News reporting
 

In this age of new truth, fake news, etc I have posted an article about the changing focus of IS towards sub-Saharan Africa away from the Middle East. I was going to put the following note on after the link to the article:

Please note that news organisations have a tendancy to look to hunt out news even where there is none and that this can distort reality - factually correct, but not necessarily representative of the wider situation in an area.

And then I realised that this is actually not specific to the article I linked to but to press reporting in general. It is my experience that the journalists have a tendency to write the headline to grab the attention, ideally grab a picture of carnage, someone holding a big gun or an atractive young lady (ideally all three) and then write the story to fit the headline, photo and the political views of the person paying them. You may, correctly, assume that I have a somewhat jaundiced view of journalists and their trade.

But the question remains, am I right to be so jaundiced?

I don't know, I don't read anything by journalists anymore if I can avoid it.

Who needs interpretations of rumours and chinese whisper stuff when first hand accounts are available? The concept is wrong, can you imagine the police getting someone to interview the witnesses then having them appear in court to present the case "more clearly"? Journalism was just information rationing we needed during the paper era.

Andy

I'm going to blow your mind: quite a lot of the time, the journalist did not write the headline (never mind select the photo!). The editor did.

This is the same as yelling at a book author because the cover art doesn't match the plot details - not only has the artist probably not read the book (they don't have time, and the book might not even be ready by the time the art is due), but the author has no control over it whatsoever.

The answer to this question lies in a different question: How much money have you spent on a subscription or donation to the media outlet you are consuming?

If you (and I mean YOU) want good journalism, then you (and I mean YOU) have to support it with your own dollar. If you don't, then your complaint about the poor quality of available journalism is irrelevant - in the same way as complaints about new bikes not serving the needs of real customers, when those real customers have never spent a penny on a new bike from a dealer. ;)

This is an entirely fair post. However I do contribute - I buy physical newspapers - partly for the written word and partly because we need to have the paper to light the stove in winter. She Who Must be Obeyed has an online subscription to a newspaper - not necessarily the same one. The question is quite right and I hadn’t considered it from that perspective. Food for thought.

As it happens I think that whilst I am right to be at least a little jaundiced about journalists I am also cynical about the readers as well.

The thing that brought it home to me was reading the reviews of a travel boom prior to buying it. The book was “Way To Go” by Geoff Hill and there were people complaining about the lack of detail about the bike, the mechanics of it and how the author revelled in their lack of experience - well guess what dear reader, if you can stretch a motorcycle review to 240 pages then you need to sharpen your style somewhat and be somewhat briefer in your assessment. I want a motorcycle travel book to be a read about the journey from a motorcyclist’s perspective, not lots of detail about the gear ratio difference between third and fourth, fire me up about the journey, inspire me, and enough detail for me fill in the gaps in my head.

I also find the Murdoch newspapers are good for wiping your arse with. :blushing:

Mezo.

I just wanted to say that I had never heard of this book before you mentioned it. Out of curiosity I googled it, and ended up buying a Kindle copy off of Amazon. It looks like a good read!

Well I'm doing the opposite - I'm not supporting 'bad' journalism with my pounds, or, in the case of on line media, with my presence. The problem of course is deciding what is bad journalism because one man's fair and unbiassed article of record is another's spittle flecked rant. We all come to this stuff with baggage, whether it's our upbringing, our education or our experiences and nobody stands on the balance point of the seesaw. Even historians can't agree about what happened a hundred years ago (try finding an objective history of WW1) so I'm not surprised that caught up in the middle of it all journalists have to latch on to an angle to make their deadlines. It's hard enough to get scientific papers written in a just the facts manner so I'm not surprised journalists sometimes drift away into a 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story' approach. Whether they're sued or not is usually the arbiter of what's fair.

I don't know how many people here have tried their hand at writing, whether it's a blog, a book, an article, or even a voice over script for a video. There will be some I'm sure, and if you have you'll know how hard it is. There's no such thing - even in what should be a (relatively) uncontentious area like travel or motorcycles - as objectivity. It's all relative and subject to your likes / dislikes / preferences / style etc. You have to pick and choose what to concentrate on. Your aim is not only to make the thing readable but also read, and you have to judge for yourself what techniques and compromises you're willing to accept / employ. For most of the stuff I've read people usually try to stay with the advertising industry boundaries of honest, decent and truthful (or whatever it is) but not all. Being outrageous and embracing 'the dark side' is one way people are trying to make their voices heard in an increasingly crowded world. For my money it's a valid technique as long as you see it for what it is.

I'm halfway through writing an article on an obscure, half forgotten, part of overland bike travel's past which when (if) it gets published will count as journalism (of a sort). I have 2000 words so I have to pick and choose which elements get included and which don't. The article can never be anything more than a sketch, an illustration, and I'm sure others will not only disagree with it but would have written it differently. If they think I've done the subject a misjustice they're welcome to start with their own blank sheet of paper.

Why try for this mythical "objectivity"?

There are facts and there are opinions.

When I write professionally I deal mostly in facts : "The sensor will have a resistance.. blah, blah, blah... or should be replaced" etc. Using the First World War example "Sopwith claimed a top speed of 130mph, a value service pilots reported in their logbooks as achievable with care"

When you write an opinion state it as such: "From where I am sitting my industry is booming as a result of Brexit". The first world war: "Having studied Railway time tables the author has concluded that Kaiser Wilhelm wanted a war on two fronts to avoid disruption to the 7.42 service from Bad Oberstaten"

Now there is no rationing based on tree bark and ground up beetles there seems little excuse not to differentiate. The sloppy, sensationalist, over reaching, claimed analysis we still see no longer passes examination. Look at BBC claims of what would happen on January 1st this year or in 2000 or read a 1990's,MCN article on the BMW GS (huge trail bike? Who'd want one). Why expect one reporter to understand all issues? Why bother when you can read blogs by people who might.

Andy