ChiTrib: Anatomy of a false story (Insight/Faux Obama Story)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0701270205jan27,1,3148984.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed

For quite some time, media critics and those on the left have argued that Fox News is an ideologically driven propaganda network.

<snip>

It took a few hundred years for journalism to reach the stage at which the best truth one could find was the force behind what was published, broadcast, put before the public. Critics find it hard to believe, but much of what is called "mainstream media" agonizes every day over what is true and what is not, because it is wrong to print what is not provably true.

In that context, what Insight did on its Web site, and what Fox News did in repeating the report, was not ideological at all. It was unethical, unprofessional and shabby, a trifecta, if you will, in the world of journalism.

It also is a sign of the growing indifference Internet "journalism" presents on the question of truth. Rumor is good enough. Bibles of blogging are created based on nothing more than rumor.

So sure, scan it, scroll through it, read it. But, also, ask yourself: Do you know who's giving you your news?

[Kagemusha]

1. Since when is Insight associated with blogging?

I'm curious. They've been around for quite a while now, at least since the very beginning of the Drudge era, which was somewhere around the time when I first got online. What the hell does Insight have to do with *blogging*?

[Fridays Child]

3. The Tribune is wrong to blame this on Internet journalism. If anything...

...if not for the outrage of bloggers, the Obama-madrassa lie probably wouldn't have been exposed.

[Fridays Child]

2. Note to ChiTrib: a thing can be unethical, unprofessional, shabby, AND ideological.

In fact, ideology assures that every single Fox News broadcast is shabby, unethical, and unprofessional.

[regnaD kciN]

4. What. A. Load. Of. Horseshit.

So...

a) one cannot really tell whether Faux News is ideologically-driven or not -- it's all just opinion either way, and

b) anyway, this case has nothing to do with ideology, merely Faux's lamentable unprofessionalism in this one case,

c) for which one can actually blame "Internet 'journalism'" (by implication, the progressive blogosphere) for being a bad influence.

:wtf:

I'd say this opinion column falls quite neatly under the category of "the Corporate Media covering for its own." :argh:

[GreenZoneLT]

5. This columnist is exactly right

Fox's problem is not so much that it has an ideological slant (it does), but that it is such a hideously bad TV journalism outlet.

To wit: I'm flipping channels, and BBC World has a panel discussion on global warming. Fox has a story about a cheerleader and her coach having sex with a couple of military recruiters. Later, BBC has a story from Davos, about the world economic summit. Fox has a News Alert on a child who has been "kidnapped" by his noncustodial parent, then some back and forth shouting about something John Kerry supposedly said.

The selection of their stories, the fearmongering about strangers, the sports-journalism coverage of politics, does far more damage than the actual political slant of their Washington coverage, which any sensible person can discount.

MSNBC is possibly even crappier than Fox. CNN is somewhat better, the networks a little better than that. But compared to the BBC, they all suck balls. They're just the varsity level of local TV news, which is the quickest, surest means of misinforming yourself about the world you can find.

Oh, and bloggers are all right as a form of entertainment, but noise to signal ratio is so high that I personally can't be bothered with them. They're all right as media critics, but certainly not a media subsitute.