If you can control what people know, then you can control what they think.
Author: David G Alm
Interviewing people is both a science and an art.
Basically, if there’s violence, conflict or death involved, it gets top billing. Nowhere is this more true than in television news, which coined the expression, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Simple: by maintaining journalistic integrity. But sometimes, that’s easier said than done.
From a technical standpoint, it’s harder. But the problem may run deeper.
Yes, that’s how we survived before the web. But there’s more to say about it than just that.
Not if it’s done right. Selecting only a phrase or even a single word from what a source said to use in a verbatim quote doesn’t mean the reporter is fundamentally misrepresenting what the source said.
Yes, but not always. Stories change, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t report what we know at any given time. Other times, it’s better to wait.
Yes, and it gets messy. Fortunately it doesn’t happen that often.
It can be, but not typically, and no, serious errors don’t happen that often – at reputable news outlets, anyway.
