Eric Deggans
May 9, 2013
1:37 pm
The Tampa Bay Times’ fact-checking site PolitiFact has drawn another heated rebuke from MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, who accuses it of “ruining fact checking” and being “truly terrible.”
But at the risk of looking like a homer — the Times … Read more
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Roy Peter Clark
Apr. 22, 2013
4:35 pm
I once heard Ben Bradlee describe former Gannett CEO Al Neuharth as a “mountebank.” I rushed to the dictionary: “a person who sells quack medicines from a platform; a boastful unscrupulous pretender.”
How’s that for an epitaph: “Al Neuharth: Snake … Read more
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Roy Peter Clark
Apr. 18, 2013
4:00 pm
My colleague Al Tompkins reminds journalists to remember the case of Richard Jewell as they cover the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Jewell was the security guard wrongly accused of the bombing at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta.… Read more
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Jason Fry
Apr. 16, 2013
12:20 pm
Terrible events such as yesterday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon have always meant “all hands on deck” for news organizations, with staffers pulled off their regular beats to contribute.
But the endpoint of the newsgathering and reporting is no longer … Read more
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Jeff Sonderman
Dec. 3, 2012
10:54 am
Gallup
Less than a quarter of the American public gives journalists high marks for honesty and ethics, according to the
latest survey from Gallup.
The polling organization asks Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of 22 common professions. Journalists fell in the middle of the pack, with 24 percent giving a "high"/"very high" rating, 45 percent "average," and 30 percent "low"/"very low." Only 5 percent said "very high."
Journalists ranked narrowly behind bankers, but ahead of business executives, various politicians, lawyers and salespeople. (The medical field dominates the most-trusted professions: nurses, pharamacists, doctors, dentists.)
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Andrew Beaujon
Sep. 21, 2012
9:51 am
Gallup
Sixty percent of Americans said they trust the mass media
"Not very much" or "Not at all," a Gallup survey published Friday says. That's the highest percentage since Gallup started asking the question regularly in the '90s, it reports.
Republicans and independents are pushing that number up. Nearly 60 percent of Democrats trust the media a "Great deal" or a "Fair amount."
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Jeff Sonderman
Aug. 29, 2012
11:15 am
Reynolds Journalism Institute
The public's
trust in the institution of the press may be fading, and digital platforms have opened the publishing world to anyone with a desire to speak, but it seems professional journalists themselves are not seen as obsolete.
More than 60 percent of U.S. adults say they "prefer news stories produced by professional journalists," and more than 70 percent agree that "professional journalists play an important role in our society," according to
new survey data from the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Respondents also disagreed with a social-media-centric model (that most news should come through trusted friends) and disagreed that it doesn't matter who produces the news.
The first two bars in each chart below refer to mobile device users and non-users. More on them later.
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Andrew Beaujon
Aug. 17, 2012
10:35 am
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Since 2002, many major news organizations have suffered declines in believability, according to people polled by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. After local TV news, the next five most trusted outlets were "60 Minutes," ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and CBS News, the study says.
The New York Times, Fox News and USA Today were the least trusted:
Partisan differences contributed to the drop:
Today, there are only two news organizations – Fox News and local TV news – that receive positive believability ratings from at least two-thirds of Republicans. A decade ago, there were only two news organizations that did not get positive ratings from at least two-thirds of Republicans. By contrast, Democrats generally rate the believability of news organizations positively; majorities of Democrats give all the news organizations tested ratings of 3 or 4 on the 4-point scale, with the exception of Fox News.
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Steve Myers
Aug. 1, 2012
11:51 am
Salon | The Wrap | WWD | BuzzFeed | The Atlantic
A theme has emerged in the reaction to Jonah Lehrer's resignation from The New Yorker: it's not a fall from grace, but from genius. The Wrap's Sharon Waxman says what happened to Lehrer
shows that "it’s hard to start at the top" with plenty of talent but no experience:
There is precious little protection out there for young writers in the atomized digital age. Few places to learn the basic craft of fact-based reporting, checking sources, double-checking footnotes.
The cut and paste function is a dangerous temptation to the overstretched writer, and has wrecked more than one career.
She ends by saying it's unfortunate that people are unlikely to get any more insights from Lehrer, who "may be a brilliant talent."
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Steve Myers
July 30, 2012
5:36 pm
Michael Moynihan does not feel good today, after writing the story that forced Jonah Lehrer to
quit his job at The New Yorker and admit
he had made up Bob Dylan quotations.
“I don't want the scalp,” Moynihan said in a phone interview. “It's not what I am interested in.”
Moynihan described in a story published in Tablet magazine how he sought to confirm seven Dylan quotations in Lehrer's book “Imagine: How Creativity Works.”
He corresponded with Lehrer for three weeks, starting July 8, in an effort to nail down the elusive sources of Dylan's comments. They also spoke by phone several times. Lehrer finally admitted Sunday afternoon that he had lied to Moynihan about where he had gotten some of them. Moynihan said he “had an inkling” then that Lehrer would resign.
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