12 dirty little secrets of journalism. A thread:
1. When a reporter writes a warm human-interest story about a politician, it’s often an attempt to soften up the pol to get a better story later. Stories that make pols look good are known in the business as “beat sweeteners.”— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) January 10, 2023
Ex-editor at Chicago Tribune & Sun-Times, now allowed to have opinions:
2. Sometimes an anonymous source in a news story is the main person the story is about.
3. When journalists use the phrase “observers say,” it sometimes means they didn’t get anyone on the record but thought it was true, so they put the idea out there anyway. The “observers” might be anyone — lobbyists or drinking buddies.
4. When a public figure makes an accusation against another public figure but offers no evidence, responsible journos hesitate to repeat it. But if they can get the accused to deny it, they’re comfortable reporting it — even with no evidence.
5. When news outlets write “Inside” headlines (such as “Inside Kari Lake’s war room”), it often means they didn’t find a new fact worthy of a headline, so they teased instead. An “Inside” headline is a red flag that the reporting was disappointing.
6. When a news organization is making a politician or party look bad, it often jumps at the chance to overplay anything that makes the other side look bad so the news org appears unbiased. Republicans benefit from this, since they’re more corrupt.
7. The overuse of unnamed sources is subject to severe abuse. I once caught a reporter trying to describe the same source in three different ways, which would’ve made it appear to the reader that there were three separate sources.
Open Thread: Modern Journamalism, A PrimerPost + Comments (62)