No punchline required
The Guardian: Hinton blasts ‘citizen journalists’
News International chairman Les Hinton has accused ‘citizen journalists” of amateurism, misrepresentation and failing to emulate the standards of traditional news organisations.
…
“In New Orleans a lot of bad information came from bloggers and amateur witnesses, all newly empowered with instant communication,” he said. “We must be experts at getting it right and being reliable.”
Mr Hinton, who serves as Rupert Murdoch’s chief lieutenant in London overseeing the Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World, was speaking last night at the opening of the Society of Editors conference in Windermere.
Read that again. “We must be experts at getting it right and being reliable.” Sun and News of the World. “We must be experts at getting it right and being reliable.” Sun and News of the World. “We must be experts at getting it right and being reliable.” Sun and News of the World.
“We must be experts at getting it right and being reliable.”
Sun and News of the World.
Posted on October 17th, 2005 at 9:56 am
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These supposedly superior hacks swallowed “45 minutes to Armageddon” and “ginormous piles of WMD” pretty easily, without asking any pertinent questions of the government or their their own journalistic sources about the method of deployment of target of these terrifying weapons.
Most of them gorged themselves on this excrement- not just the Scum and News of Screws- whipping themselves into a frenzied cluster fuck of FEAR.
Despite people who were qualified to know the truth saying it was bollocks at the time. These professional hacks chose to ignore reality. The million or so people who marched against the war were not so blinkered by corporate/government hospitality as to fall for such fantacies.
It concerns me significantly less that images were doctored to show crocodiles swimming down New Orleans streets than the media letting our self-described “purer than pure” lying government get away with fabricating reasons for war (and the rest of HMG’s obvious, ahem misrepresentations).
His premise is wrong anyway. The rumors about NOLA were swilled by the mainstream media. For the truth, you had to turn to the bloggers and the other tidbits that leaked out.
I will say the Picayune did a marvelous job, though.