Last week was not the best of weeks for the news media, both legacy and social. There was a lot of good reporting going on, but there were also a number of high profile screw ups that happened on the national stage in front of everyone. And to be fair, few industries conduct their business as publicly as journalists do. With that in mind, here’s a round-up of stories about last week’s journalistic misfires:
- Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza tells us “What the Boston bombings taught me about journalism.”
Some real food for thought here from @TheFix. Main points:
1 – Better safe than sorry.
2. Twitter is a reporter’s best friend… until it’s not.
3. Primary sources matter…
4. … and so do good reporters.Required reading. - Boston Globe’s Damon Kiesow on how the ‘controlled explosion’ story went crazy on Twitter
Great Storify account by @dkiesow on how a Twitter notification that police would be setting off ‘controlled explosions’ turned into a ‘false flag’ conspiracy story. - CNN – Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources looks at what went wrong covering Boston.
Video story on how CNN, Fox, NBC the AP, the Boston Globe, and the New York Post handled the Boston story. - Local columnist has good critique of media coverage but quotes fictional news anchor.
Oops. - But NBC’s Pete Williams getting widespread acclaim for getting it right
This story is from the Huffington Post, but there’s a lot of praise out there for NBC justice correspondent Pete Williams not only getting the story right about the Boston bombing but also being willing to admit what he didn’t know — which may have been just as important. - NPR’s On The Media takes a wide-ranging look at coverage of the bombing
Stories cover the legacy media, Twitter, broadcasting through a crisis, listener reaction, and how Runner’s World magazine covered the bombing.
And finally, Neil Diamond leads crowd at Fenway Park in Sweet Caroline Saturday.