Comments on: The news identikit

By: G Allwell

G Allwell — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:53:28 +0000

Newience Fiction. I can run with that. Unless it’s a negative story about the Tories, I lap that up in my bigoted way!!!

By: Mark Pack

Mark Pack — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:02:08 +0000

What I found fascinating about the “child not in tree” story is that it could just as well have been “stranger climbs over fence and approaches child” story. In fact, scare stories about the danger from strangers are a pretty common occurrence.

So it’s not even as if writing the story one way made it exciting and the other way boring which, whilst not an excuse for getting the story wrong, would at least help explain why it was got wrong.

By: links for 2010-03-29 « Embololalia

links for 2010-03-29 « Embololalia — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:06:58 +0000

[...] The news identikit « Enemies of Reason It's not about what happened. It's about the story. The story is that elf'n'safety gone mad means Britain is bonkers. The story is always there, waiting for a few stray facts to attach themselves to it. So "there was a kid in a tree" becomes "he was stuck there and bonkers Britain elf'n'safetygawnmad meant he couldn't be helped, and the person who was got accused of being a pedalo", and so on, and so on. Whether it's true, or accurate, or fair or not doesn't matter. It's not about that. There is no story unless it is this, therefore, it is this. (tags: daily.express bbc journalism tabloids pc.gone.maaaaad) [...]

By: Anton Vowl

Anton Vowl — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:57:18 +0000

I don’t think everyone’s guilty of gross exaggerations, no. And not all writing for a narrative is harmful or damaging when it’s not talking about contentious subjects; on the other hand it might be seen to be leading to a deterioration of trust, although you could see it as inevitable as people have more and more access to source material themselves – freedom of information, internet documents, etc. Possibly this kind of writing reflects the fact that information is so much more readily available from other, faster media than newspapers, so the writing is more personal and opinionated, it plays it straight down the line a bit less often. But then British newspapers, particularly tabloids, have always done these kind of things, I think.

By: baldywilson

baldywilson — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:11:15 +0000

These days, if I read it in the traditional press I just assume that I’m reading fiction. Nick Davies bemoans this type of churnalism in Flat Earth News where he points out that, although lots of newspapers are reporting the same story, not one of them will have spoken to anyone involved, simply lifting the “facts” from each others newspapers/websites in an ever expanding cloud of BS.

By: James Lelyveld

James Lelyveld — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:46:53 +0000

Hi Anton,

I agree with your view for the tabloids, do you think that all print media is guilty of this and it’s just a matter of extreems?

By: Richard.

Richard. — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:38:48 +0000

Totally agree. Not cut and pasted right incidentally.