4 ms·

Because journalists don't read primary sources. More often than not they're not even aware of them. Here's the problem: Almost all media outlets are in crisis

by mixmax 16y ago

Because journalists don't read primary sources. More often than not they're not even aware of them. Here's the problem: Almost all media outlets are in crisis mode so they're cutting down on their staff, meaning that a smaller number of journalists have to write the same amount of stories as before to fill the paper (or website). There simply isn't time for proper research if you have to write five articles a day. So many journalists resort to "borrowing" from other news sources, which in turn often have borrowed their article from somewhere else. An article may start as a published paper in Nature,which is then reported in popular science, which is then reported by Reuters, which is then reported in The Times, which is then reported in The Daily Mail. By the time it reaches The Daily Mail it's been through so many filters of busy journalists that the meaning has often become distorted. The journalist from the Daily Mail has no idea that there even is a primary source.

schrototo 16y ago
I think a journalist from the Daily Mail probably has no idea what a primary source even is.
- protomyth 16y ago
  Oh, I'm pretty sure they do. Not because their main stream articles are any good, but because they seem to go out and find the really weird stories and jazz them up. They get a lot of play on fark.com and they like to put up bigger pictures that tends to draw the links on entertainment stories. Not good journalism, but they seem to have brought their newsstand game to the web in a fairly smart fashion.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
The tragedy is that the reaction of the mainstream media to this existential crisis is to unwittingly accelerate it. The key problem is that local news sources (newspapers especially) have traditionally had relatively exclusive "broadcast" privileges to their audience. This let them make money from the broadcast business alone: selling classified ads; re-broadcasting weather reports, national and international wire reports, syndicated comic strips, etc. This is a low cost high markup business, so media grew fat off of it, and sometimes lazy. It's easier and far more profitable to fill a paper with human interest stories and re-broadcasted content than it is to do hard nosed reporting. The internet has vastly disrupted every manner of broadcast exclusivity in existence, especially newspapers. Classified ads are obsolete in the face of ebay, craigslist, amazon, monster, and even facebook. Day old printed weather information is similar obsolete in the face of weather.com, wunderground.com, etc. Reprinted comics are similarly obsolete in the face of online access to not only the exact same comics but also a bevy of webcomics, many of them more appealing to various individual readers than the one-size-fits-all lowest common denominator of the newspaper. The same goes for opinion pieces and re-printed news. This leaves the value of a newspaper down to nothing more than it's unique coverage capabilities (e.g. local news) and basically whatever legitimately original reporting they do. However, as newspapers have been faced with economic doom due to the loss of most of their revenue their response has typically been to foolishly double down on exactly the traits that have gotten them into trouble in the first place. To cut back on expensive elements such as original reporting and fall back on the cheap stuff. This'll work for a while, but it won't ultimately stave off doom as increasingly people will discover the value of the paper is diminishing and becoming less relevant. People will more and more find that life is just fine with out them, the process will accelerate as more and more people of every demographic follow suit. Meanwhile, it'll be up to others to carry and to elevate the standard of journalistic integrity.
justinph 16y ago
That is a pretty sweeping generalization. I work for a public radio station. Our journalists routinely interview primary sources, sometimes live on the air. We also transcribe those interviews and put them on the web. We've also been increasing the size of our news staff, not decreasing. It's not all doom and gloom, it just depends on the medium and the revenue model.
- michaelbuckbee 16y ago
  Can you provide a link to your station's website? It would be nice to have an example to look at and compare other outlets.
- alanfalcon 16y ago
  I've noticed this on KPCC in Orange County, CA - sound bytes from a mayor's speech that's being covered, or a quick interview with someone at HBGary after the whole Annonymous attack. On one level these sound bytes are superfluous, they don't add anything beyond what the reporter is already telling us. But in addition to adding new voices to the newscast, it also assures the listener that the reporter was at the mayor's speech, has talked to people affected at HBGary, that we're not just getting regurgitated news stories as are so common (as pointed out by this article). Even the news story about Guitar Hero being cancelled had sound clips from "music experts" about the effect the game had on popular culture (essentially, his kid likes classic rock and roll now when he never liked it before) - that had limited news value, but real exclusive added value for the radio station. So KPCC is one example of a news organization doing things above board.
  - justinph 16y ago
    KPCC is one of our stations.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Our journalists routinely interview primary sources That would be good journalistic practice, but that is not what Ben Goldacre is talking about in the blog post submitted here on HN. He is talking about news stories that purport to report on the result of a research study and what he is looking for is a citation (or a link, as appropriate to the journalistic medium) to the published research study. Not doing that doesn't pass the smell test for Goldacre. http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-primary-sources-you-are-d http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-primary... Of course, even if the published study is cited, it still has to be examined carefully, http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html but there is no reason to hide the published study from the consumer of the journalistic report. You are referring to persons as "sources," the same way I did when I was a journalist, while Goldacre is referring to publications as sources.
zasz 16y ago
They haven't always been in a crisis mode. They've never linked to primary sources. Even if you take the print edition of a newspaper before the Internet, you'll never see instructions at the end of an story on how to obtain the full writeup of the data by the investigating scientist.

by mixmax 16y ago

schrototo 16y ago

I think a journalist from the Daily Mail probably has no idea what a primary source even is.

protomyth 16y ago
Oh, I'm pretty sure they do. Not because their main stream articles are any good, but because they seem to go out and find the really weird stories and jazz them up. They get a lot of play on fark.com and they like to put up bigger pictures that tends to draw the links on entertainment stories. Not good journalism, but they seem to have brought their newsstand game to the web in a fairly smart fashion.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

The tragedy is that the reaction of the mainstream media to this existential crisis is to unwittingly accelerate it. The key problem is that local news sources (newspapers especially) have traditionally had relatively exclusive "broadcast" privileges to their audience. This let them make money from the broadcast business alone: selling classified ads; re-broadcasting weather reports, national and international wire reports, syndicated comic strips, etc. This is a low cost high markup business, so media grew fat off of it, and sometimes lazy. It's easier and far more profitable to fill a paper with human interest stories and re-broadcasted content than it is to do hard nosed reporting. The internet has vastly disrupted every manner of broadcast exclusivity in existence, especially newspapers. Classified ads are obsolete in the face of ebay, craigslist, amazon, monster, and even facebook. Day old printed weather information is similar obsolete in the face of weather.com, wunderground.com, etc. Reprinted comics are similarly obsolete in the face of online access to not only the exact same comics but also a bevy of webcomics, many of them more appealing to various individual readers than the one-size-fits-all lowest common denominator of the newspaper. The same goes for opinion pieces and re-printed news. This leaves the value of a newspaper down to nothing more than it's unique coverage capabilities (e.g. local news) and basically whatever legitimately original reporting they do. However, as newspapers have been faced with economic doom due to the loss of most of their revenue their response has typically been to foolishly double down on exactly the traits that have gotten them into trouble in the first place. To cut back on expensive elements such as original reporting and fall back on the cheap stuff. This'll work for a while, but it won't ultimately stave off doom as increasingly people will discover the value of the paper is diminishing and becoming less relevant. People will more and more find that life is just fine with out them, the process will accelerate as more and more people of every demographic follow suit. Meanwhile, it'll be up to others to carry and to elevate the standard of journalistic integrity.

justinph 16y ago

That is a pretty sweeping generalization. I work for a public radio station. Our journalists routinely interview primary sources, sometimes live on the air. We also transcribe those interviews and put them on the web. We've also been increasing the size of our news staff, not decreasing. It's not all doom and gloom, it just depends on the medium and the revenue model.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago
Can you provide a link to your station's website? It would be nice to have an example to look at and compare other outlets.
alanfalcon 16y ago
I've noticed this on KPCC in Orange County, CA - sound bytes from a mayor's speech that's being covered, or a quick interview with someone at HBGary after the whole Annonymous attack. On one level these sound bytes are superfluous, they don't add anything beyond what the reporter is already telling us. But in addition to adding new voices to the newscast, it also assures the listener that the reporter was at the mayor's speech, has talked to people affected at HBGary, that we're not just getting regurgitated news stories as are so common (as pointed out by this article). Even the news story about Guitar Hero being cancelled had sound clips from "music experts" about the effect the game had on popular culture (essentially, his kid likes classic rock and roll now when he never liked it before) - that had limited news value, but real exclusive added value for the radio station. So KPCC is one example of a news organization doing things above board.
- justinph 16y ago
  KPCC is one of our stations.
tokenadult 16y ago
Our journalists routinely interview primary sources That would be good journalistic practice, but that is not what Ben Goldacre is talking about in the blog post submitted here on HN. He is talking about news stories that purport to report on the result of a research study and what he is looking for is a citation (or a link, as appropriate to the journalistic medium) to the published research study. Not doing that doesn't pass the smell test for Goldacre. http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-primary-sources-you-are-d http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-primary... Of course, even if the published study is cited, it still has to be examined carefully, http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html but there is no reason to hide the published study from the consumer of the journalistic report. You are referring to persons as "sources," the same way I did when I was a journalist, while Goldacre is referring to publications as sources.

zasz 16y ago

They haven't always been in a crisis mode. They've never linked to primary sources. Even if you take the print edition of a newspaper before the Internet, you'll never see instructions at the end of an story on how to obtain the full writeup of the data by the investigating scientist.