Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight
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Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight
Social marketing, PR insight & thought leadership - from The PR Coach
Curated by Jeff Domansky
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Scooped by Jeff Domansky
April 19, 2016 10:04 AM
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How newsroom pressure is letting fake stories on to the web

How newsroom pressure is letting fake stories on to the web | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it

It started with a post on social media. Or, to be more exact, a series of posts about a visit to McDonald’s to buy a milkshake. Within hours, Josh Raby’s gripping account on Twitter was international news, covered by respected outlets on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

“This guy’s story about trying to buy a McDonald’s milkshake turned into a bit of a mission and the internet can’t get enough of it,” read the headline on Indy100, the Independent’s sister title. The New York Daily News said he’d been “tortured”. Except, as McDonald’s pointed out – and Raby himself later admitted – the story was embellished to entertain his Twitter followers, although he says he based it on real events.

 

Raby’s was the latest thinly sourced story that, on closer inspection, turned out not to be as billed. The phenomenon is largely a product of the increasing pressure in newsrooms that have had their resources slashed, then been recalibrated to care more about traffic figures.

 

And, beyond professional journalists, there is also a “whole cottage industry of people who put out fake news”, says Brooke Binkowski, an editor at debunking website Snopes. “They profit from it quite a lot in advertising when people start sharing the stories. They are often protected because they call themselves ‘satire’ or say in tiny fine print that they are for entertainment purposes only.”...

Jeff Domansky's insight:

The push for traffic means that clicks rule – even if the facts don’t  always check out.

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Scooped by Jeff Domansky
December 19, 2013 1:44 AM
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The best and worst media errors and corrections in 2013 | Poynter.

The best and worst media errors and corrections in 2013 | Poynter. | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it

Error of the Year: ’60 Minutes’ Benghazi report


As is often the case with Error of the Year, the award is given partly because of the mistake itself, and partly because of the mistake’s fallout.


In late October “60 Minutes” aired a report that called into question the official version of what happened when the U.S. diplomatic compound was attacked in Benghazi, Libya. At the core of the story was a source, Dylan Davies, who worked as a security contractor for the State Department. Davies had a book coming out that purported to share new facts about what happened that night, and what he did.


Problem one: he lied to the show about what he did and saw, thereby making a core piece of evidence in the “60 Minutes” counter-narrative false and undercutting the entire segment...

Jeff Domansky's insight:

Many times during the past year, truth was the victim in high-profile reporting screw ups. Read 'em and weep.

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