Belatedly I'm posting the link to an interesting thread revived last week by the NYU journalism scholar Jay Rosen on what he criticizes as the uncritical "he said, she said" characteristic of some reporting.
Rosen identified a National Public Radio story in which two conflicting views were granted about the same weight. In his view, one of those parties was lacking in credibility, but the journalist seemed to take the view that the audience could decide so.
As he sees it (and has written earlier), this passivity is a problem in journalism. Standards should be high enough to not just give airspace to anyone, and Rosen views it as washing your hands of determining what's true.
In the end, he concludes, it's at the very least lame.
Rosen identified a National Public Radio story in which two conflicting views were granted about the same weight. In his view, one of those parties was lacking in credibility, but the journalist seemed to take the view that the audience could decide so.
As he sees it (and has written earlier), this passivity is a problem in journalism. Standards should be high enough to not just give airspace to anyone, and Rosen views it as washing your hands of determining what's true.
In the end, he concludes, it's at the very least lame.
