Quote:
Originally Posted by TiltonBB
It is interesting to note the changes in the quality of reporting when you travel around the country. The major markets (Boston, New York, Chicago Etc.) have more money to attract the top talent. The stutters and hiccups are a lot less prevalent at that level. It is a food chain with most reporters aspiring to get to the top but there are so few top tier positions compared to all the rest that it is very competitive and difficult to get there.
It is also interesting to see reporting such as when a 6 wheel truck has an accident and reporter says it "jackknifed" or when a front end loader is involved with snow removal and the reporter calls it a bulldozer. These types of misstatements happen often but many of the reporters went to journalism school and went right to work in the TV business after they graduated. They have not been out living life in the real world and their exposure to it has been limited.
|
I agree with your first paragraph, but your second seems to miss some fundamental issues. First, journalism is a profession in and of itself, just like teaching, the law, policing, etc. The whole idea is that they learn how to write about topics on which they have little personal experience. Second, even if we take your point that it would be good to have personal experience on a topic before writing, your solution would create an impossible set of logistics--we get a trucker to write about jackknifes, a builder to write about development, a policeman to write about crime, etc. How many folks are working in this newsroom? When did any of them take the time to get good at writing? Aren't they all even more biased than the reporters we complain about today?