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More Horrible Than Truth: News Reports
The New York Times ^ | 09/19/05 | David Carr

Posted on 09/19/2005 10:20:32 AM PDT by Fred911

DISASTER has a way of bringing out the best and the worst instincts in the news media. It is a grand thing that during the most terrible days of Hurricane Katrina, many reporters found their gag reflex and stopped swallowing pat excuses from public officials. But the media's willingness to report thinly attributed rumors may also have contributed to a kind of cultural wreckage that will not clean up easily.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Somewhere along the way, the news media has shifted from reporting on news to creating news. They are no longer content with creating news through the use of slanted polls that support their views. Now they are just making it up as they go along. Their handling of Katrina was a new low. What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???
1 posted on 09/19/2005 10:20:34 AM PDT by Fred911
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To: Fred911

Got your bubble-headed-bleach-blonde, comes on at 5...
She can tellya bout a plane crash, with a gleam in her eye..
Its interesting when people die...
Gimme dirty laundry....


2 posted on 09/19/2005 10:22:31 AM PDT by Paloma_55 (Which part of "Common Sense" do you not understand???)
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To: Fred911

Just reporting facts ? Obviously, you don't know what goes on in today's Journalism schools.


3 posted on 09/19/2005 10:24:48 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Paloma_55

I've always wondered the Paul Harvey behind that tune....;'}


4 posted on 09/19/2005 10:25:22 AM PDT by rockrr (Gregorovych Nyet!)
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To: Fred911
The NYT sez:

News reports that wrongly trashed President Bush = good.
News reports about savage inner-city violence and pathology = bad.

5 posted on 09/19/2005 10:28:21 AM PDT by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: Fred911
Somewhere along the way, the news media has shifted from reporting on news to creating news.

A return to the tradition of "Killing the Messenger" would resolve this problem.

6 posted on 09/19/2005 10:36:33 AM PDT by elbucko
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To: Interesting Times

The front page of the St Petersberg Times and the NY Times has a common filter:

Does it make Bush look bad?

It it doesn't, can it be spun to make Bush look bad?

If it can't, can we print a picture that makes Bush look unattractive, weak or stupid?

It's so easy to see. Just read their headlines, and the filter is obvious.


7 posted on 09/19/2005 10:36:58 AM PDT by I still care (America is not the problem - it is the solution..)
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To: Fred911

I'm surprised he didn't mention the reporter who claimed threre was cannibalism.


8 posted on 09/19/2005 10:38:24 AM PDT by The people have spoken
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To: Paloma_55

From
Trouble Every Day
Frank Zappa

Well you can cool it,
You can heat it...
'Cause, baby, I don't need it...
Take your TV tube and eat it

'N all that phony stuff on sports
'N all the unconfirmed reports

You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head began to hurt
From checkin' out the way
The newsmen say they get the dirt

Before the guys on channel so-and-so
And further they assert

That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up

They'll be the first to tell
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,

And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete


9 posted on 09/19/2005 10:39:18 AM PDT by bwteim (Begin With The End In Mind)
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To: Fred911
Somewhere along the way, the news media has shifted from reporting on news to creating news

At the beginning of time.

What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???

It always was an urban legend.

The Internet is the best thing that's ever happened to journalism. It allows instant fact checking and dissemination of opposing interpretations. That will not eliminate bias, irrationality, partisanship, and ideological blinders - that's impossible - but it will allow those so disposed to see reality more clearly.

10 posted on 09/19/2005 10:40:20 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: Fred911
Somewhere along the way, the news media has shifted from reporting on news to creating news

At the beginning of time.

What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???

It always was an urban legend.

The Internet is the best thing that's ever happened to journalism. It allows instant fact checking and dissemination of opposing interpretations. That will not eliminate bias, irrationality, partisanship, and ideological blinders - that's impossible - but it will allow those so disposed to see reality more clearly.

11 posted on 09/19/2005 10:41:03 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: Fred911

"Somewhere along the way" being about 1 week after the first televised news broadcast.


12 posted on 09/19/2005 10:42:20 AM PDT by discostu (When someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back)
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To: liberallarry

"What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???"

"It always was an urban legend."

An urban legend and a myth but one the journalism schools and a generation of journalists claimed to adhere to.

There is no 'unbiased' press, never was. The phenomenon has been great marketing by the institutional press in an era when nobody could pull the curtain away to uncover their real work. the patently false claims by the Walter Cronkite's and Sam Donaldson's that their reporting was the 'objective press' now ceases to work, thanks to the internet.

Actually, they are not much different from the yellow press of the past. The New York Times has an agenda as clear as the partisan papers of the 19th century, they just couch it differently.

" The Internet is the best thing that's ever happened to journalism."

Agreed ... but it wasnt the best thing to happen to *journalists*, like Dan Rather.


13 posted on 09/19/2005 10:48:13 AM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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To: The people have spoken
I'm surprised he didn't mention the reporter who claimed threre was cannibalism.

If I'm not mistaken...he was on MTP Sunday...and not a question was raised about his article....he was treated like he had something important to contribute...sheesh..

14 posted on 09/19/2005 10:52:48 AM PDT by Getsmart64
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

"Some say" Bush is a Racist.


15 posted on 09/19/2005 10:54:18 AM PDT by johnb838 (Logic and reason are tools of the white oppressor.)
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To: Fred911

It's not new is it? Didn't the New York Times cause the Spanish American War?


16 posted on 09/19/2005 10:56:39 AM PDT by johnb838 (Logic and reason are tools of the white oppressor.)
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To: johnb838

The Magic Eightball is the MSM's source on this, I take it ?


17 posted on 09/19/2005 11:07:15 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: WOSG

Will we ever know what really happened? Didnt the police chief go on the Oprah show and say he had witnessed rapes and killing? Was he lying, or where did he get this info? Makes me wonder.


18 posted on 09/19/2005 11:08:05 AM PDT by TNCMAXQ
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To: TNCMAXQ
This is more PC censorship as far as I am concerned. I noticed that all mention of criminality stopped, once the demogogues played the race card. They objected to coverage of looting which now is documented to be an insignificant $35m in insurance claims.

Watch out! Maxine Waters wants millions of flyers informing evacuees in shelters of their "entitlement" to $26,000 from FEMA . (per housing committee meeting this morning on c-span) I don't know what the rules are exactly, but FEMA cut me a check for $500 for hurricane dameage last summer. Expect others to demand theirs too, hurricane or no.

19 posted on 09/19/2005 11:54:52 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: ClaireSolt

I have a feeling that if lightning struck my house and burned it to the ground, the government's response would be, "Hope you had insurance."


20 posted on 09/19/2005 12:47:12 PM PDT by HHFi
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