Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Falling for Internet rumors
In follow up to a comment on my previous post it amazes me that in these times of fake storm photos and news items that you can still catch large news organizations re-reporting these Internet troll items without making a simple phone call or other verification before trotting out the news.
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18 comments:
Jim, thought you might like to know that the folks now writing for the FJ have to actively urge readers to comment on their stories. So the reporter has to not only ask for comments, but if they aren't getting any comments, they have to post questions and try to get comments. If they get comments on a story, the reporter has to answer and encourage the commenters to keep up the conversation. The reporter earns bonus every month based on how many comments they can get on a story. Not only do you write the story, but you promote it and become part of it. Watch the stories by the newest reporters and notice how much time they spend urging and recruiting comments. I feel so sorry for them. What a way to make $14 an hour.
Yes, a very artificial way to justify ad rates and attract and maintain advertisers. What next, pay reporters, er, bloggers, a bounty for clicking on FJ online ads using proxies on laptops at free wi-fi hotspots to cloak their identities? Why not take this where it's leading anyway? The end game is to force FJ bloggers to take, say, 10 percent of that $14/hour every month and use it to click online FJ ads and actually buy something. That's no more outrageous than artificially propping up online reader interest through what is tantamount to game show laugh signs and other such gimmicks. Question ALL of the FJ's metrics -- readership, ad clicks, etc.
How long before the reporters are using different screen names to comment on their own posts?
If anyone would like me to comment on their Mlame stories I can be bought. Send an e-mail with a cash price per comment to:
smakutus1@comcast.net
Thanks,
Jeff
On a different note, OMG, newsreader Diane Sawyer really was drunk on Election Night:
http://youtu.be/Ej_CHbrdexA
Also remembering the Chad Meyers post, one wonders what someone on TV has to do these days to get fired?
Maybe Sawyer wasn't drunk (I think she was) but her performance still stunk like Kentucky moonshine gone bad. Her commentary was inane and that's when it was understandable. No, sorry, I don't care how blonde one is, NO ONE should be spared the ax for such a performance on Election Night of all nights.
Speaking of Election Night, I recall a post here about how the FJ newsroom applauded at Obama's election in 2008. Does anyone know if he got another round of applause and shout-outs from the objective content providers in the newsroom Tuesday night?
I invite FJ bloggers and readers to comment on the post of Anonymous 2012 09:52. Does the FJ have an affiliate program so I can get paid for myriad comments here? LOL
I remember the Flint Journal newsroom during the 2000 election. There were several reporters who were crying (literally) and in anguish when Al Gore lost to George Bush (well, it didn't happen that night but the angst went on for weeks). I am constantly disturbed at the overly partisan stuff I read on social media by reporters who are covering elections and who are supposed to be fair and even handed.
When I was an active reporter I never let anyone know where I stood on issues or candidates. Even now I am reluctant to do that. Now that I am retired I do have political signs in my yard (something I never did when I was working) and you will find signs for Republicans and Democrats there.
I never registered as a supporter of either party. I was, and remain, a non-preference voter.
Jim
I feel your pain, Jim. The examples of reporter political bias abound. One recent example that still sticks in my craw is the choice of presidential debate moderator, Martha Raddatz, senior foreign affairs correspondent for ABC News since 2008. Turns out Obama attended her wedding, I believe while both attended Harvard. I know, I know, he wasn't president at the time. But you mean to tell me we can't find a journalist who got hitched without Obama or Romney in attendance? C'mon! She may be the best journalist ever but important events such as presidential debates must be totally free of partisanship and suspicion. Why not simply pick someone from the pool of 99.999 percent of journalists who never entertained a current or future president? You want to to invite Obama to your wedding, knock yourself out. But don't dare moderate a debate involving him down the road! Reporters are great at holding others up to high standards -- not so much themselves. To show how cozy and incestuous the press corpse (pun intended) has grown, CNN's Reliable Sources host, Howard Kurtz, dismissed criticism of Raddatz. Gave her a complete pass. Bias? What bias? Gee, Howard, I expected a little more from a self-appointed media critic. Diane Sawyer drunk on the air (have ABC News executives ever heard of a random drug/urine test? Hellloooooooooo?), CNN's angry weather man, Chad Meyers, swearing during Sandy coverage and then falsely reporting NY stock Exchange flooding. CNN Candy Crowley, another moderator disaster, sushing Romney and proclaiming Obama in the ridht about a Lybian issue that at the very least was arguable. Karl Rove's meltdown on Fox, trying to cede Ohio to Romney through shere will power after the network's own analysts gave the state to Obama. And Recuse-Me-Not Raddatz. What a motley group, eh? I love it when a TV anchor or newspaper editor/publisher declines comment on news involving themselves. Grrrrroan.
While I agree with all the posts about partisan politics being embraced by news reporters/anchors, it is obvious that the news has changed. The FJ newest policy to inflate comments through questions and instigative comments by the reporters is ridiculous. And to think that they will be given a bonus if they get a bunch of comments is outrageous. I agree with Anon 9:52 that it is an obvious attempt to artificially justify ad rates and attract advertisers. I took a look at the most often commenters on the Mlive sites and they are mostly the same people getting into arguments with each other. So if Commenter A and Commenter B get into an argument that results in 50 comments (25 each) that doesn't mean 50 people commented. It means 2 people commented. How do they account for that?
Hey Anon 10:15, you can bet the FJ counts comments the way that's most advantageous to them and the way that gets the most bang for their ad-rate buck -- and that's to count total comments, not unique commenters. It sounds far better to tell online advertisers that the paper gets 10 comments per story on average, as an example, than two commenters per story (making maybe 20 comments themselves). Along those lines, is the paper getting away with reporting to online advertisers overall clicks or views of online news stories and ads, or the more accurate count of unique clicks or views. In other words, if a story has two readers making 20 comments, unique page views would be a lot lower than if 20 different readers were commenting. I'm sure the Audit Bureau will clean everything up... Not!
So, here's the conundrum I'm wrestling with, having worked at TFJ 20+ years ...
When the newspaper no longer reflects my values, why am I still paying for it?
Keep's constant arguments about "balance" ... constant attacks on conservatism, Christianity, and just flat-out logical breakdowns in liberal columnists' arguments ... and the wire services are just talking points and memes ... and the Sports section is a joke ... and local news is sadly lacking ... and the editing is atrocious ...
What's left?
Anon 10:17 LOL Good question, why the heck are you still paying for it? I never cared if it reflected my values, i just wanted the newspaper to reflect my community. The good, bad, smart and stupid of it all. Even those local columnists I used to love to hate (AH) have become so ridiculously fluffy that it's not even worth my time. I finally broke down and stopped the paper a year ago. Even stopped the direct email version about six months ago. Turns out I don't miss it. I check MLive once a week, not regularly, just on an average probably once a week. I keep waiting to see if I'm missing anything, but it's a joke. I hear about more stuff going on from Facebook posts that happen within real time minutes, then anything on the MLive site. The old ink version has week old news, its so OLD, I don't even bother to use it for the bird cage anymore (get paper grocery sacks and cut those to fit). Used to be you might hear a headline or soundbite on the TV news, then turn to the paper for the real story, but that's longgone. The stories online are as uninformative as the soundbites on tv news. I got sick to my stomach every time I read some happy, smiley "aren't we fabulous" bs from the folks in charge of the paper about the awesome new website and wonderful new staff. Take my word for it, end it. You won't miss it. And if someone tells you to take it for the coupons....turn to the internet, there are some awesome sites for coupons.
Why are you still paying for it? That is not the Flint Journal.. It's a paper with the FJ logo on it and that is all it is.
Flint Journal RIP 1876 - 2012
I stopped taking the FJ several months ago. I don't miss it at all. When they started phasing out regular editorials, that pretty much was the kiss of death for me. Their longtime editorial writer was the best around and a true voice of the paper. Today, the paper's voice is faint and weak, and the news coverage is seriously lacking. But, hey, Flint City Council and Genesee County Commissioners always seem to be meeting about something, and I can get my fill of these posturing and pandering pols via local cable access.
I am curious why anybody would feel obligation to be supportive of an industry that callously dumped longtime, loyal employees because of a lack of administrative backbone and foresight. To this day I recall the moment a FJ editor stood in front of a room full of news reporters talking about how the focus would have to turn to the internet. His epiphany apparently had come the night before when, while driving home from someplace with his young daughters in the car, he saw an accident or fire or something. He mused aloud that he was going to call the newsroom to find out what was going on when he got home and his daughter said "Why dont you just go to abc12.com Dad?" That editor (who was a very nice man and a devout newspaperman, now heads what's left of the print edition). For many reporters, the internet wasn't a surprise in the 90s and most of the inkstained wretches recommended using the internet and charging nominal fees for it. But all those in charge shook their heads mightily and proclaimed "it shall be free." And so it was. And look what happened? And some of you still buy the paper? Some of you still use the coupons? Ridiculous.
I've noticed that the Jackson reporters (I mean social media professionals) often comment on their own post asking for more comments. Not only that, they will then "like" a comment on their own story, or another reporter will "like" a fellow reporter's comment. How ridiculous is that? If getting comments is a measure of success, that is a poor reflection of the state of the journalism industry. Can you imagine 10 years ago if editors would tell reporters to buy extra copies of the newspaper to boost circulation numbers? Same thing, different medium.
Hi Jim. Nothing related to the post.
Becoming concerned that your last posting was Halloween. It does not seem like you to not mention Thanksgiving, Christmas or The new year. I hope all is well.
I apologize in advance for my tardiness in commenting on this post. But the question of objectivity in journalism is an interesting one; from my perspective, it was the first thing we were taught in J-school yet, but as a young and then veteran reporter, I realized that it exists only in theory in the majority of cases. From reporters openly spouting their political beliefs - and then writing stories which clearly conformed to their beliefs - to editors demanding that events they had overriding interests in get unwarranted coverage(I can think of a certain bush league tennis tournament in one "Booth" outpost; the readers couldn't give two s**ts about it, yet it was jammed down their throats for a solid week). And that doesn't even take into account the endless line of "homer" sports journalists who are more fans than reporters - if you asked some of them to write an objective story about an athlete at a college they hated (say, an MSU grad writing about a local jock at UM) they couldn't do it. I used to argue with readers who said newspaper reporting was biased - since I'm fortunately out of the game now, I don't even pretend. Hell yes, it's biased. You want to know what's going to get covered? Ask an editor or publisher (or even reporter) what their interests are - sailboating, little league baseball, tennis, stamp collecting, astronomy - and that's what will get covered in some shape or form. Objectivity! Say what?
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