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For some time, we have been hearing that soon newspapers and magazines (and even books)--everything we now read in print--will soon go away and be replaced with online or
new media. Journalists by the hundreds are being fired from banner newsrooms across the country, while most magazines are struggling to sell ads. Of course, migrating content online will save printing and distribution costs, and the dumbing-down of content will no doubt save the salaries of all those well-trained, experienced, top-level reporters and writers. For generating an endless stream of short, online articles, any competent journalist will do [the cheaper the better]. Online--where articles are read and then sent to the archive or trash bin the same day--is not suited to Pulitzer Award-winning journalism. Borrowed from the food industry, the term “grab and go” gains new meaning in the digital realm. Like junk food, junk media is now fast becoming the order of the day.
But sometimes, instant media consumption can be followed with a bad case of indigestion. Last week, the posting of a news item saying that United Airlines (UAL) was declaring bankruptcy caused a panic as investors dumped the airline’s stock. The stock quickly fell to around $3 a share. Trading was halted and the company issued a statement saying that the news item about the bankruptcy was inaccurate. According to The Wall Street Journal, the error occurred when someone re-posted a news item from 2002, when the airline did declare bankruptcy. The WSJ said that it was unclear how this occurred, but that the error was “probably the fault of a newspaper Web site, a search engine, a news aggregator or a market manipulator...” United referred to the posting as “irresponsible.” It seems the article resides in the archive of the Tribune Co. and had been there since 2002, when it was originally posted. The re-posted article carried no date, so naturally people assumed it was current when they saw it. The article quickly became a “most viewed” Web item for the day.
This is just one of the dangers of Web journalism, especially when amateurs are involved.
Trained journalists vet every item they write and distribute, and they are bound by ethical standards of journalistic integrity. Amateurs feel no such professional responsibilities. For many, writing online is closer to entertainment and diversion than responsible communications. [And for many, there is little difference between a hard news site and YouTube or a blog.] There is no accountability. I am fairly certain that whoever posted the UAL item will not be punished in any way. As more and more non-qualified writers exercise their desires to be heard online, authenticity and accuracy are fast becoming casualties.
I can see how something like the UAL incident occurred. Just yesterday, I Googled a subject (a retailer) online and quickly found a number of related articles. Fortunately, as I scrutinized the offerings, I realized that most of the items were several years old. Had I been careless, I might have forwarded one of those items right into the day’s newstream or used it as the basis for a new story.
It reminds me of the old parlor game, where one person whispers a sentence into the ear of the person next to them and it goes around a circle of people. When it returns to the original whisperer, the message has usually radically changed [sometimes comically so]. Online is something like that. An original message gets released, then, as it is read, rewritten and passed on, time and again, the truth becomes distorted, subjective comments get added and the item may become something else entirely. Worse yet, sometimes false stories are deliberately planted. The lesson: consider the source--you can’t believe everything you see online. That is not something you have to worry about when reading most newspapers and magazines--and including their online versions [well maybe, I wouldn’t include The National Enquirer in that list].
--(Journalist) Diva
Photo credit: ©Tiom|Dreamstime.com
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