What ever happened to critical thinking skills, and editing, in journalism?
I was reading our local paper at breakfast. Apparently there was a massacre in our town in 1903.
The hero of the story is a guy named George Fredricks. George Fredricks moved his family to this town in 1900.
George was a former slave.
His family was the first black family to settle here.
He opened up a barber shop.
The article said, “It is not known if the barber shop was segregated.”
* Dutchess looks up from her reading and stares dead pan in to the camera. *
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Then there was this gem from the Wichita Eagle a couple of years ago.
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23 Answers
Took me a moment to catch the segregation line. That’s funny.
There used to be a job called copy editor. My dad was one when I was about 6. The reporters sent their stories to the copy editors, who corrected errors of fact, grammar, spelling and they made improvements for style and clarity. They also wrote the headlines.
That intermediate step has been eliminated at most news outlets. It’s too expensive.
The sad thing was, I don’t think it was meant to be funny! Well, he had 9 kids. I guess he could make a pretty good living charging them to cut their hair.
I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be funny.
But thinking a little more, he could have opened the barber shop in later years, when more black families had arrived. The reporter was imagining the situation at the time, too bad they didn’t look into it and expand on the thought.
No, he opened the shop when he moved here, In later years he became a cop. He actually moved up in ranks to a fairly prominent position. That’s how he ended up being the hero. But I don’t know the rest of the story. They’re printing it in segments.
I was going to put that info in but I figured it would be too much information, and it wasn’t really necessary for the story / punch line.
LOLL!!! Right? I dropped a line on my local paper’s FB page. ;)
This is what I want my family history to sound like. It may be interesting but it seems that the best part is well hidden.
The precipitous decline in editorial standards is about what you should expect with the collapse of print journalism. It’s the wasting away of newspapers that is the actual crisis in the country. And of course it’s the the flyover parts of the nation, already distinguished for ignorance and deprivation-the places most desperately in need of local newspapers where the rot is most pronounced. As with all of the other dry rot associated with the dumbing down of the country, the loss of our newspapers to blogs, tweets and FOX is one of those little symptoms we ignore as we are dazzled by the loud & shiny stuff.
@Dutchess_III Off the top of my head that come to my mind is “what ever happened to Journalism”? As well as critical thinking and editing.
Seems to be journalism in general is collapsing @stanleybmanly . You find this same ridiculous stuff in on-line journals too.
What happened was the internet, cable “news” and the 24/7 demand for content.
Corporate media overlords are suspicious of non-corrupted intelligent people. The mainstream media monopoly has removed the need (according to the string-pullers) for real journalism.
If a journalist, using what we may refer to as traditional skills and abilities, can not generate sales revenue for the publication, the editorial staff management has a duty to the publisher corporate ownership to make changes.
Ok, still not sure what your point is @Strauss. A publication that is full of typos and sloppily written is going to lose revenue.
“A publication that is full of typos and sloppily written is going to lose revenue.”
A million internet sites prove that wrong each and every day.
OK. I was referring to serious journalism. Not blogs and conspiracy theories.
There are only a handful of what I would call “serious journalism” sites. Not a million.
@Dutchess_III A publication that is full of typos and sloppily written is going to lose revenue.
Not if they’re in the sensation business. The print media are seen by many to be archaic holdovers from the pre-digital world. There is so much competition amongst online media that a catchy headline gets clicks and eyeballs regardless of the quality of the content.
You know I love ya, girl!
Serious journalism is not in the sensation business.
Serious journalism is in the same business as any other kind – the business of turning a profit. As such they will do what they need to draw in readership and sell ad space, including sensationalism. This is more true now than ever thanks to a non-stop news cycle that demands a constant stream of content in order to hold the viewer’s attention.
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