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Journalists are just people. Reliable journalism occurs when those people try their best to provide accurate information, and when they make a mistake they corr

Journalists are just people. Reliable journalism occurs when those people try their best to provide accurate information, and when they make a mistake they correct it. That's it. You can't expect perfection from people.

laretluval 9y ago
> when those people try their best to provide accurate information It is not enough to trust them to do their best. Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property.
- IronKettle 9y ago
  > Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property. Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helicopter_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helico... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_scandal_and_termination_from_The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_sca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fabrication_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apo... https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-cost-wiser-dream-job-at-chicago-sun-times https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic
nailer 9y ago
I don't think anyone is looking for perfection, simply not creating a narrative one knows to be false. The CNN fish feeding story was deliberately created by zooming film at the point the Japanese leader dumped their fish food, then zooming out again to show Trump dumping his, then writing text to support the fake narrative. The Mark Duggan 'unarmed' headline was immediately followed by a story which revealed the suspect was armed. The retracted CNN Russia stuff might have simply have been gross incompetence though so your point does apply there.

laretluval 9y ago

> when those people try their best to provide accurate information It is not enough to trust them to do their best. Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property.

IronKettle 9y ago
> Journalists should be in a structure that strongly incentivizes telling the truth and strongly punishes false information. It is very unclear that US media outlets, almost all of which are highly politicized, have this property. Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helicopter_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Iraq_War_helico... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_scandal_and_termination_from_The_Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_M._Thompson#Reporting_sca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fabrication_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Plagiarism_and_fa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan#Benghazi_report_apo... https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-cost-wiser-dream-job-at-chicago-sun-times https://www.timeout.com/chicago/tv/how-a-horrible-decision-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Finkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic

nailer 9y ago

I don't think anyone is looking for perfection, simply not creating a narrative one knows to be false. The CNN fish feeding story was deliberately created by zooming film at the point the Japanese leader dumped their fish food, then zooming out again to show Trump dumping his, then writing text to support the fake narrative. The Mark Duggan 'unarmed' headline was immediately followed by a story which revealed the suspect was armed. The retracted CNN Russia stuff might have simply have been gross incompetence though so your point does apply there.