Why Does Drug Reporting Suck?

5Comments

1. 1.

   ppGaz

   August 11, 2005 at 10:50 am

   Does drug reporting suck more than most other reporting?

   From my perch, it looks like the media, which own the venues, have long ago sold out to ratings and profits. Drug-scare stories sell papers? So do exploding-car stories which hype nonexistant “problems” with police cars. So do Iraq WMD scary stories. So do “opinions differ on shape of earth” stories. So did “Richard Jewell” stories. So do Blonde White Damsel In Distress stories.

2. 2.

   Zifnab

   August 11, 2005 at 12:04 pm

   See, I think I’ve lost sight of what the “media” is. If you mean Time Magazine and CNN and Fox News, then yeah, the media is knee deep in its own excrement. It’s all puff pieces and op-ed and human interest stories with no actual reporting. Even the local media succumbs to it occationally with their “Little girl’s pony makes friends with local chipmunks” pieces.

   But by and large I’ve grown up respecting the Big Three – Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw(sp?), and even Dan Rather – and if you sit back and watch some 60 minutes you’ll see some honest to god investigative journalism. Read a piece in the New York Times or the Washington Post. There’s a reason these newspapers are internationally syndicated. The Associated Press is a fine organization, and when I see AP next to a news story I tend to trust it. And while I’ve seen some crap, fear, and propoganda spewed about the Drug War, I’ve also seen some honest-to-god insight on the issue come out of the MSM. I’ve heard the “man thrown in jail for all eternity cause he was holding more than 6oz of pot” and the “man smokes pot for 20 years, loses job, loses family, lives in alley outside of slum and dies” stories. There’s some good drug reporting out there, you just have to find it. First hint, don’t ask Rush Limbaugh journalists for an investigative report, cause you’re not going to get a good one.

3. 3.

   Matt

   August 11, 2005 at 12:24 pm

   Appropriately enough, I did see a nice bit of drug reporting on a major news outlet, and it was on the Ecstasy special that ran on ABC news hosted by Peter Jennings a little over a year ago. They came right out and said that the government was lying about the dangers of the drug. I was shocked, and came away with a bit more respect for Jennings after that.

4. 4.

   Defense Guy

   August 11, 2005 at 2:34 pm

   You could go the extreme cynical route and state that the illicit drug trade, which competes with the legal one, buys no advertising space in any MSM publication, that I am aware of.

5. 5.

   Scott Chaffin

   August 12, 2005 at 12:54 am

   Can Shafer hold two thoughts in his head at one time? Last week, he was moaning about newspaper readers and their imbecilic lack of belief in their local papers. Now he’s moaning about reporters who…wait for it…probably shouldn’t be believed.