Comments on: Journalism: “It’s the good ones who need watching”

By: ideas opportunities

ideas opportunities — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

You gave me an interesting idea. Thx.

Steve @
ideas opportunities

By: Eddie

Eddie — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

Hi, I was surfing the internet and came across your blog. I'm quite impressed , with how it makes such good reading.

This is one to watch.

Many thanks,

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By: Christopher Fotos

Christopher Fotos — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

I've been saying for years that a great way to waste your life is to major in journalism.

But does anybody listen to me? No, they do not.

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

If you like old movies (Doris Day and Clark Gable, 1958) watch Teacher's Pet which is stil pretty spot on about the issues of journalism. Gable is a hard nosed city desk editor who tangles with a j-school professor (Day) regarding issues of the craft/profession. Gig Young is hillarious in a supporting role.

By: David

David — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

kung fu...if the NYT is really just trying to make a buck, they don't seem to be doing all that good a job of it:

Stock Price

By: kung fu

kung fu — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

You want to understand the press, “follow the money.” It’s all about profit, that great American tradition. Enron? Worldcom? Halliburton? NY Times? USA Today? Fox News? Come on, they’re just trying to make a buck. Or should I say bucks, lots of them.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

This is the problem, at this point we don't have a free press we have a censor news press.

Susan

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

The fourth estate is shaky at times, but I still advocate a free press.

By: strcpy

strcpy — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:47:00 +0000

To me, one of the really sad things is that even though I know this, have known it since I began trying to form my political opinions in high school (12 years ago), I still take some of thier reports at face value.

Like others have said, there have been subjects that I could be nominally classified as an expert in (sadly, writing is not one of them), in every single one - even when I add a new one - the news has rarely been anywhere close to factually accurate let alone on thier analysis. Though I don't think it is intentional in most cases (not sure which is more sad, incompetance or dishonesty).

Yet, I find my self buying some of what they say. For instance I happly watch(ed) reports on wasted money in research. One I know of (in my last job I knew some of the principle researchers) was a study to figure out why a shower curtain blows inwards during a shower instead of outwards. Models showed it would do other wise (I am a computer scientist, I knew them through my work in high performance computing). They figured it out and in fluid dynamics it was pretty important and revolutionary. From just the description of "We now know why a shower curtain billows inwards" it is worthless. A headline "200k of research funding saves airlines billions and will lead to a 10% increase in car fuel efficiency" is worth quite a bit more. Both are factually accurate, though thier analysis kinda left off what this meant to fluid dynamics. I've always wondered if the study of the flow of ketsup had other such application. OTOH I have seen worthless well known research projects. The principle researchers would even generally admit to such.

*sigh* I now try to not particularly believe or disbileave anything they say - even factual information (X number of items occured, so-and-so died - they have been wrong on all of those). I try and file it under "unproved, don't use without further research" when using the info, if I find something interesting I tend to do more research. As others have said, the internet has really facilitated this, before I tried to not use them to form my opinions, though that is hard to do when they are your only source of information.