Monday 6 August 2007

British journalists 'cannot be arsed to check their facts'

I've had it with all the newspapers that trot out articles about subjects, both important and unimportant, with quotation marks in the headline. It really is 'sloppy beyond all comprehension'.

A story is either true, or it isn't. There 'is no halfway point'. If you are citing someone, that's fine, just say so in the text. If you haven't yet got enough confirmation of the facts to feel comfortable printing them, don't print them. It's quite simple.

Our newspapers 'used to be beacons of journalism' and have 'become dumbed-down, unreliable tripe'. And furthermore, it doesn't sound cautious. It sounds either like they don't believe it themselves, or 'it sounds sarcastic'.

Well done the Red Tops (for once) for steering clear of this practice and continuing to print headlines that, wrong though they may be, are at least bold statements. I would expect quotation marks and sloppy journalism from the free papers, but the 'quality' newspapers are also doing it a lot - and wondering why people are less interested in their news. Boo to the BBC as well.

That 'is all I have to say on the matter'.

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