Do you take any of these meds?

[ViewsAskew]

Great comments, both of you!

[badnights]

Great discussion.

It's easy to see some of the problems in reporting, but it's harder to figure out how to change things.

One problem for reporters is that there's no reward for unbiased reporting. The rewards come for sensation. We all know this. (It does seem that a majority of the people I know would prefer unbiased reporting, so does that mean we're not like most people?)

Another problem for reporters is that there is no time. Uncovering facts and coming to understand something totally outside your field (so, for journalists, that's everything except journalism) takes time, and these days there is big pressure to get stories publihsed/online ASAP, which translates to very few stories having any depth or breadth.

It's sad to see how much influence these shallow, incomplete, and/or biased reports have on politicians and other decision-makers. But what is the solution?

[ViewsAskew]

Beth, you are so right. I was getting my MA in communications in the early 90's. Even then, it was starting to change. I actually didn't finish the degree and switched to an MA in Human Performance Improvement, figuring I'd spend all that time finishing my degree to make a few dollars an hour.

By the late 90's, reporters in my area were getting paid so little, it was laughable. With fewer people reading print news, the news companies have had a hard time figuring out how to make money with online news.

I thought I might do some freelance writing while I'm figuring out my life post-increased WED. I've been offered $100 for a story that would take me at least 3 to 4 hours to research, plus write, edit, rewrite. How can I make a living doing that?????

[Rustsmith]

Beth and Ann, you make some good points about both the skills of current day reporters and the time that they have available to prepare a story.

I also wonder whether these two aspects also serve to weed out the good ones whose aspirations are high enough that they find a different career path, maybe corporate PR?

I am reminded of a piece that a local paper did many years ago about female engineers. My wife was selected as one of four women to be featured. The female reporter came by and interviewed my wife for about an hour. My wife insisted on the right to review and approve the draft before publication.

Well, when the draft arrived, it looked good but I ended up with the impression that "This is supposed to be my wife they are talking about?" I only recognized about a half of the facts and the others were apparently blended in for the other three women. This reporter was so inept that should couldn't even keep her notes straight between four, low stress interviews. So I can imagine how she would have botched a high stress assignment like a severe traffic accident or a violent crime. Over the next few months, we only saw the lady's name in bylines one or two more times, so I am guessing she found a different line of employment.

[ViewsAskew]

All I can say is that I quickly changed my job search methods to focus on corporate gigs! I can get $10 to $15 an hour for stuff that might be interesting to me and up to $100 an hour for stuff I care less about.

In a perfect world, I'd take the $10.

Or, I can try to create my own site and hope that eventually it can earn money. Not sure I have the energy to do both and I may need the money before the other can pan out. Tough decisions when you need money to live!

Steve, when I was working on the degree, we were given extra credit points for all the crappy stuff we could find. Not in local papers, but in places like the NY Times, The Wall St Journal, or other big city or large readership mags/papers. It was amazing how often I found errors. Spelling and grammar were the least egregious. Of course, I'd never have known the errors you are talking about, because you'd have to know the people.

I had a similar experience a couple years ago. I was interviewed related to Obamacare and my experiences as a small business owner who couldn't get insurance. When I received the draft, I was shocked at how many things the reporter had incorrect - and it was only about me! It could have been that I wasn't clear in my narrative, but they were things that didn't make sense - I would (if I were the reporter) called me back and said, "Hmmm, looking at my notes, I have this and that, but that doesn't make sense. Could you help clarify that for me?"

But, that brings up a WHOLE 'nuther conversation! In general, I find that not enough people have the critical thinking skills to work out things such as this. Instead of analyzing it, questioning it, or trying to figure it out, they just move forward.

[badnights]

not enough people have the critical thinking skills to work out things such as this. Instead of analyzing it, questioning it, or trying to figure it out, they just move forward.

Yup. A plague created by societal experiments in education, probably.

[Rustsmith]

Beth, very interesting comment about the experiment with education.

I had been thinking along the lines of a decline in professionalism within a variety of "professional" fields. I have noted it in medicine, where many doctors are forced into spending less time with patients rather than finding the right treatment, to the finance industry where everything is about "me" and into some portions of my own field of engineering. People are more concerned with finishing their assigned tasks than they are with doing what is right because doing "right" requires more time and effort and is therefore considered an extravagance. As I pondered this issue to decide what to post, I kept asking myself what has changed in the last 30 or 40 years and I kept coming back to education. It used to be that the responsibility for teaching children how to be behave ethically in society was shared between parents, educators and the church. It is my impression that teachers have dropped their part of that saying equation by saying that they don't have enough time. The only problem is that I also sense a reduction in professionalism in teachers today, which goes back to your comment about the societal experiment since most of these educators are products of that experiment.

Now don't get me wrong, there are MANY individual exceptions to this. What I am describing is my impression of society and individual professions as a whole.

[ViewsAskew]

Steve, I was talking about this with a few teachers recently.

I don't like corporal punishment, but when I was in grade school, if you acted out of line, your parents heard about it and you, the child, had to pay for it twice (and usually much worse at home). Most of us did anything we could to behave because my dad hearing that I was out of line at school was so much worse that I never would have misbehaved, not done my work, etc. My aunt just retired from teaching 1st grade for 40 years. In the last 15 to 20 years, she noticed that this started changing. More and more parents questioned her or challenged her. "My child wouldn't do that," the parents would say. Additionally, many parents started to change what they thought was appropriate if the child did misbehave in some way. Many things that those of us 40 or older would have been in trouble for is now considered OK. It's just a child being a child. Or that the child shouldn't be accountable. The whole style of parenting, at least in the US, is quite different.

Another component is the idea that there are no winners and losers. That everyone is just OK the way they are. This has become much more prevalent. I know kids who have never had to do anything they didn't want to do or that made them uncomfortable in any way.

In some ways, some of these changes are likely better for the children. But some are clearly not!