No Edit on Redditt I’m reposting a contribution from Catherine Tsalikis, a young reporter I met in London. She’d asked me for advice about our weird business and, as often happens in such instances, ended up telling me more than I could tell her. She is a perfect example of how things ought to work: she masters all the new tools and toys but does not confuse them with the essential element: the message. You can’t just put stuff out there. Subsequent correction is never enough. Whether simply misguided or flatly malicious, wrong is wrong. As in this case, someone pays a heavy price. And in every case, we all pay. A fresh Pew poll confirms what we all know. “Journalists” in America rank down somewhere between lawyers and snake shit in terms of public confidence. There is the generality problem. We all know noble, upright lawyers. (In fact, some of my best friends…) We know others who make a puff adder look good. But bar associations keep watch on the profession, sanctioning egregious violations. “Journalists” have no such controls in America. This is good, of course. Happily, the besieged First Amendment still lets anyone speak up. But… Whether reporting is a profession, a craft, or a just a job, we need to enforce our own standards. How, of course, is an open question. We can’t really send Fat Tony around with a baseball bat, tempting as that might sometimes be. At least each of us can work hard to maintain our own credibility. And for the readers, it’s the old rule: caveat lector. nytimes/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html?pagewanted=1&hp&_r=0
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:13:26 +0000
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