Journalists: You Can Control The World 16
Journalists have the power to control the world!
“What are you on about?”
I’ll explain!
When you are a journalist, your power is to inform the public on matters. As seen in recent events in the world, what you read online you generally believe. Most people don’t do any extra research.
So, if you are a journalist, you can inform everyone who reads what you write.
This can be a great task, but if you are not in the business to inform but just as a job, then you aren’t going to exactly care about this.
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing about this. So I’ll tell you.
Recently in my town we had a vote on letting individuals hunt our deer population. I know! It’s so crazy and so dangerous. Any sane individual could see that. I’m not going to bore you with the details but essentially it lets people hunt during a large period of time as long as you have a license. This could end so badly.
Our local newspaper, which is used in 3 local towns and is quite well read, especially by the older residents in town, printed an article on the day of the vote saying the vote had failed, and even quoted representatives on saying they wish it had passed.
If you weren’t active in the town and knew the up-to-date information, you’d believe this and not be worried.
You should be!
This vote, in fact, hadn’t even occurred when the newspapers were distributed, occurring that evening, and has misinformed so many individuals on a potentially dangerous situation.
Now, for a lot of things, you can easily fix this by posting on social media and such, informing the public of the mistake and the reprint. However, this paper has no website, and their social media has posted nothing of the sorts.
Sloppy journalism at its finest!
You never post an article about a vote before it happens! A true newspaper would know about the vote and make sure they had someone there to get information. Especially for a front page article.
The reason I am writing this small rant today is to make sure you know your sources.
You can trust places like the NY Times and Wall Street Journal for your information, but even then make sure you read up to know all angles.
But your local paper? A small website you read?
You cannot always trust these sites.
I used to think that if you were a newspaper you had to be decent to get published.
Apparently this is not the case.
Moral of the story: check your sources and double check information before you act on something.
