Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:18 am
#1573392
A further issue is that many journalists (and photographers, these days often the same as cameras of adequate quality have become cheaper and lighter) are not employed but freelance. They will be paid only if their submission is used. This in my experience seems to be the norm of almost all in local papers, many in local independent TV and radio, and quite a few used regularly or occasionally by national papers and national independent broadcasting. Their only chance of getting a highly valued paid staff job is to generate a big portfolio of submissions used. This creates a great incentive to sensationalise both content and draft headline (latter may be changed by subeditor, but the requirement is to catch the subeditor's eye in the first place), to include 'exclusive' and sometimes gory details by being the first to get quotes (or make them up, or grossly to distort what was actually said), preferably blaming some identifiable entity, ideally someone in authority or the public eye.
In my experience, the 'newsroom'-trained people at BBC, TV and radio and website, national and local, are largely free of these traits, and their subject matter experts are just that, trying to get things both accurate and fair. This is often not true of the anchors of the flagship programmes, not of the correspondents which the producers and editors of those programmes appoint or use, bypassing the newsroom. It did improve after Hutton, but I sense that standards may be declining again.
(mere guide at) Jet Age Museum, Gloucestershire Airport
http://www.jetagemuseum.org/TripAdvisor Excellence Award 2015
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction ... gland.html