Newspaper "scandals"

[liamstliam]

I am curious about something.

As some of you know, I was a newspaper reporter for 11 years before becoming a teacher, I have worked part-time at papers on and off since then, and I am a total Web newspaper geek.

I wonder what some of you think about the reporting scandals at the New York Times and USA Today. When you have professional interests, sometime you overreact.

I recently read Jayson Blair's book, and most of the time, I had to explain to people who he was.

Comments

[dsrtao]

I noted way back in elementary or middle-school days that when I went to a news-worthy event, the coverage was never quite the same as what *I* saw. That doesn't bother me much: I realize that no one has an omniscient point of view.

What does bother me: political biases masquerading as straight news; coverage of technical issues by people who don't understand the technology; coverage of foreign affairs by people who apparently don't know anything about the history of the region in question; coverage of the economy by people who know nothing about economics; coverage of any government-related issue by people who do no background fact checking.

And then I have to worry about reporters making their stories out of whole cloth? Oy. Blair should have been flogged around Times Square.