The Employment of Frauds Jeopardizes American Journalism
At the end of July, the New Yorker’s Jonah Lehrer was outed for fabrication. A couple of weeks later, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria was discovered plagiarizing. With two of journalism’s brightest stars imploding like supernovae in the span of a month, it’s only fair us lilliputians get the pleasure of watching their luminous careers burst into radioactive rubble–right? The problem, as Boston.com’s Mark Leccese sees it, is that we haven’t.
Rather than shot-putting their overheated egos across the Milky Way, three of journalism’s most reputed institutions–Wired, Time and CNN–have been coddling them like overprotective mothers.
First, after Lehrer had already resigned in shame from the New Yorker, Wired refused to cut ties on the grounds he hadn’t fabricated anything written for them. Then, after initially suspending Zakaria, both Time and CNN quickly decided to reinstate him following review. Time described his extensive plagiarism as “an unintentional error.”
Let the head-scratching commence.
If “nothing is more important to journalism, as a profession and as part of society, than reputation,” as Leccese, a journalism professor at Emerson College, believes, then Wired, Time and CNN’s behavior is inexcusable.
What kind of message are you sending about journalism as an institution when you permit frauds to write the news? What sort of trust does that legitimately allow people to have in the media?
What the decisions of Wired, Time and CNN suggest is that money matters more to them than ethics. So long as Lehrer and Zakaria continue to sell papers and advertisements, they’ll continue to be published and broadcast on a television near you. Hopefully, when the two finally re-emerge, the American people won’t be too eager to listen.
Share this article
You might also like:
Comments
Latest Posts
Tumblr to Yahoo: Make My Day
May 17th, 2013Is the social blogging site Tumblr about to sell out?
Ad Week’s Mike Shields has the story that Tumblr has been having negotiations about being acquired by Yahoo.
As Shields reports, a deal could make sense for both companies:
“Yahoo is in serious talks with Tumblr to acquire the social blogging site, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The deal is not done, but could reach as high as $1 billion, Adweek has learned. Allthingsd.com was first to report on the talks between the two companies.”
Trial By Facebook: A Dangerous Virtual Path
May 17th, 2013I’m a criminal for being a woman, a journalist and someone with the temerity to walk into a bar.
In a fascinating study of both Facebook and freedom, Amnesty International New Zealand launched “Trial by Facebook,” which examines your profile, scours your timeline and “interrogates” yourfriends to find out what you’d be punished for posting, all around the
world. The app came out several months ago, but it’s been making waves
online this week.
Using my own Facebook page as a guinea pig, I found myself convicted 161 times, in 73 countries, for 13 crimes. Literally dodging a bullet, the
contents of my profiles weren’t tawdry enough to get me beheaded or shot dead, but I would be killed by extremists 22 times, sexually assaulted 16 times, imprisoned 58 times and beaten 73 times–and that’s just the beginning of the terror.
Google Plus Pointers, Twitter Fools
May 16th, 2013Tatiana Aders of Social Media News has made my day. If you don’t quite get how to use Google Plus, help is here:
“Google Plus has some of the most robust posting & sharing capabilities of any social network. From rich snippets to photo editing to individual circles, there are so many features that can make your post stand out from the pack. Here are some highlights from a cheat sheet that I built to get the most out of Google Plus posts.”
LinkedIn’s Latest Edict: Hookers Not Welcome
May 16th, 2013Attention ladies of the night and other interested parties: LinkedIn is taking a harder stance against prostitution.
As Mashable noted this week, the job-networking site has altered the language of its user agreement to expressly prohibit people from promoting escort services or prostitution on its pages.
Amy’s Baking Co. Social Media TIRADE
May 15th, 2013Amy should have stuck to baking.
The owners of Amy’s Baking Co. suffered what can only be described as an online meltdown after being pummeled on social media sites. And we’re normally sympathetic to anyone who gets beaten up by the mob.
But Amy and Samy Bouglazo poured kerosene on the digital fire.
