Monday, August 20, 2012

All Media Criticism is Now Superfluous

Newsweek's response to dozens of people pointing out that their cover story is utter crap:
"We, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material. "
This is not a suicide note. It's a neighbor saying "Newsweek? Oh, they died years ago. Be nice if somebody went in and cleaned the place out. Smell's not as bad as it used to be."

Kind of makes my whole media criticism project a bit rough, doesn't it? Rather than shaming their employers into enforcing standards, they'll just cut loose anybody that gets too hot to handle & ignore the rest.



Twain wept. Mencken drank.

The Rolled Up Newspaper wishes Megan McArdle a happy few months, fun & pratfalls, before the joint closes.

Update: Newsweek has collected the responses. They only found 2 supporters, and they're pretty lame. No hint yet that they're going to do the right thing - have every copy mulched. 

6 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

"We, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material. "

It's not working out so well for the Washington Post, either.
~

freq flag said...

What?

"Not intended to be a factual statement" is no longer the Get Out Of Jail Free card it used to be?

Jeez, you people...

Downpuppy said...

Hey, comments! Awesome.

I'm looking forward to seeing how other magazines react to the allegation that nobody else has a fact checking department, either.

Anonymous said...

"nobody else has a fact checking department, either. "

Reminds me of grocery chains advertising that they would double any other chain's coupons and then all of them neglecting to print any coupons of their own.

Susan of Texas said...

Did you read Coates' discription of the Atlantic's fact-checking?

Downpuppy said...

Interesting....

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/in-praise-of-fact-checkers/261368/

I'm not convinced this actually is the trend. I'd be shocked if Esquire, GQ, ESPN, Elle, Marie Claire etc. didn't fact-check their features. It would be a really bad idea for us to adopt the book publishing world's culture of passing the buck.

Having seen Nina & Jane on Project Runway, I'm damn sure Marie Claire has zero tolerance.