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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Writer Fabricated Boston Globe Story on Seal Hunt |
| 2005-04-15 |
| EFL:Cue up Inspector Reynaud's picture please... BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media. Wow. Can ya believe that... The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, had not taken place. Wow. Can you believe that... The story datelined Halifax, Nova Scotia described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs "by the hundreds." The problem, however, was that the hunt did not begin on Tuesday; it was delayed by bad weather and was scheduled to start on Friday, weather permitting, the Globe said in an editor's note. Well, it might not have ever happened, but that's probably what it would've looked like if the Globe was actually there to witness what never happened. Even if it wasn't there, that's what they'd think it'd look like. Can't alienate that core constituency... Stewart could not immediately be reached for comment. The newspaper, which received a complaint from the Canadian government, said it should not have published the story and should have insisted on attribution for details because the writer was not reporting from the scene. Details? Damn! They'll get you every time! They should've learned that the first six or seven times this happened to them... "Details included the number of hunters, a description of the scene, and the approximate age of the cubs. The author's failure to accurately report the status of the hunt and her fabrication of details at the scene are clear violations of the Globe's journalistic standards," it added. The Globe's "Journalistic standard" is, I believe, "Don't get caught." It's over the doors on Morrissey Blvd. Canadian Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said his officials had called the paper to point out the error. Oh....ummmmmmmmm...gee. Thanks, minister... Officials with the newspaper were not immediately available for further comment. Probably out drinking early today after this broke... |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 .com, Rene? No, too intelligent. But Georgia may do... if you just hear her talk, as annoying as...Maureen Dowd. LOL |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-15 8:50:43 PM |
| #9 Rooters will snap her up - no cultural orientation needed - she's ready for prime time. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-15 8:45:03 PM |
| #8 PIMF sau=say (Rene, get off my freakin' keyboad! How I am supposed to type over you?!) ...if all else fails, blame the cat... ;-) |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-15 8:44:02 PM |
| #7 Anonymoose, you want dinosaurs change spots. As they sau, when pigs fly... |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-15 8:41:07 PM |
| #6 Ironically, the saving grace of newspapers will be to become more like blogs. For example, the paper has an editor and some serious journalists, whose job it is to check facts, avoid plagiarism, and do phone confirmations with major players. But their reporters are all stringers, average people who send in email stories. If the stories are accepted, they get paid a nominal amount, say 25 cents for an average, 50 cents for a good, and for a real breaker, maybe up to a hundred dollars.Everybody, and I mean everybody, would provide them with a huge amount of fresh material. This would handle the local news. And then, the newspaper has agreements with literally hundreds of Internet sites, to use their original material for free, if they give a byline to the website or blog. This would create a virtual equivalent to a wire service a dozen times larger than AP, UPI and Rooters combined. Breaking news, information, opinion from the four corners of the world, all original, all scott free. The big advantage of this kind of newspaper is that it concentrates all the news you could get from hours and hours of surfing. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-15 8:34:30 PM |
| #5 LMAO - I think .com referred to this kind of thing as "predictive news." |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-04-15 8:33:53 PM |
| #4 Oh the horror... All those seals left alive! We must get them before they turn on us! Nothing says peace and harmony like dead baby seals. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-04-15 8:27:34 PM |
| #3 Down, baby, bring it down. Does anyone believe that newspapers as we know them will still exist in 2015? |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-15 7:39:28 PM |
| #2 LOL - thanks for the schadenfreude |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-15 7:37:55 PM |
| #1 MSM surprise meter... big fat zero. Fascinating. As if there were no real stories to write about. I guess that the credo invented by Newsweek several decades ago, "We're not in business of providing news, we're in business to influence perceptions", is now the 'in' thingy. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-15 7:31:39 PM |