[IP] more on A washingtonpost.com article The Media, Losing Their Way

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave Wilson <dave@wilson.net>
Date: September 26, 2004 10:13:13 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] A washingtonpost.com article The Media, Losing Their 
Way

If you pick up any public relations textbook written in the eighties, 
somewhere it will explain that lying to the news media is the worst 
possible thing a flackcan do. That's because, 20 years ago, journalists 
-- and I was one of them -- engaged it what was known as the death 
penalty: You lie to me, and I never quote you again. Obviously, people 
dissemble, restate, and fuzz up the facts, but you just weren't allowed 
to outright lie, and if you did, we'd cut off your oxygen; you couldn't 
stay alive in Washington if a reporter simply refused to quote you. But 
as 24 hour cable news operations sprang up and grew increasingly 
competitive, their vast appetite for guests -- and increasingly, well, 
"colorful" guests -- could only be satisfied by letting anybody go on 
the air, even people who weren't reliable sources. Traditional print 
executives demanded that their employees get quotes form those lying 
liars on they'd heard about on television in the newspaper. And so it 
goes....

 -dave 

-------------------------------------
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/