Feral Beast: Oops. [SURELY SHOME MISHTAKE-Ed]

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Oops. [SURELY SHOME MISHTAKE-Ed]

Thanks to Hamilton Nolan , and Gawker, we have a glimpse of WashPost edits. In an embarrassing error, the paper published this piece in progress online (SURELY SHOME MISHTAKE-Ed.) A screen grab was made before it was deleted, with an apology that the piece was "incomplete".
Here's the link. Even at the vaunted Wash Post, editors apparently ask for manufactured quotes, or nag reporters to go back to the source and fish for it.

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Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.