3 posts tagged “journalism”
15 Minutes to Midnight
Despite the fact that according to a Gallop poll only about 23 percent of Americans believe that journalists have high ethical standards (hey, at least we have standards), journalism is a profession that requires training, experience, dedication, dogged research, and skin thicker than a rhino's posterior. But the profession is under attack and continuing diminution. And we don't just mean by Rupert "My Wall Street Journal" Murdoch.
There are sites that post press releases as news (you know the sites), bloggers that get paid to post positive stories, news organizations that use e-mailed photos and video without seeking independent confirmation, search engines that publish photos without applying any standards, and media barrons who consider facts to be somewhat malleable (okay, now we do mean Murdoch).
Hence the countdown clock.
The reason for the current time: Google's decision to test a system whereby corporations, politicians, and even convicted felons can rebut news stories. The rebuttals will be given equal weight alongside stories pulled from original sites and re-posted on Google News. More important, the profession responsible for toiling over the original story will not have a voice in the process. (For the official/unofficial press release/blog/guerilla marketing posting/whatever-the-heck-it-is note from Google, which we think should be entitled, "When Bad Software Engineers Happen to Good People," see "Perspectives about the news from people in the news" here.)
Aside from demonstrating incredible cluelessness on the part of Google's "news" team--the people behind the slowest and most unreliable news aggregation site on the Web--such an experiment also reveals two hidden assumptions about the news:
1) The professional always gets the story wrong and so all interested parties (say, a company that stands to lose money because their toys are revealed to be covered in lead paint) should be given equal status.
2) There's no point in even attempting to be objective. Everybody's spinning, so why shouldn't we just add to the confusion with more spin?
Of course, the real losers are not the underpaid ink-stained wretches. The real losers here are the moms who want to know what toys are safe for their children, the patients who want to know what dangers certain drugs may pose, the voters who want to know what a candidate actually believes, the investors who want know where to put their money, and the rest of us, who just want to know.
FOR MORE OF JQ'S NEWS AND REVIEWS, VISIT J-Q.COM
In a twist worthy of the most improbable soap opera episode, PC World has called back its recently resigned editor-in-chief and punted its new CEO.
The original scandal erupted last week when the recently installed PC World CEO Colin Crawford--apparently unfamiliar with the word "journalism," having primarily only worked at MacWorld--insisted that PC World editorial, uh, produce kinder, gentler reviews of advertisers' products. At least that's essentially what editor-in-chief Harry McCracken claimed, and he promptly quit.
With PC World's editorial independence besmirched--and its value to readers completely eliminated--one had to wonder if the magazine was in dire financial straits or was about to be shuttered.
But late yesterday came the announcement that editor McCracken was back, and CEO Crawford was out--at least out of PC World's face. I don't know who made the call, but it is a shocking one. (I've quit over ethical issues before, and no one in corporate ever called me begging me to come back. Sniff, sniff.) Ethics and common sense winning out over short-sightedness and ignorance? Never happens. Okay, just this once.
Incidentally, Crawford maintains his highly paid management position at PC World's parent company and will be overseeing the company's online efforts. Does that mean that what they put on the Web can't be trusted because it's kinder to advertisers? One has to wonder.
If you want to follow the original sordid mess (or for the really cynical among us, possible PR ploy), see "PC World or Apple World."
To get the word straight from the horse's mouth (or another part of the horse's anatomy), see PC World's own strangely self-referential story.
FOR MORE OF JQ'S NEWS AND REVIEWS, VISIT J-Q.COM
Apparently these are strange times at PC World magazine. According to a report based on insider information, the editor-in-chief at PC World resigned this week when the new management crossed the line separating church and state (i.e., the distinction between those trying to garner advertisers and those trying to produce independent reviews and articles). To wit, spiking an article that was deemed potentially offensive to Steve "Where's the wrecking ball?" Jobs.
I'm a big believer in keeping those two often conflicting interests separate, holding to the idea that if you write something that people find helpful or entertaining, the advertisers are sure to follow. (Or put another way, I won't tell you how to sell ads and do marketing surveys as long as you don't tell me how to test and critique a product, movie, book, etc.) So readers here can rest assured that the lines will always be brightly demarcated on this site and at J-Q.com.
Unfortunately, that may not be the case any longer at PC World. Though I detest the infinite regress that is often referred to as the blogosphere, here are various links for those who want to delve further into the apparent scandal:
PC World Editor Quits Over Censorship
PC World Editor Quits Over Soft Reporting
