Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:06:01 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Spy plane crash?

At 03:25 PM 6/22/05 -0400, Elspeth Kovar wrote:
>At 09:56 AM 6/22/2005, Mike B. wrote:
>
>. . .
>
>>I'm always skeptical of reporters' abilities to get facts straight.  I've
>>seen too many stories where they got them wrong to believe otherwise until
>>there's confirmation.
>
>You've said this a number of times before.  I, on the other hand, used to
>work for NPR.

I don't recall if it was NPR or the local PBS station that did it, but I
once heard a radio report about a new semi-automatic gun law and the report
included the sound of machine guns firing in the background.  This led to a
misleading impression that the law being reported on had to do with machine
guns, when it was actually about semi-automatic weapons, not machine guns
(made as much sense as a report about a motorcycle law with semi-sounds in
the background).  Since most of the public is woefully ignorant on the
subject, it would have been nice if the reporter had chosen to educate,
rather than mislead.  I did call the station about this, but they didn't
seem to think it was a big deal, and the same report aired again later that
day.  Personally, given the tone of reporting on gun legislation on NPR and
PBS over the years, I figure it was intentional.

They'd also be more believable in general if they didn't claim to be
commercial-free, yet run sponsor ads before most shows.  They don't run the
typical 30 second production numbers like on commercial TV, but they do
read commercials for the major sponsors...including the company name,
description of the business and their motto or tagline, and sometimes
contact info, such as a URL.

>Yes, reporters get facts wrong, especially if the story is being done on a
>tight deadline.  Pity that you've used that to discount all information
>that comes from the news.

If they are wrong some of the time, they aren't believable any of the
time...until confirmed.  Unless I already know about whatever the subject
of the report is, I can't know immediately whether this is one of the
erroneous or misleading reports or one of the good ones, so I'm skeptical
of all of them to some extent.  Certain subjects are more commonly
mis-reported than others (guns, anything technical, and SF cons are often
misreported, while statements from the White House or Congressional leaders
are generally not), and the level of skepticism varies accordingly.

-- Mike B.
--
When in doubt...doubt!