Comments for Bloggerheads

Comment on News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact by mediawatch

mediawatch — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:32:58 +0000

what about the reporter Tom Vanden Brook for USA Today who gained national notoriety when he inaccurately reported and was at fault for publishing in USA Today a Headline story that the The Sago Mine disaster victims were found alive, when in fact the 12 miners were not alive and only one miner survived.
Tom Vanden Brook's USA Today headline story read, “‘Alive!’ Miners Beat the Odds,” over a photo of two smiling women with pictures of relatives of miners they believed had been found alive after reading Tom Vanden Brook's headline news story. The stark evidence of a rush to get a story without verifying the most important aspect of the story, and with tragic and heart-wrenching results created a major controversy. USA Today was up against a deadline, but it was still an inexcusable error.

The disaster received extensive news coverage worldwide. After Tom Vanden Brook released the incorrect information, many media outlets, including the New York Times, then reported that 12 survivors had been found alive, when only one of the thirteen trapped miners survived.

Vanden Brook's also inaccurately reported “The men were taken by ambulances to a nearby hospital for examination; when in actuality there was no word on the miners’ condition.” The writer of that story, Tom Vanden Brook, also had a feature story on page three of USA Today, which said, “The survivors were taken by ambulance to a local hospital for examination.” When in actuality, none of this ever happened.

In fairness, USA Today did reflect upon Tom Vandenbrook's misreporting the following day, and noted the error about the ambulances, but offered no explanation for it. It did offer a detailed explanation, however, about how the media got the “miners alive” part of the story wrong.

Its terrible that reporters get away with this!!!

Comment on Open letter to Bell Pottinger by icicle

icicle — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:14:35 +0000

Is there a chance that Bilcat (who no longer exists on Wikipedia) was Bell Pottinger? I have no idea how one would check this out. He appears to be from the US, so maybe not.

Comment on News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact by Guano

Guano — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:17:11 +0000

This is the crux of the matter. Journalists getting in the way of a police investigation and ……… nothing happens. If NOTW behaved in this way it is probably because experience told them that they could do so without any any risk, which suggests that this had happened before and …… nothing happened. So what was the deal? Or are powerful organistaions like NI now simply considered as being beyondthe reach of the law?

Comment on News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact by rob

rob — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:31:55 +0000

Yes, some people lost their jobs because those at the top wanted to put the matter "in a box" . That is a capitalist's right to do with their company as they wish; many people have lost their jobs as a result of a few unregulated bankers. But how does a similar problem in a public service i.e. a police force get resolved when those at the top at are all involved and democracy is all tied up with vested interests?

Comment on News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact by Neuroskeptic

Neuroskeptic — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:46:02 +0000

You think THIS is bad? The Guardian wrote an article that was only 99% true, and it resulted in this fine paper being closed down, in a surge of knee-jerk reaction of the kind that the NoTW would never in a lifetime have tried to whip up about anything.

The fact is that many fine journalists lost their jobs when the NoTW closed down. Well, OK, many journalists. Well, OK, many people. But the point is, they lost their job, just because the Guardian revealed the truth, and that is the most shocking thing of all. For shame.

Comment on News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact by rob

rob — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:37:07 +0000

Any idea as to which police forces in the UK were not able to respond adequately to the power wielded by News International and which could therefore perform efficient independent reviews of other forces? I am sure that there are very good policemen doing a very good job in most of these forces but are they the ones at the top?

Comment on The PR Transparency Project – Part 1: making an example of Tim Bell by David Gerard

David Gerard — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:08:37 +0000

If you can secure author permission, you can just put up a mirrorable copy. This worked quite well for Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller - he even released a pile of the original interviews to go with it. Every digital native knows the way to preserve something is to have lots of copies available ...

Comment on The PR Transparency Project – Part 1: making an example of Tim Bell by Tim_Ireland

Tim_Ireland — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:05:37 +0000

This is true, but Wikipedia is powered by people, most of whom will not have access to the text within this book. That's about to change. Key extracts will be going live on multiple websites shortly. In fact, I just finished scanning, and I'm right now batch-tidying the files ready for arrangement into chapter-specific folders. :o)

Comment on The PR Transparency Project – Part 1: making an example of Tim Bell by David Gerard

David Gerard — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:52:58 +0000

Just a note on Wikipedia – it doesn't require sources to be online – it just requires the source to exist. This is a published paper source that passed UK libel muster, so it would almost certainly be sufficient.

Comment on Tim Bell – rogues and vagabonds and bare… oh my! by Tim_Ireland

Tim_Ireland — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:43:30 +0000

I think we all deserve a chance at rehabilitation… but Bell's journey hasn't even started yet by the looks of things.