or at least there were supposed to be - consequences for stepping in front of a news camera and telling straight-out lies, or putting blatant falsehoods in print.
Unethical behavior has always existed in the modern media, of course, but I feel like there was an understanding at least up until a few years ago that if you were part of the mainstream news, you at least tried to get your facts straight. To use an oversimplified analogy, if you wanted to spin a story about lead found in a water supply into a doomsday scenario, that was your call, but you didn't just make it up if the lead wasn't even there in the first place. If you did, somebody would find out and that'd be the end of reporting the news for you.
Now, it seems that anybody can get up and say anything they want and get it in print / on TV if they think somebody will pay attention, veracity be damned and no consequences to pay if someone catches you in a lie. I like to claim it's the fault of Fox "News" but that's just the first place I noticed it. Now I'm seeing it everywhere, across the political spectrum. I feel like the only way I can even try to get "accurate" news is go to Google News, read each story I want to know about from 3 sources, and try to filter from there.
But I don't always have time to do that, and I doubt most people ever do it. It irks me, that's all. |
