9/30/08

Shoddy journalism, IMHO

Okay. So generally I don't comment too much on the way the Corp runs its affairs. I'm just a piddly reporter up in a piddly little community.
But something just doesn't strike me as right about this article.

The general idea? The do-not-call list for telemarketers etc. has been over-run, the website has crashed and the phone lines are constantly busy.

No big deal, kind of interesting. But basically a general run-of-the-mill news story.

EXCEPT for the fact that EVERY SINGLE QUOTE from the story is drawn from the comments section of cbcnews.ca.

Every.

Single.

Quote.

This wouldn't bother me so much if I felt I could trust commenters to be rational, sane, politically correct...or even moderately educated. But as we've seen here and here and 8 million other examples on the web....

That's just not the case. If I've learned anything over the past couple months, watching my stories get published on cbc.ca and reading the comments that ensue... it's that most of the people who comment on these forums are IDIOTS. They assume they know things they don't. They hide behind anonymity and just run their mouths because no one else will listen to them.

Now occasionally you'll get the insightful post. But those are few and far between.

So I just have to wonder what were they thinking?

3 comments:

Kate Nova September 30, 2008 at 2:45 PM  

"Man, streeters are, like, way too much work right now."

Jackie S. Quire September 30, 2008 at 2:53 PM  

Because doing a streeter about TELEMARKETERS is a total dry topic.

No one has opinions about being interrupted by a naggy credit card salesman during supper....

Megan September 30, 2008 at 11:40 PM  

Hold on. Are you saying that cherry-picking anonymous comments from the Internet is NOT journalism?

I suppose next you'll be claiming that we shouldn't be setting public policies based on Internet comments.