[quote name='Pitt']Say what you want about "tabloid" journalism in this country but the National Enquirer has more rigorous fact checkers and a better libel/slander record than just about any paper in the country.[/quote]
You can't be serious, right Pitt? The National Inquirer is by no means a valid source of any kind of information! They are a tabloid: a newspaper devoted to posting sensational information that is given to them from any source that it comes from. The fact of the matter is that, though they may at times print stories about things that did in fact happen, such a thing is done
entirely by accident. They have no desire to print anything that is true, or even false. Their motivating force for posting content is for it to be sensational enough for people to pick up and read. That, in itself, discredits it as a valid news source. How is it possible to know when the source is true, or when it has the same truth as a "300 pound lesbian in-bred baby" story? The fact is, it's impossible to determine.
The same goes with the Post. It is a self-proclaimed Tabloid, and that's just a matter of common knowledge and fact. It's not a newspaper, and it hasn't even considered ITSELF to be a legitimate newspaper since 1933. Tabloids cannot be trusted as valid news sources. If that story were aired by CNN, or even Fox News (and I'm giving a lot of leeway there =) ), it would hold more validity. The New York Post has intentionally soiled its own credibility, and it did so decades ago without remorse. They learned, as the Inquirer and the Star did, that interesting content is far more important than truthful content.
Why are they not constantly sued for libel, you ask? Well, they are, and they devote large sums of their profit toward paying A) The lawyers that defend them in those cases and B) the settlements against them. Oftentimes, however, Tabloids can get away with libel because it is against famous individuals: and libel for the famous has to include Malicious intent. Since their sensational stories focus around those people, they can use this vague clause in the libel laws to evade prosecution in civil court. It's an age old story, and it's the reason why tabloids can continue to exist.
Tabloids can also easily evade libel claims by doing what they do best: they are simply "routers" of gossip. Your claim that they do fact checking is entirely untrue: as a policy, they don't check facts. If they don't check facts, it makes them less liable in cases of libel, as they are simply perpetuating a story that they were told was the truth. If you've noticed, they have to put on their papers that the stories are "gossip". It's all a protection against libel, and as a side effect they don't have to nor would they want to check the truth of their stories.
[quote name='Pitt']I'll put it this way, the credibility the New York Times gave Ahmed Chalabi would never have passed NI fact checking muster.[/quote]
Here,
Linky Linky! This is an example of National Enquirer stories. One of thousands, possibly tens of thousands of stories over the years that stem from heresay and gossip and are not only devoid of meaningful content but are purposely created with the sole intent of selling copies of their newspaper based on sensationalism as opposed to the presentation of fact. I wouldn't call any of the stories that the Inquirer gives at all "credible".
[quote name='The Dictionary']credibility
n : the quality of being believable or trustworthy[/quote]
The news media had every reason to believe that Chalabi was credible. He had the backing of the national government, favorable opinion by the masses, and he was a leader of the Iraqi-American community. The fact that he is a scumbag has only recently been revealed. If the Times gave him too much credit, then George Bush did too. In fact, most members of our government gave him too much credibility. What does credibility come from? From expert opinion, which is supposed to be provided in this case by our own intelligence. Not only would the Inquirer have gone with everything that Chalabi said, they would have done so without question. If he said that purple aliens would come down and create half breed children with our women, the Inquirer would print that. They've printed stories like that in the past, we've all seen them as we walk down the isle of the grocery store.
[quote name='Pitt']Oh.... and they've never had a lying reporter on staff being mentored by the (Was he Howell Raines' protege'?) editor like Jayson Blair.[/quote]
That's misleading, because the entire ORGANIZATION of the Inquirer was created with the purpose of lying (or at least, perpetuating lies told to them since they do not stop to question them). Jayson Blair was a person who went AGAINST the Time's system, which is to promote sound news coverage. He was disobeying the established rules of his system, whereas employees who perpetuate lies in the Inquirer do it as a matter of principle.
I see that you are pointing to individual reporters who lie: that isn't a valid reason to discount the newspaper as invalid. A part of an organization cannot be generalized to be the whole of it. I'll give you an example. If I was an employee at, say, Target, and I decided to purposely misinform customers about prices or overcharge them, I would be extorting them. If someone used that as an example to say that Target, as an organization, extorts people, they would be entirely
incorrect. The New York Times and USA Today cannot be faulted for the inadequacies of individual employees: to believe so is fallacious.
[quote name='Pitt']I have never knowingly posted one story or one piece of information that hasn't passed editorial controls with professionals at a major publication or outlet. You don't see me posting commentary as news. You don't see me posting from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or any radio opinion shows either. [/quote]
No, but you are posting from the New York Post, a known tabloid. It is not a credible news source, by the very definition of Tabloid media and the explanations stated above. While I'm glad that you don't cite those sources, the New York Post or the National Inquirer is just as non-credible of a source.
[quote name='Pitt']I was a news intern with CBS and worked for FOX and Hearst Television. I know the difference between credible new source and opinion. I guarantee you I spent more time in television news rooms than anyone on this board has even though it was only about 5 years.[/quote]
Working at CBS or FOX gives you some minor authority source on the validity of those networks: it does not, however, give you any knowledge or authority about the credibility of other networks, tabloids, etc... A podiatrist holds no authority over matters of Chiropractic practices, and the difference between individual sources of media are just as varied. Whereas a source like CBS will likely check sources and distribute facts based on a documented system of fact-checking and a desire to release only factual opinion, other sources of media may not (and often do not) apply to the same systems. Like I stated earlier, the Tabloid runs under an entirely different ethical and business structure, one that could not possibly be understood because of experience gained in an "ethical" media source. Your authority, while useful in some matters, does not apply here.
[quote name='Pitt']During OJ you know who televisions "investigative" and "hot lead" source was? The National Enquirer and The Star. The "mainstream" and "credible" media is not at all what you think it is. Oh... and Drudge is more closely followed than any of the news wires. [/quote]
Yes, and they had those sources because they did not bother to check them for validity. They ran it to print as soon as they got them: and you can bet that they posted many more fraudulent stories on those same topics than they did valid ones. "Getting lucky" and posting a true story when you aren't checking to see if its true doesn't make you credible. You just lucked out, and it happened to be true that time. It's absolutely meaningless in relation to the subject of credibility.
EDIT: Also, I'd like to point out that credibility and mass attention are two entirely seperate things. Drudge, as you pointed out, is watched more closely than the mainstream media. That's nice, but it means nothing for his credibility. This is due to the same quality in humans that the founding fathers recognized, and why they put the Electoral College into existence as a result: people are more easily led by emotional appeals as opposed to fact. Coincidentally, it is that same innate quality in humans that makes tabloids so appealing to the masses and why they post their content in the manner that they do.
[quote name='Pitt']Think about it before you roundly criticize.[/quote]
As you can probably tell, I have. I didn't mean to make this a terribly big thing. Though I was annoyed at the usage of that story, I hadn't seen a great deal of it coming from you so I was just going to point it out, hope that people don't use such sources in the future, and we'd all be better. But I don't mind expanding on the subject now that it has come to it.
