Caught in Lies

Before reading about the Stephen Harper wafer incident, I never considered news could be fake when newspapers make such a big deal and pride themselves on giving their consumers the real information. I do think some news is based off a persons opinion and can be somewhat biased.

I was actually surprised proffesional journalists would completely make up an article just to get their news more attention. That wouldn't make much sense to make up a controversial story and say it's true only to publish it and give it nation wide attention. It's like he told Mr. Harper a rumor he made up about him and expected him to take it. I don't think he put much thought into what he was doing. I feel differently for Janet Cooke's "Jimmy" story. This one was created for a good reason and she did do the right thing and confess that she made it up, eventually.

I totally agree with Jack Shafer in saying that "most liars make things up for the simple reason that they don't have the talent or the ability to get the story any other way" because of the word most. Lying in journalism is an easy way out. It takes no work and is rather lazy. Sometimes, such as in the Jimmy article, it is forgivable because it was for a good cause but it was still lazy of her because she couldn't find a child described like Jimmy but plenty of cases of children similar.

I don't really think it's the college's and school's job to root out people who aren't up to par journalists and it should instead fall onto the newspapers and publishers. If they don't want to do the work, the publisher would be the one to notice and should be the one to take action.

I think an ombudsman would certainly help, but that some of that responsibility should fall on the writer. I also don't see how a single ombudsman would be able to answer all the question fairly and unbiased. I think it should be more of a job that should gather a general opinion of a panal of people to decide. This would help to keep everything unbiased and fair.