Journalism not quite up to standards

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Moederloos

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lol - very kind whites you have up north..

i guess the online guys will point to tighter and tighter deadlines to get stuff out + the fact that the sub-editing process is often short-circuited

but the same kind of schoolkid errors crop up in the printed media all the time...
 
:) - saw a matter in court once where the guy was charged with possession of the marijuana...when they read the charges out it was for possession of "0.015 g" of a prohibited substance. Magistrate says wtf? this is a waste of my time and sends the guy off

...spot the missing "k" ;)
 
What's amazing is that a lot of those articles are syndicated, and more than one on-line news site publishes it without correction.
 
dominic said:
i guess the online guys will point to tighter and tighter deadlines to get stuff out + the fact that the sub-editing process is often short-circuited
Click to expand...

Yup, like he said.

I work in an online newsroom. In print you have a set deadline, and everything has to be written and subbed by that time. For online there's no one deadline, just constant pressure to get stuff out. And sometimes that means that stuff hasn't been adequately subbed before being published. You can always go back and correct - print doesn't have that luxury.

You know the old saying, "Doctors bury their mistakes, journalists publish theirs."

Not saying that these errors are okay - just that I can understand how they happen, and as long as an effort is made to correct them speedily that's alright.
 
I have noticed something very disturbing lately:
There have been a number of "Breaking News" type reports about SA politics that have been found to be totally false or proved by the accussed to be incorrect.

It seems that the process of verification of truth has been compromised in the desire to get the news story out before someone does.

Does the news media not worry about their credibility?
 
the fact that the sub-editing process is often short-circuited
Click to expand...

Its non-existent !!!

Some of the fellows i work with write, post and then copy edit /sub and miss the basics of the English language claiming to be timeous in terms of breaking the story first.
 
Of course, there are the old favourites like the helicopter "hoovering" over parliament and Prince Charles being the "hair" to the throne.
But my favourite was made during last year's floods in Europe. The local reporter spoke about flooding of the "Danooby" River!
The Blue Danooby doesn't quite sound right, somehow.
 
Sebs said:
Of course, there are the old favourites like the helicopter "hoovering" over parliament and Prince Charles being the "hair" to the throne.
But my favourite was made during last year's floods in Europe. The local reporter spoke about flooding of the "Danooby" River!
The Blue Danooby doesn't quite sound right, somehow.
Click to expand...

For some reason the picture of a sexually frustrated Scooby Doo came to mind.

/me needs to get out more
 
Moederloos said:
For some reason the picture of a sexually frustrated Scooby Doo came to mind.

/me needs to get out more
Click to expand...

I'm quite sure the reporter would have said the Blue Scooby Doo River, if that's what was on her crib-sheet!
 
Sebs said:
I'm quite sure the reporter would have said the Blue Scooby Doo River, if that's what was on her crib-sheet!

As to the sexual imagery, I suggest you get that seen to, man.
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Sebs
 
The standard of English is another casualty of the transformation process.

We need the British Council to contribute to the debate.
 
Datura: the top one is hilarious.
The second one is sick. (Not aimed at you, but at the journalist who wrote it - that is just really poor taste).
 
Moederloos said:
Datura: the top one is hilarious.
The second one is sick. (Not aimed at you, but at the journalist who wrote it - that is just really poor taste).
Click to expand...

I don't think they put much thought into it. One would have expected a little more tact involved in such a serious article. The dogs have come to journalism.
 
The standard of local journalism seems to be shocking these days in many, although not all cases, both print, TV and online. Its pathetic really, other international sites face the same deadlines and pressures yet the standard is vastly different.
 
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