To be (perhaps overly) fair to Rolling Stone and Erdeley, you see “journalism” similar to this on the right also.
Stories of horrific misconduct by police, Child Protetive Services, governments, courts, etc. are produced, often sourced entirely from grieving families, losers of lawsuits, attorneys for one side in a dispute, etc.
The problem is that what is presented is not “the truth” of what happened, to the extent it can be determined, it is one person’s or one side’s story of what happened.
As anybody who has ever sat through a trial can attest, the first side presented often sounds utterly convincing - until the other side presents its case too.
Many of the stories we’ve seen in recent years involving Trayvon, Ferguson, Eric Garner, etc. fall into this pattern. It’s not so much that the story presented is untrue (although that may sometimes be the case) as that only one side of the story is presented.
The “journalists” involved aren’t reporting on what happened to the extent they can determine it, they’re presenting a case for making changes to society. They’re advocates, not reporters.
Nothing wrong with advocates for a cause, except when they’re pretending to be reporters.
Much of this is the fault of modern liberal ideas about the job of journalism being not to present the truth as best it can determined but to “change the world.” Those attitudes can also affect conservatives.
When we read a story, I think we should try to remember that it may be presenting only one side. While “the other side” may not have a very good story, it DOES have a story.
At best, a forgiving philosophy of advocacy journalism.
Regardless of advocacy, fact stretching, not fact checking or outright lies, it is the responsibility of the outlet - the publisher - to verify truth in what it prints. That is journalism.
Justina Pelletier is back in the hospital. Her parents took her out of Yale Children's, and now she's at Philadelphia Children's.
I took a lot of heat around here over that case, and I believe the truth is about to emerge.
Correct. In fact, the author of this article, Charles C. Johnson, is a well know purveyor of mis-info and has been caught in many out and out lies. I'm surprised that Fox is carrying his stuff since other right wing media will have nothing to do with him because of his "history". He's the one who wrote story about Sen. Menendez and the underage hookers and the story about Sen Cochran paying $10 per black vote.
Do a google search of him. But, don't confuse Charles C. Johnson with Charles Johnson who writes for Little Green Footballs.
To be (perhaps overly) fair to Rolling Stone and Erdeley, you see “journalism” similar to this on the right also.
Any wide-circulation mags, daily newspapers and broadcast network TV coverage included in that “right also” [question mark]