When I mention The Raleigh N&O’s backbone you might think I'm talking about its fear of printing any Danish cartoons or the cartoon depicting Mohammad the ran in the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel.
Not in this post.
N&O backbone here refers to something the paper’s executive editor for news , Melanie Sill, said at her blog:
(Duke University Professor) Hamilton is interested in how public affairs reporting (investigative work, policy reporting on the local and state level) will fare if newspapers' advertising revenues keep declining. That kind of work is The N&O's backbone, so Hamilton and I had plenty to discuss.I wonder if Sill told Hamilton about some recent N&O investigative and policy reporting “backbone” work.
In a Feb. 15 front page story, The N&O reported a group of state workers had been “caught cheating.” No other newspaper in the state bought The N&O’s story.
Two days later, The N&O was forced to admit the employees hadn’t cheated. It issued a correction but no apology for making the false charge.
On Feb 22, The N&O’s front page included a photocopy of North Carolina Congresswoman Sue Myrick’s one sentence letter to President Bush:
"In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO — but HELL NO!"The N&O didn’t inform readers that Myrick was wrong in saying the UAE deal involved “selling American ports.”
On Mar. 2 The N&O front page headlined an AP story which repeated a previously disproved claim that President Bush was warned before Katrina hit land that the New Orleans levee’s could be breached. Bloggers immediately pointed that out; and the AP issued what it called a “clarification.”
But The N&O has yet to explain why its investigative and policy news team published a claim about Bush that bloggers at home in their pajamas knew was false. Surely The N&O team know that too
On Mar. 6 Congresswoman Myrick was back on page one, this time the subject of a 1000 word story about how “she cussed her president last month,” works awfully hard in Washington for the folks back home, and might even be a future governor.
But The N&O didn't mention Myrick was wrong about the UAE deal involving “selling American ports.”
If, as Editor Sill claims, investigative and policy reporting is The N&O’s “backbone,” it’s a badly fractured one.
Editor, heal thyself.
3 comments:
The fracturing backbone of the print media could be the reason they are paraplegic, heading rapidly toward quadriplegia.
I prefer hard copy. I actually prefer the printed page to any other form of communication. Yet, I no longer subscribe to any newspaper or news magazine. It has nothing to do with the plethora of alternatives, or the convenience or immediacy of those alternatives.
It has to do with the fact that I can no longer trust the print media, or for that matter, most broadcast media to report the news. I cannot rely upon their accuracy, nor the depth of research to supply a whole story, nor their integrity to supply the facts untainted by personal or political agenda.
We hear a lot today about what is killing the newspaper business, and to a lesser extent the broadcast news business, and it almost always focuses on externals. Denial is going to prove their last stupid decision. What is killing them is the internal rot that makes them untrustworthy. They have lost the thinking public's trust, and soon they will lose the majority public's trust. That is why their revenues are down. Advertisers don't want the associate with known frauds when they are trying to get the public to spend their money with them.
The Main Stream Media is becoming more and more exposed as frauds. It is fatal for a grifter to become known as one.
You should have read those boneheads justification of not calling the pit-attack a terrorist incident.
Sayonars dino-media!
-AC
Dear straightarrow,
A fellow who sends a daily email to bloggers, editors, and others linked to this post but really featured your letter in its entirity.
He's a smart man. Your letter's a classic.
You nailed it, straightarrow. It couldn't have been better said.
I've never built a post around a reader's comment but I plan to do it with yours.
Best,
John
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