Responsible Journalism

Do they report the news or create it? I can think of many occassions where thay have created it. A good journalist can do some much good and a bad journalist the oppostite.

That is very true. I am sure you can recall incidents where journalist have affected outcomes.

That is not to say there are no good reputable journalist out there, who are probably appaled by the actions of some of their colleagues.

Good to see the NOTW being stung for 200 grand.

One of the bigger stories that was not quite all that it at first seemed was the 1990 creation by Hill & Knowlton involving the fictious Nurse Nayirah who claimed to have witnessed

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Iraqi soldiers dumping Kuwaiti infants out of their incubators "on[to] the cold floor to die," and then leaving with the machines

Although this story was not created by journalist it was given wings by them and then flashed around the world in an attempt to gather ratings and feed a news hungry public. The attack on Perl Harbour happen and one could say that it contributed to the US entering WW2 wheras Nurse Nayirah was just a fiction but it drew the US into GW1.

NOTH Vs Hill & Knowlton? I think I know who won but in both reports journalism lost.

Nurse Nayirah

Roy,

thanks for that info. I had a girlfriend who worked for Hill & Knowlton in London and I had never heard of that story nor some of the other stuff on the Widepedia entry for H&K. She did PR for Kellogs who I knw were always twisting research. I wish I had known about the nurse Nayirah thing as I could have teased here remorsely about about it. Most of her colleagues did large amounts of cocaine as I recall and were self obsessed. PR and journalist - not my favourite people.

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PR and journalist - not my favourite people.

But they do make exceedingly good bedfellows.

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Originally posted by Roy T:

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PR and journalist - not my favourite people.

But they do make exceedingly good bedfellows.

I've never tried a journalist Roy.

They’re only as good as their last “man bites dog” story. So the quest for banality continues unabated. The pity of it is that we seem to love gobbling it up so in effect we get the standard of journalism we deserve.

Cheers

Eric, I did have some nice thoughts concerning Haydn Gwynne when watching her in Drop the Dead Donkey but that was fiction not friction.

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Do they report the news or create it?

Good point, too often the latter I fear. Especially now they need to fill 24 hour news channels. Survey results on surveys they themselves commissioned etc. Blatant plugs for their own programmes masquerading as news items.....

Maybe the title of this thread can be added to the list of oxymorons.

A point of interest in the incubator story is that the father of the witness 'nurse' was the then ambassador of Kuwait, who later became minister of information in Kuwait where he had the honor to reveal Saddam's assassination plot against Bush sr, proof of which was very convincing and very made up.