Community Chat

[Greeneyedlady21]

I know what ironic means, don't need a "PSA" for that.

[PickyPicky3]

In the 1980s I had a job in public relations, and I sent out the press releases. It was a busy international company and the releases created news in many countries. We used a service which gave us copies of all newspaper, TV and radio coverage.

I had a chart on the wall where I kept track of media accuracy in reporting each story. It never went above 35%! That means that 65% of reporting on this company had some kind error.

Errors could range from wrong name or date to totally insane -- the equivalent of Santa Claus will be delivering insider information to all good children this Christmas. When an error was particularly egregious, I would call the media outlet director. HE (it was always a he back then) would inevitably scream that he was too busy to deal with this and hang up. 

And this was when news was handled by "professionals," before social media.

[candys mine]

Remember the Old Adage... "Believe Half of what you see and None of what you hear."

Have to check everything out for myself.

edited (  including my own spelling! )

[Oznell]

Wow, that is a very telling indictment,  @PickyPicky3 .  And now, even from among those long in the profession themselves, there are complaints of the "laziness" in contemporary coverage--  an unwillingness to put in the shoe leather, and the research, to ensure a story is entirely accurate.  

[ThinkingOutLoud]

Thanks for sharing that @PickyPicky3. More people need to realize how 'off' most info is and has been for quite some time.

[PickyPicky3]

@Oznell  @ThinkingOutLoud   I remember being so disillusioned.

As I progressed in that job, I started doing talk show appearances when those far above me had calendar conflicts or just didn't want to do it. Back then there were no Talk Show 101 classes.

On my first TV appearance, I was in such a state of total panic that I made mistake after mistake and tried to "gently" correct them. The director kept waving at me not to do that.

I quickly learned that if the host made a mistake, it would be edited out. When guests made mistakes, they lived with it. So better for everyone just to let it be and continue on. I got better with every show, but never good enough to make a career out of it.

My best memory was when I appeared on a major station in Los Angeles, they did my hair and makeup. Wow! What a difference!