More on Media “He Said-She Said”
RT readers are no stranger to me giving our local media a hard time for the “he said-she said” reporting we often see. See my comment on the Messenger Post’s article on Tom Hasman. I’m partially sympathetic– they’re part of a downsized corporate culture that is asking them to do more with less. Plus, as a local, irate reporter commented here:
Don’t forget to make sure every one of your stories has the requisite two sides, the requisite number of quoted minority sources, hits the right age and wealth demographic and takes no more than one-third your eight-hour workday to produce.
The GOP has long realized they could exploit this loophole, as GOP congresswoman Michelle Bachman recently tried:
Remember, Republicans have been able to score cheap points for a long time by playing to the media’s sense of “fairness”. Hence, the “he said, she said” tradition arose. As a reporter, you couldn’t write “the sky is blue” without getting “the other side” of the story to tell you “the sky is purple”. Truth and fact are irrelevant.
And in the old world, blatant lies like this could be easily covered up. A reporter catches you saying something stupid? Who cares! Just lie and deny it. At that point it becomes a “he said, she said” question, and people will shrug their shoulders unable to independently determine who is right.
With respect to that article about Hasman and the clerk’s race, what does it take to help the traditional media move beyond the he-said/she-said? What can we do? I’m open to ideas.
Related posts:
I think we’re doing it. I find the mainstream media worse-than-useless for any news so I turn to RT and other sources for the depth of their reporting and the responsiveness when I need more information.
Like what’s recently on my mind: PriceRite. Who the heck are they? All I got from on Channel 8 was a slap-dash segment with some exterior shots of the place and a few people of varying ethnicities talking about how they need to save money. It’s not like I could call Channel 8 and ask them to provide better reporting.
Had it been on RT or something similar, I could have posted a comment [exactly like this:] where I note that I turned to the Internet and first looked for negative impressions of their labor practices, but widened the search to simply get a perspective on the company. Come to find out, it’s an American-owned cooperative of supermarkets whose lineage goes back to ShopRite. (Still no word on whether they keep their prices low like Wal-Mart by treating their workers poorly, but it’s a start.)
I think the slow and steady pressure of things like RT — whose goals (whether explicit or not) appear to revolve around blatantly biased but otherwise fair and complete coverage (i.e. the whole story) — is going to draw more and more readers/viewers until mainstream media realizes their “news” divisions should never have been converted to profit centers.
In other words, I see no way to “save” mainstream news.