Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Are your quotations above accurate?
I realize that you don't intend for "Joe Bloggs" to be an actual person. But, well, I have a personal problem with seeing words between quotation marks that aren't quotations. If you are going to criticize professional mainstream journalism for being inaccurate, how about showing us how it can be done better?
Of course, if Joe Bloggs is a politician, we can't talk about it in this part of Mobileread. But if he's a publishing executive, let's name names here  |
No they are just written as typical of, not as a specific case involving Joe Bloggs.
But both in my work over the years and outside of it when I have seen the actual words spoken or have access to the video of the interview, I have seen journalists deliberately misquote (either along the lines of my example or in some other way) in order fit the agenda of their story.
I could goon forever with examples I have come across but here's a short one that doesn't take up much room to explain. I was doing a lot of work for a client that had, because of that project, a high level of interest. CEO of my client was telephoned by news team at
2am in the morning and presented with union claim that the project was failing and the faults in it presented a serious risk to the public. The CEO said that it was unlikely there was any such problem and he would address it with his senior executives first thing in the morning and get back. In the morning headline news (on radio) presenting the union's claim as fact and claiming "The company's CEO refused to comment".
First thing in the morning business hours the company (including myself) spoke to the newsroom as a group (something one would not do if any doubts because of the risk of accidental contradictions). We easily convinced them that they had run with an incorrect story, however even though they had run the story for 3 hours they never ever corrected it, they did drop it though.
So another rule is if one sees a dramatic news story and it just disappears from sight it is because either no one was interested or it was wrong.
One could claim that is just one example so proves nothing, but I could go on forever. But for the sake of it let's go on a bit more
; a similar type to the above I have experienced a number of times; newsroom phones company, the telephone receptionist or a PA takes the call and truthfully says that there is no one in able to respond on the matter at the moment but Joe Bloggs will get back to the newsroom as soon as they get back in. It is reported as "A senior executive of the company refused to comment".