Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
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A) Is that news?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Is it a responsibility of adult citizens, in a democracy, to exercise their critical thinking skills?
Yes
Now you answer mine. Use all your skills!
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Scanned the article, it appears to have two components.
1) First component: Definitely news, according to your definition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
News is "things happened and we told you they happened."
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In this case, the "things" are that the scientist/s did/said things, and the actions/statements were reported as happening. That's news. (Was it relevant that the things happened? That's actually debatable. But they did happen.)
2) The second component (about the scientists' name request) actually also fits the "things happened and we told you they happened" criteria, however they seemed to have been tacked on to the second half of the first article without announcing the journalistic intention of why the two events are being suggested as being related events. This kind of article leaves to the readers imagination a correlation between the two events, which could understandably be characterized as journalistically irrsponsible (at best), and journalistically disingenuous/purposefully misleading (at worst). Conversely, the correlation between the two events being suggested could be considered relevant, under the "related recent events" umbrella, but even in this case, the lack of a new heading announcing what the correlation is suggested to be creates the appearance of impropriety (which even if not in itself a wrongdoing, must be understood by the speaker to be corrosive to the perception of integrity).
Taken as a whole, is it "news"? By the letter of the definition, it is a reporting of events that occurred. In this case, yes.
In the larger context of journalistic integrity, is it "news" that had been executed to the highest standards? I'm erring on the side of "it could have been done better" --and the central question is, is it better to announce a questionable correlation and directly attempt to mislead the reader, or NOT announce a questionable correlation, which could variously be described as 1) misleading the reader by sleight-of-hand, or 2) letting the reader exercise their own critical thinking skills (in which case, NOT announcing the questionable correlation would be necessary).
My personal opinion is that they should have explained the questionable correlation with a new sub-heading, in essence a new "subject" being announced. At best, in this case, it should have been a new article. If left as the part of the same article, the correlation should have been explicitly called out, and the article should have been published as an opinion piece. In this case, it would not be "news" --but since the correlation wasn't explicitly called out, I can't make that determination.
In this case, with the correlation left unstated, it doesn't technically qualify as an opinion piece. As a "news" article, with no correlation suggested, it appears to be two unrelated news articles crammed together with no explanation.
If it isn't the function of a journalist to leave unspecified correlations to the reader's imagination, then it isn't "news".
If it's okay for a journalist to present unrelated events as long as they DON'T specify the correlation, then it is "news".
So as far as I can tell, this comes down to definitions of journalism that I don't know exist as anything other than opinions.
My personal opinion, I would call this "bad" news, because I like correlations to be explained. It seems irresponsible (at best), in my opinion, to drop "hints" to the reader (unless you're calling it an opinion piece), and at worst a trend in "bad" news which waters down the concept of using discernment in digesting new information (if, which is debatable, this can even be considered the responsibility of a for-profit news industry).
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* * * I DON'T HAVE A SHORT ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, THAT'S WHY I DIDN'T IMMEDIATELY REPLY. * * *