I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media, and seeing how incredibly inaccurate media articles are. Anytime I read an article about a subject I actually have first-hand knowledge of, it reaffirms the lesson.
> I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media,
Even better: Saying something to a reporter, and then reading what you supposedly said within quotation marks. (Although perhaps my data is old and things have gotten better since adequate interview-recording equipment is now on every smartphone.)
Yes, trying to give any sort of nuanced answer to a reporter is almost hopeless.
For instance if you say: "Plan ABC is good, however the specific concerns are X, Y, and Z. If care is not taken in how these issued are addressed it will likely be a very expensive failure".
The article will appear as: PLAN HAS BROAD SUPPORT. _red says, "Plan ABC is good".
Or if the writer is in a different mood: PLAN IS NOT GOOD. _red said "The unaddressed issues in this plan will likely make it a very expensive failure!"
I sat down with a reporter and literally watched him type out my words, and corrected his article as he wrote it, and made damn sure exactly what I said was written on his screen... and the final article still managed to wildly misquote me. Nothing to do with incompetence (or lack of recording equipment), everything to do with making things fit an interesting narrative.
Nope, it hasn't gotten better. I don't think I've been quoted precisely any time I've spoken with a reporter. The "quote" is usually the gist of what I said, so it's not a big deal, but sometimes the paraphrased version is different enough to change the meaning of what was actually said.
That is very true, but you also have to keep in mind the flip side of this. The people who know the most about a subject, including ourselves, are likely the ones who will be most biased about it.
Not saying that is exactly what happened in the NYT piece, but that is certainly feasible in situations like this. The first person who writes the article is the person who was on duty in the newsroom or its virtual equivalent when the news broke. They don't know the details or history of the greater issue, so they stick to reporting the facts. Later, journalists with more domain expertise rewrite and add to the story. Maybe in this instance they are already knowledgeable about Reddit's questionable history with sexism. They see a story about a sexist website deposing a female CEO who is a controversial figure in gender relations (for lack of a better term). Suddenly the story gets reframed with that in mind. The extra opinion is only added because they know more about the subject.
In this case, Mike Isaac, the original writer, seems to have a good amount of domain expertise, as starting last week he has been posting frequently on Reddit in an official role, discussing/answering questions about his reporting on the site. (Also claims to have been a redditor for five years, presumably on some other account.)
Oddly, all of his official account's posts have been in the GamerGate subreddit.
Again, what does this say about an ideology that sees someone writing for a giant publication as "tainted" simply for posting in a certain Subreddit, even if he largely agrees with them?
The people who know the most about a subject, including ourselves, are likely the ones who will be most biased about it.
Which isn't necessarily any worse than the external bias that the reporter/editor may have when covering a subject. And that bias is amplified coming from a place of ignorance.
That happened to me: years ago, '60 Minutes' did a hit piece on a friend at work, and I knew that the story was far from the truth. First hand knowledge in that case turned me off of watching '60 Minutes' in the future and helped me develop the habbit of second sourcing stories, preferably from news media in different countries.
witnessing something first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media
You don't even need to read about it elsewhere. Your own recollection of the details of events you witnessed is usually very malleable. It's one reason why eyewitness testimony needs to be treated carefully. E.g. from Wikipedia[1]:
Memory recall has been considered a credible
source in the past, but has recently come under
attack as forensics can now support psychologists
in their claim that memories and individual
perceptions are unreliable; being easily
manipulated, altered, and biased.
To write accurately about something that you don't understand is hard. You either have to be very vague or take the time required.
If anything, the internet allows you to publish revisions of the original article, allowing you to correct your mistakes. Very hard to do with the traditional newspaper.
note: I am not a journalist, but I have worked with journalists.
I agree with you as it reaffirms to me how inaccurate media articles are. There are few to no news resources that provide in-depth investigative journalism. The internet makes the news slower because I check multiple diverse sources, and often the report, bias, story is different. It's interesting.
I also see where the story/article is continuously updated by mainstream internet news agencies to fix inaccuracies, spelling, grammar, reduce liability, change the title, change the entire story, change the bias, etc...
The comments are almost always more interesting than the actual news report, and can often provide a more accurate report of what actually happened. What were once former respectable news organizations doing investigative reporting no longer exist. We cannot expect "journalism" when reading news on the internet, we need to do that work ourselves.
When I started reporting for my college newspaper this jumped out at me immediately and it was maddening. So I recorded every interview I did, and then had to transcribe the quotes. It took forever, so I guess I can see how it isn't feasible in the professional world, but it never seemed right.
To be fair, that's not just true of "media" - try talking to a person with third hand knowledge compared to first hand knowledge. It's more a human phenomenon than just a 'media' phenomenon.
