A Stain On Us All…
There’s a sizable number of people who think we in the media are frauds and don’t really care about anything but ratings and profits….
…And the release of the Mitchell report on steroids in baseball has created a situation where our detractors are being proved correct.
I’m talking about the advance release of the so-called “list” of users last week.
It began with WNBC-TV–when they broadcast a “list of names.” The station said it had “sources”—but that same “list” was whipping around on the Internet.
They were told by some in Major League Baseball that there were discrepancies in the names—but they ran with it and put it on line…
Other outlets picked it up—including the local Fox Station in St. Louis because Cardinal’s player Albert Pujulos’s name was supposedly mentioned in the Mitchell report.
THE LIST WAS FAKE. THE NAMES WERE WRONG.
But here’s where it gets disgusting.
You can read here how The management of the Fox station in St. Louis says in effect— yeah the list was bogus—but so what. We’re Fox and we’ll do it again !!!
It’s bad enough that people’s reputations were damaged by news organizations rushing to be first by using unverified material—but to say we don’t care is the height of irresponsibility.
Channel 2’s news director Kingsley Smith says:
“You can take the safe route, one that is noncombative and not aggressive,” he said. “But in today’s environment, I’m not sure we have the luxury to do that. And the Fox (network) brand allows us a little more latitude. There’s a certain sense of edginess and aggressiveness.”Days like this are fun because it forces you as a journalist, and a manager, to make decisions that aren’t easy. If you want to have your button-up newscast packaged with a bow, there are stations in town that do it and have been doing it for 25 years. But their ratings are going down; ours are going up. There was a time and place when stations would have been reluctant to put something on the air” like this. “But with the Internet, sports-talk radio and cable, viewers are better served getting more voices giving context. That’s what we try to provide.”
Smith basicly says, we’ll do whatever we want for ratings.
What they’re practicing isn’t Journalism. It isn’t news. It’s some form of bizarre news-o-tainment.
And — if saying so bites the hand that feeds me—then, it’s OK.
I’ll keep biting til I rip that hand to shreds.
—Steve
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A wise news director once told me, “We might not get the story first, but we WILL get it right.”
That, my friends, is journalism.