Common Sense Journalism: Alice Fraser takes a comedic look at modern journalism

Common Sense Journalism

An extension of the Common Sense Journalism monthly column by Doug Fisher, former broadcaster, newspaper reporter and wire service editor. From new media to old, much of journalism is just plain common sense.

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Unknown (often improperly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire "Common sense is instinct; enough of it is genius" - George Bernard Shaw

Friday, October 31, 2014

Alice Fraser takes a comedic look at modern journalism

Australian comedian Alice Fraser takes a wonderfully sardonic look at modern journalism in her "Why journalists don't fact check anymore."

This is the way news works now. Speculation regurgitated as fact, swallowed as news, excreted as statistic, rehashed as opinion and commented on as though it were a completely different article about something else entirely. Since the 100% true story from history of that emperor who wasn’t wearing any clothes but everyone agreed that he was wearing clothes because the SMH had picked up a picture of some clothes from Reuters, news has been full of circle-jerk hearsay, the kind of drippy dribbling mouth to mouth communication that coughs itself up into a foetid phlegm of hot, secondhand, coagulated lung fluid. Or so I hear. I’ll have to check Wikipedia. Let’s just agree to agree that the News is as fukt as the world or that Ikea table I shouldn’t have just tried to sit on, and I don’t know that we can fix it. Just, maybe don’t trust it with your full bodyweight.