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| Horrific Mistakes by Mainstream Media |
The entire newsroom of the The
Boston Globe was treated to pizza last week. The gift card read: “We can
only imagine what an exhausting and heartbreaking week it’s been for you and
your city. But do know your newsroom colleagues here in Chicago and across the
country stand in awe of your tenacious coverage. You make us all proud to be
journalists. We can’t buy you lost sleep, so at least let us pick up your
lunch. – Your friends at the Chicago
Tribune.”
A simple gesture, but powerful at a time when so many media outlets
made horrific mistakes. In the drive to be first after the Boston Marathon
bombing, the gaffes ranged from the New York Post fingering – with Page 1
photos – the wrong bombing suspects, to CNN reporting prematurely an arrest has
been made.
As big as those stumbles were, it was almost as irritating to watch
endless cable coverage – dozens of reporters with so little new to report. We
would hope big national news operations will learn from this debacle, but I’m
pretty sure they won’t.
Throughout it all, the hometown paper, The Globe, covered the big story responsibly and accurately. Like
many newspapers, The Globe has a pay
wall on its website, but it lifted the pay wall for a week so the site was open
to all, from around the world or down the block. It was remarkable and thorough
coverage.
In an age of tweets, social media posts and other technology that
allows “news” to travel almost at the speed of light, The Globe reminds us that we need traditional journalism, too, with
professionals who care about accuracy, responsibility and the community they
serve.
