Here we have a report that says newspapers make far more errors than most newspaper people ever thought possible. Jack Shafer uses that as a launching point to trash one of the few journalists that seem to be offended by errors. Seems like there might be more productive takeaways from this, Jack!
Early in my career I spent more than five years as a reporter, and I was very proud of those years. I have a very personal interest in this. Since leaving journalism, I've tried to pay special attention to news stories on events I have personal knowledge of. It's quite remarkable how often they are substantively incorrect -- almost always, in fact. So these findings are no surprise to me. I have gradually become inured to just how much journalists don't know about what they're covering. OK, it's a field where you're a generalist -- that's much of the fun, constantly learning something new. But totally missing the facts (and the point) seems not to trouble too many journalists, even those at "elite" publications -- and we're not even talking about broadcast and cable, where the traditional values of journalism appear utterly unknown.
All "professionals" -- I will use the term to describe today's journalists because I'm in a good mood -- tend to be resistant to being told they're doing a lousy job. Consider the number of doctors who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to wash their hands and write legible prescriptions! But some professionals are much further along than journalists in recognizing that they do indeed have a MAJOR problem. Journalists like to think that if everyone's yowling, they must be doing something right. There is, however, an alternate theory that explains the facts much more simply and elegantly. Look in the mirror!
