Dan Rather lives
 

Dan Rather lives on, apparently now working as a writer and editor at dozens of embarassed newspapers with a large headline "12 Miners Saved" on the front page today. The story was so good that they couldn't wait for verification or a source.

Like Rather's imaginary and phony anti-Bush papers, the miners story is printed everywhere with no source and no truth.

Those who rely on the mainstream media for their news have another reason to be suspicious.

Sure, it's a tragic story, and some good people are dead, but it's another lesson on why the MSM should not be trusted.

Second that.

There should be much harsher penalties for reporting false news.

Well fellas, it appears that the media got the "misinformation" from some pretty highly placed sources.

Should the local officials be charged as well? How about the Governor?

If those aren't good sources, then who?

Fact is that these sites and situations are almost always highly chaotic. I've been there. Rumors become fact very quickly.

This is especially true now that "everyone" has immediate communications technology (cell phones).

There will be a lot of study on this in the Communications and J-Schools -- and a lot of soul searching and new rules and procedures which may or may not work.

Particularlly when you have a deadline to print and distribute... and unfortunately the true story emerged after the story "had gone to press".

I remember on 9-11 how many crazy stories were being reported. I think it's inevitable during a crisis. They were talking about 250 planes being in the air somewhere but nobody knew where they were. They were talking about car bombs outside the White House. There were so many stories. After the OK City bombing, they were suggesting that it was middle eastern terrorists who had done it and it turned out it was homegrown boys. It's not intentional and I don't think it's avoidable, unless they don't tell us anything at all.

... and there still are - my personal pet peeve about "reporting" 9/11 is the continual belief/stories that the terrorists came through Canada... kinda hard to destroy this particular falacy when you have the likes of Newt Gingrich and talking heads on FOXNews continually repeating it...

Sorry, but Major News Reportors only read what Their Editors Print on the Screen that they read.

We All have oppinions dont We?



Oh what was the Canadian that was one heck of a Commentator who died? So He was not Good?

Give Me Andy Rooney, The Curmungion!:cool:

I do Try To Make My Own Decission when I see these Reports.

"Truthiness" has been selected as the 2005 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. The word was made famous by Stephen Colbert, and applies to Dan Rather and his ilk, and the hundreds of newspapers headlining "Miners Live".

Truthiness is "stating concepts and facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."

In the good ole days, we commonly used "them lying newspapers" which means the same as truthiness.

The Governor did not confirm the story. It was some random woman on a cell phone that came running into the fellowship blurting the news that the media picked up on. When the Gov. heard the story he immediatly sought confirmation, but there was none. The media however does not believe in confirming rumors and broadcasted it anyway.

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Why is it that "the media" is viewed as this monolithic entity by some? Does it make it easier for some to define them that way in order to dismiss or "denigrate" them when they see/read something they disagree with - or that is wrong?
<end hijack>

Fact of the matter is that the media is made up of many different people with different views, standards, and even ethics - but the fact remains that stories can take a life of their own; and sometimes deadline can preclude a detailed check of sources when there is a rush to get the story in time.

Even up here some of the initial papers ran with a frontpage proclaiming the miners rescued - because that was the story put on the wire by AP and Rueters reports... that fact that the story wasn't countered for some 3 hours by officials only made the task of changing/stopping the press all the more difficult... and in some cases far to late.

The fact remains however that the story did run - was the story a mistake? Yes. Was the story a lie? No. Problem is here that some folks can't seem to tell the difference when they are on a crusade of sorts...

"He lives, He lives,
Dan Rather lives todayyyyy....
he walks with me
and talks with me,
along life's...."

Sorry.

Not a single person bothered to phone the company. That should have been the minimum.

Deadline is NOT an excuse. EVER.

Didn't say he did.

On the other hand, nobody, including the local/state/federal officials made any kind of official announcement to help bring any kind of light to the subject.

Point is that the "blame" here needs to be spread around.

Nobody handled this case well.

To put the blame entirely on the media is wrong. By the same token, some blame is certainly fair, and there is considerable soul searching going on within the broadcasting and newspaper ranks as to what happened and how to keep it from happening again. News organizations seem to be their own biggest critics at the moment.

That is as it should be.

However, comparisons to this kind of mistake in live coverage to Rather's Memogate aren't even close to apples and oranges. Or, is Mr. Hoosier charging that the media purposfully gave the wrong information last week?

By the way, it might be instructional to poing out that the information that Rather, et al reported about the President's service has never been disproven -- only that it couldn't be proven beyond a doubt either.

Finally, it's interesting to note, that since Memogate, CBS News ratings have taken a fairly dramatic upturn.

Go figure.

They've actually been discussing this since I started J-school in 1999. With internet news sites and blogs that can distribute news instantly, I don't see the "beat the deadline" problem ending anytime soon.

I have figured, as apparently many viewers have, that Rather is gone.

Bob Schiefer is much better = better ratings.