Poor Journalism

[Jimmyjamjars]

Pisspoor Journalism

This has nothing to do with Property but I thought I would relate this story to you. Earlier this week, a friend of mine's son was seriously injured in an accident. He was on the road and was struck by a car driven by a mate. He is in a serious condition in a hospital in Brisbane and our wishes are with him. However, a story appeared in our local paper about it saying he "succumbed to the injuries and passed away". How bad is that! How much research did the journalist do on this subject. Did he make so much as a phone call. An apology has been printed in today's paper but, on a matter this serious, I can't help but wonder how many people who know this boy read the story and thought the worst. It was unnecessary if the journo had done some bloody research.
Sorry forum, but it made me wild.
(Jim stepping down from the soap box)
JIM

 

[DaveP]

The more you deal with the Media.. the more you come to expect not the real story.

It has to sound exciting else its not good news...

Not the best way to make headlines...



Dave P

 

[Olly]

Some years ago I went to my cousins funeral. He was only 23 and had fallen off a cliff. My sister & I stopped at the local shop to buy smokes before making our way to the cemetary, and while we were waiting to be served I perused the magazines etc.

Imagine my horror when I saw on the front page of the local rag a picture of my cousins crumpled body laying on the rocks and the headline "Local Man Falls Off Cliff". As local rags are usually delivered to your home as well, there was no way I could protect his Mum & Dad and sister from seeing this.

I wrote to the paper and blasted the hell out of them and you guessed it - never got a reply and to the best of my knowledge they never printed an apology.

Olly

 

[Jakk]

Here's another close to home.....

Late last year I attended a council meeting where a planning application I had made was going up before council as the planners had made a recommendation that the permit be refused.

I presented my submission and the long and the short of it was that a planning permit was issued but with some conditions.

Two days later, I am reading the local paper with a full rundown on the council meeting and it went into great detail about what was said on the night of the meeting and also stated that a permit had been granted with conditions and it went on and detailed the conditions...........but the paper had got the conditions totally wrong. I was going to call them, but I figured the less publicity about the development, the better, and didn't bother.

Next day I receive the permit from the council in the mail and lo and behold, the conditions on the permit are exactly as the paper had reported, not as the council had decided.

Naturally I rang the planner I had been dealing with, who had not been at the council meeting that night as only one planner from the department attends these meetings and informed him that the conditions that were on the permit were not the conditions that council had imposed but they were the incorrect conditions that the local paper had printed.
He said he would check the notes from the meeting and get back to me.

That afternoon he personally delivered to me, the corrected permit with the correct conditions.

Seems to me that he read the paper first, typed up the permit and never bothered to check the meeting notes.

One should never underestimate the Power of the Press.


regards

 

[brains]

Heres another one.

About 6 years ago, my wife's mother died of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) from a long flight from Europe. A certain Sydney tabloid was sensationalising the DVT thing at the time and contacted the family, as they are Italian i spoke to the paper and i said "i'll agree to a story as long as you dont mention the mothers' or families name".

Sure enough in a couple of days, the story was printed, some minor details were wrong and they DID print the families name. I contacted the journalist directly and reminded her of our "agreement" and she replied "it was in the public interest to mention the family name" and "its too late now, its printed"

Yeah Right!!.......I was so p....... off, if she had told me that in person , i would have regretted my actions.
I dont trust the media anymore, almost as much as i dont trust RE agents