Churning out the news without a care
The recent flurry
of fictitious reports about the Madeleine McCann case is another example of how
far quality journalism has been replaced by the latest form of ‘churnalism.’
A story is
concocted by a reporter and published on the website of a major newspaper or TV
network. Within hours, it has been copied, rewritten or translated without
anyone bothering to check for accuracy. If it is sensational enough, the story
is then regurgitated around the world.
The media have
long been able to share important information from established news agencies
and other reliable sources. The rot set in with the upsurge some years ago of propaganda
and slanted press releases put out by PR people. The Internet has dramatically
speeded and simplified shoddy, second-hand reporting.
Churnalism has
now reached unprecedented levels with media organisations shamelessly copying
one another online. As a result, a profusion of misinformation is spewed out
daily.
Last week’s
excitement over the Madeleine McCann case was based on the fact that four
Scotland Yard detectives flew to the Algarve
Officials in both
countries refused to comment on the contents of the letter or the reason for
the visit. This did not stop the British tabloids from improvising. They spoke
of “a dramatic breakthrough” and claimed that the arrest of three burglars was
“imminent.”
Kate and Gerry
McCann were said to be “on tenderhooks” and being "kept fully informed" about the latest developments.
These “exclusive”
assertions in the Daily Mirror were picked up and used not only by competing tabloids,
but by ‘quality’ papers such as the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph.
Portuguese papers
did not jump on the bandwagon, but the revelation of a ‘breakthrough’ spun
around the world and found its way into the Sydney Morning Herald, the Times of
India, the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast to name but a few online
services.
The Epoch Times,
which prides itself on being published in 21 languages in 35 countries across
five continents, was running the same “imminent arrest” yarn on the same day ITV
mercifully set the record straight with the headline: “No imminent plans to
make any arrests in Madeleine McCann case.”
ITV described the
meeting between British and Portuguese detectives as “a routine part of the
investigation to establish what happened to Madeleine McCann.”
USA Today quoted
the British investigative reporter and former detective Mark Williams-Thomas as
saying, “this isn’t a major breakthrough” and “burglars don’t abduct children.”
By then the media
damage had been done. As the Sunday Mirror columnist Carole Malone put it: “How
devastating this must all be for Kate and Gerry McCann – another flurry of
headlines, more promises of suspects and arrests... and then nothing. Again!”
The copy and
paste style of churnalism practised nowadays is akin to plagiarism, but who
cares? For example, a retired British police superintendent with a keen
interest in the McCann case spotted that several paragraphs in a Daily Mirror
story on 28 December had been copied almost word-for-word, without quoting or
crediting the source, from a story that had appeared in the Daily Mail on 15
October. He brought this to the attention of both papers and the Press
Complaints Commission. They expressed little interest.
Journalistic
analysts put the growth in churnalism down to a combination of things,
including increased competition, reduced revenues and inadequate staff with
insufficient time to verify and properly develop stories.
It is likely to
get ever more frantic. We have already moved on from last week’s “imminent
arrests” to this week’s tabloid revelation that “detectives are probing a
Portuguese gypsy site just 15 minutes away from where Madeleine was snatched.”
Well, maybe, but
for starters the place the foreign media are talking about is not a gypsy site
at all.
One thing is
certain though: the media will continue to churn out this sort of rubbish as
long as there are people who want to read it.
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