We now live in an age of 24-hour reporting of news and are being bombarded with innumerable bits of information and soundbites that need processing. IMO Twitter is by far the most onerous of these soundbite machines. This is a time of information saturation. Yesterday's news is being rapidly discarded in pursuit of the next new thing.
Wikipedia's entry offers a critical assessment of the phenomenon:
According to former journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, 24 hour news creates ferocious competition among media organizations for audience share. This, coupled with the profit demand of their corporate ownership, has led to a decline in journalistic standards.
With little time to react, there is little time for research, and the perpetual risk that somebody beats them to the story. So they run a story, even with incomplete information, which makes the news vulnerable to disinformation and propaganda. The result is a poor quality of reporting even without companies enforcing policy as US networks did by removing troublesome journalists for the crime of not sticking to network narrative.
With all that information around - a fact lost on many a twitterer - journalists need to have an a attention span beyond a 24-hour news cycle. It is hardly an impossible task: The internet makes yesterday's news available through tools like Google.
Backtracking the story of the Gaza and the murdered Israeli teens is illustrative:
Item #1:
"The bodies of the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped in the West Bank earlier this month were found on Monday in a field in the West Bank city of Hahlul, north of Hebron. The teenagers had been shot.
Mr Ben-Shmuel says there is no doubt Hamas is behind the murders.
"We have the names of the operatives," he said.
"They were in Israeli jails in the past and they are well known as being activists."
Australia’s ABC News on Wed 2 Jul 2014, 12:26am AEST
Item #2
Hamas denies blame for teens' murders, Gaza braces for Israeli strike
“Hamas in Gaza responded Monday evening to the discovery of the bodies of the three Israeli teens, kidnapped on June 12, denying complicity in the kidnapping and blaming Israel for "preparing the ground" for an attack against Gaza.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said the different Palestinian factions in Gaza have announced a state of high alert and are preparing for an Israeli attack.
Eyal Yifrah, 19, from Elad, Gilad Shaar, 16, from Talmon and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, from Nof Ayalon went missing from a hitchhiking station at the Gush Etzion intersection on June 12. Their bodies were found Monday evening north of the Palestinian town Halhul, just north of Hebron. In an emergency meeting of the security cabinet, Netanyahu accused Hamas of the murders, saying: "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay."
Hamas in Gaza, however, said that no Palestinian faction has accepted responsibility for the murders and that the Israeli version must not be trusted.“
Item #3
“The recent explosion of violence in Gaza may have been initially sparked by false or inaccurate claims, according to Israeli police.
The ongoing conflict began last month when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped from a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. Their bodies were later discovered in a field outside the city of Hebron. Before police were able to determine who was responsible, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed blame for the tragic deaths squarely on Hamas, Gaza’s elected political leadership—an accusation that may prove to be false.
On Friday, Chief Inspector Micky Rosenfeld, foreign press spokesman for the Israel Police, reportedly told BBC journalist Jon Donnisonhe that the men responsible for murders were not acting on orders of Hamas leadership. Instead, he said, they are part of a “lone cell.” Further, Inspector Rosenfeld told Donnison that if Hamas’ leadership had ordered the kidnapping, “they'd [EDIT: the Israeli security services] have known about it in advance.”
So the recent explosion of violence in Gaza may have been initially sparked by false or inaccurate claims? Who could have possibly foreseen that? Certainly not jouranlists.
How odd to think that in the end Hamas was correct in assessing the reliability of Israeli statements. Perhaps they indeed know best who’s Hamas and who’s not? Just a thought.
And yet, what does having been right from the onset help Hamas? Nothing, of course, and the media are not going to change their slanted coverage over trifles like this.
The Izzies are bombing Gaza anyway. The dead teens were but a pretext anyway, they don't matter anymore.
Netanyahoo is playing a rather cynical and dishonest game in Gaza. All he ever wanted is to have the country in a mood to teach Gaza a lesson on the price for being uppity and having dared to form a unity government. He found his excuse, and in that the dead teens have 'served the purpose'.
by confusedponderer
I'm not hedging bets; I have no bets. I would not place a bet on how I/P will be resolved regardless of the odds offered.
And it's not that I have trouble with borders while Israel has nukes, it's that I have trouble with Israel while Israel has nukes. The 1948 border defines Israel, not Palestine. Remove that border and Israel, as such, disappears, but it will never happen as long as Israel has the Samson Option.
Posted by: Denis | 28 July 2014 at 01:05 AM
"With little time to react, there is little time for research, and the perpetual risk that somebody beats them to the story. So they run a story, even with incomplete information, which makes the news vulnerable to disinformation and propaganda." -- So why not counter with new news agencies that market themselves as not being the first to report but being the most reliable report. I for one would opt to wait a day or two for my information if it were solid and credible.
Posted by: Steve Owens | 28 July 2014 at 10:28 AM
So existing news agencies are hamstrung by a set of constraints that drive their news quality down. Why don't alternative new news organizations with a different set of operating constraints rise up to compete with them? Why not have an agency that doesn't focus on being first to print but focuses on being right when they do go to print?
With crowd sourcing and independent reporters all over the world able to use the internet to feed situational information to an agency it should be possible to construct such an agency that leverages online "print" to deliver first rate well researched journalism.
What do you suppose the demand for such an agency would be?
Posted by: Steve Owens | 28 July 2014 at 10:36 AM
I doubt Vancouver can be reached by GOI weapons, other than the 'guilt trip' which is internet deliverable.
Posted by: Fred | 28 July 2014 at 11:24 AM
You heard that from me first on this forum.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 28 July 2014 at 12:37 PM