, of course, did not believe at all in liberal media bias. But then Newsweek did a cover story on the abortion issue and I noticed that although they had some the same number and same size of photos of pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators, the pro-choice photos were all of nice-looking, professional women with professionally made signs. The pro-life photos pictured overweight women with misspelled handmade signs. Once I caught that, the whole myth of no media bias began to unravel for me.
I'm curious why all the comments on this thread have to do with the press, and not with the lack of consequences for somebody who falsified evidence in a crime lab.
All that must me remembered is that the MSM is primarily an entertainment venture and is used to generate revenue via advertising fees.
Is it any wonder that they lie through their teeth?
Yeah don't you just love the way they litter your lawn with freebees.
But that's just baseless speculation on the part of the media. The evidence that I see is that quality control is in place in the lab and fraud doesn't get very far. But in the media, on the other hand, fraud wins Pulitizer Prizes and Peabody Awards.
Yes, quality control caught it, but the point of the article was that the guy was barely disciplined at all -- looks like law enforcement and the D.A.'s office not operating with the proper checks and balances: makes the next guy just be more careful to cover his tracks.
But keep in mind, the article cherry-picked a case from law enforcement. The author makes note of a single case. A case that speaks eloquently to the point the author wishes to make.
The flip side is that there are many, many well-known cases of media fraud, which the author chooses not to mention. And cases of media fraud win prizes. Duranty wona Pulitizer. Cooke won a Pulitzer. Rather won a Peabody.
More discipline for lab fraud? I'm all for it. Fewer prizes for media fraud? It's not even suggested in this article.
Yeah, but it only works in the short run -- or in their dreams.
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"Print is dead... Get over it."-- John Squires, President, Sports Illustrated, Nov. 2004 quoted in the New York Times 2-20-2005 "...the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things." -- Howard Fineman, MSNBC, 1-11-05 "...the mainstream media's monopoly on information is over." -- Peggy Noonan, WSJ, Jan. 13, 2005 "Sept. 9, 2004, will be remembered as a paradigm-shifting day in media history. That was the day the 'blogosphere' took down CBS News" -- James Pinkerton, Newsday, Sept. 14, 2004 "The New York Times’ account of the [CNN chief] Eason Jordan resignation provides a general recap of the story they didn’t cover, along with a good dose of excuses and justifications ..." -- Lorie Byrd, Polipundit, 2-12-2005 "The New York Times, CBS and the BBC all had to fire lead personnel over the fact that they just damn well made stuff up out of whole cloth in service to an obviously partisan political agenda."-- New Sisyphus, 3-15-05 "The media can now wistfully reflect on their glory days of the 1970's when the majority of people actually bought into their bullshit."-- Laura K. Van Onymous |
Lord Haw Haw got drunk and went on the air in his final broadcast about how the Nazis would one day rise again.
He shares much in common with today's leftist broadcasters. The British hanged him after WWII for treason.
They should wake up.
Yeah, but they're drunk on POWER -- something you never "sober up" from.
BTW, one of the links I posted is bad. The "Print is dead." quote actually comes from the WaPo at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37138-2005Feb19?language=printer
Sorry.
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