sensationalism

A spate of science coverage last week on a crack in Africa’s Great Rift Valley exemplifies one particular kind of sloppy reporting--covering news that isn’t. Charlie Petit--one of the writers at MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Tracker--breaks down the issue in a November 4 post. He says many publishers who covered the new discovery (distributed in a University of Rochester press release) told the “the easy (no news) story, not the real (new news)...Go to full story

The Associated Press reported on an unfortunate run in between a wild deer and lion at The National Zoo in Washington, D.C. on November 9.  The story, picked up by the New York Post, carries the headline “Video: Lions kill baby deer as DC zoo visitors watch.” But in fact, as ABC News notes in their report "Deer escapes lion attack", the deer was not killed while zoo visitors watched some bloody ripping-apart. It’s not even clear whether the...Go to full story

On Thursday, September 24, 2009, 16-year-old Derrion Albert was beaten to death outside a community center in Chicago's Far South Side neighborhood of Roseland.

The motivation behind Albert's death remains murky -- most reports claim that he was simply caught in the middle of a fight involving dozens of students from nearby Fenger High School, apparently members of two rival gangs. But what made this incident -- in an area plagued by high crime rates --...Go to full story

Apparently, October is National Hoax Month -- or so it would seem, given the proliferation of fraudulent stories that appeared over the past couple weeks. It all began with a boy not in a balloon... By now, you've almost certainly heard of Falcon Heene, the 6-year-old boy from Fort Collins, Colorado who, for a brief period of time, was thought to be trapped inside his father's homemade weather balloon. News crews flocked to capture the scene and helicopters from the Colorado...Go to full story

Starting this weekend, audiences in the UK will come face to face with their own obsession: celebrity.

In the new documentary, "Starsuckers," director Chris Atkins examines the cultural phenomenon of fame using organized stunts and undercover reporting. While the film targets the UK's abundant and notorious tabloid papers, Atkins believes that the shoddy journalistic practices of these types of publications has seeped out, infecting more credible...Go to full story

The spring and fall flu seasons this year have spurred a flood of sensationalist medical reporting focused on the H1N1 virus, or swine flu.  Some egregious examples from British tabloids like the Daily Express have been called out, as well as from Fox News, and ABC Australia News. In a philosophical look at why we’ve seen such faulty journalism on the subject, Iain Brassington, a Lecturer in Bioethics, with a PhD from the University of Birmingham, argues a radical...Go to full story

60 Minutes recently rebroadcast a 2007 story titled “The Age of Megafires,” which discusses the link between forest management policies, climate changes in the western United States, and a recent increase in the frequency of large western forest fires. Dealing with the subtle, and often thorny issue of climate change, the broadcast unfortunately makes a few factual missteps in its coverage. This kind of accuracy problem can often serve as a toehold for critics to...Go to full story

On the morning of October 9, the NASA LCROSS mission impacted the Moon to test the debris for water. Many media outlets covering the story took up sensational headlines along the lines of: “NASA Bombs the Moon.” The Huffington Post writes: “NASA bombs the moon” The Daily Telegraph: “NASA Moon bombing: LCROSS mission crashes into Moon” The Age: “NASA bombs moon's surface in search of water” But is it accurate to say that...Go to full story

In a recent broadcast, “Tracking H1N1,” Fox News taps the wisdom of Dr. Kent Holtorf to advise America as the fall flu season kicks off.  They describe him as an “infectious disease expert.” Twitter tipped me off again here, with @ivanoransky noting that Holtorf is, in fact, not an infectious disease expert, but an "anti-aging" specialist, according to the bio posted on the website of his own clinic, where he advocates the use of...Go to full story

What do you do when two rules of ethical journalism seem to be at odds with each other? That is the central question in the debate over the the Associated Press' use of a tragic photo of Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, despite his family’s plea for privacy. The Digital Journalist reveals their take on the issue in this September article: They believe the AP made the right choice. Julie Jacobson, an Associated Press photojournalist embedded with the U.S....Go to full story