In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


That wasn't condescending. That was a statement of two facts. One,
editing is picking out the important stuff, why else do journalists and
editors exist? Heck the lack of editing is one of the worst parts of
many media outlets and most Internet sites any more.

Condescension, like racism, is in the eye of the beholder. Do you really
think I needed to know how editing works? (-: Journalists gather, editors
edit, TV news produces do a little bit of both. And it seems like you left
out the second fact. RACIST!!!!!! (-: It's so easy to screw up just
because people aren't perfect. So the Sharptons of the world saw racism in
GZ saying "he's black? So what? If it wasn't that statement, they would
have found some other minor point they could escalate into a reason to cry
racism. Yawn. NBC has the truth on its side and that's usually enough to
quash a nonsense racial bias/defamation suit. Of course, with a jury,
anything's possible.
No, but you aren't my only audience. I also talk the people in the
peanut gallery. Which by the way sorta reinforces my one point. You
shouldn't do news for those who know how police dispatchers work. Rather
you should do it for those who DON"T.
It won't get to the jury. It can't given the rather expansive
definition of public person that has gained traction over the years.

And I don't disagree that using the full tape would have been better. But
producers and video editors are conditioned to shave time whenever they
think something's superfluous. You must have encountered one of those types
in the print world. Everyone's had an editor that ruthlessly cuts out words,
phrases and punction to "punch up the story" and doing so changed the
meaning of the story with over-editing. I certainly have and I wanted to
"punch *them* up."

You don't need the full tape to counter. You run the idiocy, you run the
full tape, or heck even mention it. This would be a second story on the
inevitable news conference. You put up the quote from the conference and
then run the couple of seconds of tape that is relevant. That is called
"balance" in J-school.

It's preposterous and it couldn't be further from the truth. Even Fox
failed to pick it up because that's how it works. If one big network
covers
something, they all do. If no one big picks it up, the others usually
don't
either. They don't call it "pack" journalism for nothing.

And that, somehow, makes it alright.

It is what it is and I don't see it changing any time soon, nor should it.
Do you really want a central authority dictating what news is to be covered?
But I would submit that there already is by the very existence of the
pack. I want someone (or actually many someones) to break out of the
pack and do their freaking jobs.

The current system works pretty well and the proof is that even the abortion
doctor story came to light once *one* outlet covered it. Generating story
ideas takes a lot of creativity and when some paper or TV station locks onto
a great story, the last thing they want to do is share it with the
competition. That's what "scooping" is all about. Competition is healthy
both in business and the business of gathering the news.
One started it (my point above) but then the pack joined in. Heck I
don't really care if they cover the same thing it is when they WRITE
essentially the same thing that the system breaks down.



Sorry, I disagree. I think it's been blown up, and blown up repeatedly by
people like Sharpton who have an agenda and *want* to turn the sad tale of a
wannabe cop into a racial profiling incident. It should be clear to even a
bowl of Jello that GZ's isolated comment, even without the prompting of the
dispatcher, isn't enough to sustain a charge of racism, professionally,
morally, legally or ethically. Perhaps if they had strapped rocket motors
to Zimmerman's head I would agree with you, but we'll have to agree to
disagree on this one.
And everytime Sharpton spouted off, when nobody did anything to bring
out the Paul Harvey REST of the story /Paul Harvey, that was another
time the press did not do their job. I am not as concerned about missing
it initially for all of the concerns you mention, but the fact that they
repeatedly ignored the differences that ticks me off.
--
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late
to work within the system, but too early to shoot
the *******s."-- Claire Wolfe