Feeling Misquoted? Weblogs, Transcripts Let The Reader Decide
from the increased-openness dept
Mark Glazer over at OJR has written about a series of very recent cases where folks online have shown how reporters have taken quotes out of context to further their own stories (in some cases to the point where they completely changed the meaning of the quote). He points out that, thanks to online transcripts and resourceful bloggers, many of these misquotes are quickly being discovered and exposed. He wonders if journalists are just getting worse - or (much more likely) they've always been this bad. Hopefully, this increased level of openness will make reporters (and editors) think twice about repackaging an out of context quote for the sake of sensationalistic journalism.
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Cuts both ways
For now, bloggers are patting themselves on the back for playing the watch dog/underdog role, but we'll see what happens when people start performing conspiracies by blogging -- e.g. a journalist who did quote correctly is accused by multiple bloggers of misquoting.
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Re: Cuts both ways
It's certainly not a perfect way of doing things, but it's more likely to get out the full story.
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Re: Cuts both ways
I'm not so sure. If the story takes place in a setting that is difficult to verify, it's easy for bloggers to make up a "full story". It will be easy for professional propagandists to infiltrate the web culture and make up realistic-sounding stories. We may be entering an era of a credibility crisis, in which nobody is trusted to have an objective view.
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Re: Cuts both ways
Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it? If the story is difficult to verify, then it raises doubts.
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Fake photos too
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Reporting truth
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