Thanks to Heidi Dawley at Media Life Magazine for this article featuring her friend and longtime investigative reporter Nick Davies. Mr. Davies has just written a book. It's entitled, "Flat Earth News." In it, and in Ms. Dawley's article, he asserts......most journalists in much of the developed world are in the business of recycling stories fed to them by the public relations industry and the news wires.
Just his opinion? Not really. A University study of five British newspapers over a two week period showed that only 12 percent of 2,027 stories were original. I'm beggin' ya, 'Stop the Presses.'
Mr. Davies has coined the term 'churnalism.' Reporters are churning out stories to fill bigger news holes, but with less staff and no free time to do any original work. They don't fact check much either, for lack of time. They are fed stories by PR people and wire services. These get accepted as fact.
The reporters know better. We readers know better. Which is why every day when I come to work, all day, the newspapers left here in the morning at this small office complex remain in their wrappers on the walkway. At the end of the week the landlord, Doug, picks them up and trashes them.
At home, my 96-year-old father gets two papers every day. In each, he finds the crossword and puts the rest of everything else in a brown bag from the grocery store which goes out to the curb every Tuesday for recycling. You could say that he, like the reporters, is simply recycling the news.
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