I'm with Joe on this one. Every time I read a piece about climbing or mountaineering in the nationals, I'm struck by how little the journalist actually seems to know, with the honorable exception of specialists like Ed Douglas.
I've started to wonder how much else of what we read is utter crap. Was the Olympics really held in Sydney or was that just the name of one of the competitors? You can laugh, but I saw a piece about the Eiger accident in the London Standard (I was down south at the time) which had Joe working for Channel 4, in fact 'leading' the C4 team. Clearly they just couldn't be bothered to check their facts.
As a journalist it particularly shocks me because I make a considerable effort to ensure that everything we publish on OUTDOORSmagic is as accurate as it possibly can be. Anyway, what do you think, is this an isolated incident or typical?
I agree totally with the sentiments expressed by Joe Simpson in his "Death on the Eiger" article. Though I have very limited knowledge about the accuracy of "mountain expedition" stories I find the reporting of stories in my own field (biotechnology) equally as shoddy. Often what happens is that one trail blazing journalist will cover the story with a limited grasp of the issues and often an even weaker grasp of the facts and is followed by the "pack" of journalists who attempt to rehash the article, spicing it up wtih a few more powerful, attention grabbing statements (e.g. frankenstein foods is a good example).
I have found myself becoming very sceptical about most of the media outputs ranging from the tabloids to the utter rubbish Ann Robinson and colleagues spout each week. Most media outputs are motivated by sales whether copies of a newspaper or viewers, often catering for the lowest common denominator.
Surely their must be a market for fully researched,accurate and balanced reporting......or do I ask just too much??
I agree with you both to a large extent. I can understand how the race to publish accident stories leads to inaccuracies about the actual cause of the event as this often only follows after coroners' reports and the like. However, facts such as Kleine Scheidegg being a mountain rather than a village is just plain lazy.
However, in some cases I'd be tempted to argue that bad reporting actually opens the issue up to people who would otherwise never know about it. For instance (on science Rob) in Marcus Chown's book 'The Afterglow of Creation', which details how scientists found cosmic ripples in the universe and which I don't pretend to fully understand, they said the papers had published loads of pics of pretty coloured photos with 'holes' in. In fact, these pictures had been fairly inconclusive in the research, but they were far more interesting to the public than the text, which was way over their heads. The scientists viewed this as 'getting people talking'.
Moral: if the outcome is favourable bad reporting can be no bad thing (any PR is good PR). However, in climbing and biotech issues etc. it can be extremely irresponsible.
There's a massive amount of arrogance on show here. The journalists in question know they don't really have a grip on the subject. They know they haven't taken the trouble to check facts or corroborate stories. But they assume the reader is too stupid to grasp this. And they know that generally by the time objections are given a voice the story is no longer 'news'.
Of course this doesn't apply to every single thing that's printed. But unless you know at least as much about the subject as the writer, how can you judge?
What particularly disturbs me about the Eiger saga is that the misreporting journalists each got it wrong in different ways. Indicating not that there was an inaccurate source of information, but simply that they'd made stuff up. This goes beyond bias or slant. I'm willing to bet that no-one actually told the Telegraph that Kleine Scheidegg was a mountain, for example. And a simple look at a map (it's situated on a pass between mountains) would have clarified this.
I accept that the time pressures involved in getting a news story to print may mean that not all the facts are covered. But it's no excuse for turning a tragedy into a work of fiction.
I know it's easy to pour scorn on journalists, but I guess I ought to put the other side of the argument, which is that they're / we're supposed to become instant experts on a subject we know nothing about, in the space of an hour or less.
It's not so much a problem for specialist publications, where you'd hope the journos actually know something about what they cover (but not always...) as it is for general news reporters. I mean, if you had to go off at an hour's notice and write an authoritative piece on, say, classical opera, could you be sure that your piece would satisfy the specialist opera buff?
I'm not saying crass errors like the ones described are anything other than unacceptable, but I can see how they happen. Especially when they're dealing with information coming from abroad. I wonder how much of these stories was simply regurgitated from news wires and local statements at second hand.
I can appreciate the problem of trying to write a piece and become an "expert" in such a short time frame, but isnt that due to the lack of responsibility by editors / producers, trying to get "the story" before the rest. People often remark (journalist the most often!) that scientists should have a "social concience" in that we should consider how results and research may affect society at large. Shouldn't the same be said of editors, producers and journalists? Surely these people have far greater power to influence.
Please do not get me wrong, I know there are many very good and diligent reporters and the best are often recognised throught awards etc. Unfortunatly it seems to me that the reporters / presenters who seem to have access to the vast majority of the public are motivated by consideration other than good journalism (copies sold and viewers).
To conclude I believe that this is a situation that is unlikely to change in the short term. There will always be poor reporting motivated by factors other than the truth and facts. The only way to counteract this is to educate people in general to "look behind the story" - essentially think for themselves and not take as gospel the text in front of them. Having said that a good proportion of our fellow Brits seem to find the sordid lives of our celebrities more important / interesting than major issues such as war / environment etc. Ah well......
I think there's a systemic problem here too in that the huge amount of information means that errors multiply at a phenomenal rate. In many cases journalists are filterers and conveyors of news rather than actually doing their own research. The Independent, fo example, now has (apparently) very few actual news gathering staff. Most of its journalists exist to put the Independent spin on other people's stories.
I could almost guarantee that if we posted a daft, untrue story - say 'Bonington mugged by Tibetan monks' - someone, somewhere would pick it up, accept it as true and use it. Of course, a lot of that's down to the net and the speed it allows.
It's also down to an assumption that the facts have already been checked. There's a story about Doug Scott climbing a new peak in Tibet from the FT on the site right now which I have just put up. Since there's an FT journalist on the trip, I'm assuming that the basic facts are correct, however the original story contains an assertion that very few 6500 metre peaks are left unclimbed. I don't know how true this is, there are an awful lot of big peaks in the Himalaya and while I could spend hours checking it out, I simply can't justify the time, which is why I've used the qualifier 'reportedly'.
If Brian Smith from Rotherham had climbed the same mountain though, would anyone be interested? If Joe Simpson hadn't been on the Eiger at the same time as the accident would it have had as much coverage? The cult of celebrity comes into climbing as well as more general news I'm afraid.
If I climb Alpamayo, it's a non-story, if Sharleen Spiterri (who is actually a climber) did it, it would be huge.
Actually Jon, I found your 'Panic Buying Hits Outdoor Shops' on a climbing news site, that aggregated news from all over the place. The net is even worse for it, because news like this gets automatically picked up by the title without it ever having been passed human eyes.
You can now feel responsible for starting a huge rush for gear countrywide, possibly worldwide.
And in an accident closer to home - I've just noticed your news item describing legendary Italian climber Reinhold Messner as a legendary Austrian. Better hope he's too busy hunting yetis to notice.
Yes damn it, you are correct, he was, of course, born in the part of the southern Tyrol, which is Italian. For confirmation see the official Reinhold Messner homepage which, to show how easy it is to get it wrong, is in German...
I have a very personal interest in this thread, as my brother is or rather was Phillip O'Sullivan, tho, he preferred the name Tom Denton. what does bug me about the whole media thing, is that not once did Channel 4 ever contact the familes to ask what WE wanted done with that tape. Regardless of who filmed it, that tape contains my brother's final moments, I do consider that does give us, as well as Matt's parents the right to have a say in what will happen to that tape. I live in dread of that tape surfacing on TV, as TV seems to get more gruesome, more graphic, its a real valid concern. I most definitly DO NOT want my step mother, father, brothers and sister, also my eldest daughter, who adored her uncle, she was his darling bubby, unwittingly watching a reality show and seeing my baby brother falling to his demise. We, the family, only knew as much about the accident as the media reported, there were so many conflicting reports, it was disgusting. I had the good, well dubious good fortune to run into one of the rescuers from that day, who had the grace to sit with me, and tell me where they had found phill and Matt, BUT until I found this site today, i was unaware of how far he had fallen. Joe makes a mention that he made an efort to contact Matt's family, yet, i am unaware if he attempted to contact Phillip's. it is ironic that only strangers to us, know of phillips last moments, I will also say in disgust, that the media report released details, tho not the names, before contact was made with us back in New Zealand. I will be making further inquiries regarding the tape, to ensure that it wll never be made available for public broadcasting. I was informed however to my horror, or maybe this is another mis-report by the media, that the Mountaineering committee was using the tape in safety presentations. This I do NOT, nor do any other members of my family wish that to be happening. I would like to hear from Joe myself, so i can hear for myself what really happened that day.
after my 3 year old nephew died of a rare cancer the charity we were involved with asked us to do a small article with the daily mirror,surprise, surprise the article was full of false information(even miss-spelling his name).weve boycotted the d.m since then,and that was 1986!
personally, with no disrespect to Jon, I feel newspapers should be taken to task every time they get something wrong, many should be prosecuted for trades discriptions, they are supposed,one would assume from their title, to print "NEWS", not gossip and theory about what is happening in the world, in the race to get a story out, they often make some very big mistakes which can cause a hell of a lot of harm, the alleged Iraqi abuse by English forces which turned out to be a hoax being the perfect example, all the paper had to do was speak to someone in the forces to realise it was a hoax, but they were in too much of a hurry to make a fat buck, in this age where communications are so fast, it should be a lot easier to double check these stories but I think most papers are too worried that someone else will get the story out first! In an ideal world, getting it right and causing the minimum of pain to the people close to these stories should take priority over profit, but till that happens, I'll not buy any of the sensationalist crap that pass for "newspapers" oops, felt a need for rant mode to be used on that one! Karen, good luck with getting to the truth, it's possible that no one knows for certain exactly what happened, but that doesn't give anyone the right to publish what they think might make a good story
I've had real problems with what to say about this thread. As a journalist I feel a natural tendancy, like Jon, to defend fellow journalists - but I also back much of what Joe has said.
My personal view is that journalists have a duty to report facts, not speculation and rumour. It is also one of the reasons why I do not take a regular newspaper. The cut throat world of daily newspapers is a race for exclusives and being the first to break news. It is an unfortunate fact that the unbiased truth can suffer in this world of "get there first". Then of course there is the publications own slant which either has to be followed by the journalist, or is mixed in at editorial level. Add to this the newspaper industy's demand for sensationalism and sometimes the eventual story bares only a fractional relationship with the truth.
It is worth remembering also that the newspapers do not have an expert in each field that may give rise to a story. Most journalists know a little about lots of things and have no detailed knowledge of what are essentially minority pastimes. This does not excuse a lack of simple, basic research such as locations heights etc. Any self respecting journalist should get these right as facts are the tools of the trade. Sometimes however, the main content is supplied by the reporter and the associated facts researched by a junior or a researcher. When this is the case the actual content of an article under a journalists byeline contributed by the journalist can be miniscule.
Monthly magazines, however, are a different story. As there is time between deadlines to research contents properly then accuracy is generally higher. While editorial policy may have an impact on the slant of the story (eg TGO and any windfarm story)the facts are usually reliable. This is why I have critisised Trail in another thread, as there is no excuse for putting Scottish mountains in the wrong place, getting the number of Munros on Skye wrong etc. The Ben Nevis error, however, was not a journalistic error, it was a combination of layout and sub editor errors. The content was probably submitted correctly, but during layout was accidentally cut/ didn't fit the allocated space, and the sub didn't notice when doing a final check of the laid out drafts.
My only problem with Joe's article is the impression that reporting journalists are always totally responsible for what appears in print, and that all journalists are the same. As explained above, the reporter may have little input to the final production, and there are good journalists around. Quite often these journalists are freelance as that way they're not coinstrained by the rules of the race for news, but can take the time and make the effort to produce quality output. They also go freelance as meticulous research tends to be time consuming which doesn't go down well in a fast paced industry.
Karen, you have my sincerest sympathies and I hope you find out all you can about the circumstances of this tragic accident. As a journalist I hope you also find out who was responsible for the misinformation and are able to gain a degree of control over any film footage (though if I'm honest I think you will find this very hard). My best advice is wherever possible speak directly to a source and never to a third party(eg if you hear about the Mountaineering Council doing something speak directly to them).
I agree completely with Joe on this. I was once in a group who found some climbers who had just had an accident and I was horrified at the level of inaccuracy in the press. I phoned my parents straight away to reassure them that it wasn't us who was hurt and they said my account was nothing like the incident that was being reported on TV.
I also have a friend who was involved in a mountaineering accident that was heavily misreported and it was extremely distressing for her. Several years later she went on another expedition and a well-known female journalist wrote a very critical, personal and innacurate opinion piece about how irresponsible she was as a mother.
It is shocking how little interest certain members of the press have for the truth. It's as though they get the bare bones of a story and make up the rest to fit what they want to say.
I went to the Womens International meet a few years ago, and this issue was heavily discussed. A representative from the BMC said that if ever any of us were involved in an incident, we should phone the BMC and give them all the facts, and then refer all press enquiries to their trained press officer.
My media career lasted precisely twelve months becuase of precisely twelve months because of the issues discussed here.
I worked for a press agency run by the son of a mate my old man's who in his time was a fairly well respected Fleet Street journo of the old school.
I went in with a fairly good idea of what I ought to expect. Its always been a hard nosed trade but in general we tell the truth and chec our facts (or at least the subbies/archive people do) and that way we get the story straight.
No more.
No more subbies, not time to check facts or even interest in doing so. Get it out first, fast and before the other f@cker was the motto in our office. We produced a distorted view of the world skenned to suit the demented appetites of the publications we desperately pitched our output at.
The last straw for me was when my picture editor tried to sell a picture of a murder victim to one of the tabloids.
She'd been butchered by an ex-foreign legionnaire while her deaf/blind mother slept in the room next door. I had to try and interview her mother. The day after.
This charmer thought he'd pitch it as follows.
"Yeah, got a picture of the dead bird here, showing a bit of leg, nice bit of tit an' all!! Lovely"
I was informed I had an attitude problem, so I quit. A special place in Hades awaits Mr Murdoch and all his ilk.
Thank you to all the expressions of Sympathy. Since posting this, one thing has coem to my attention from speaking to a journalist friend of mine. A journalist will only report what they are told from so-called witnesses, bystanders or reliable sources. What might come as a bit of a shock to some, is the fact that some people get a thrill out of seeing their name in print, enjoying the 15 minutes of fame theory. Sometimes these so-called witnesses glimpsed something out of the corner of their eye, and what they didnt see, they make up. Sadly, yes that did happen in this case. When the story was first published in the newspapers, they had got a so called witnesses story, the witess had been there on that day, but had not seen anything, rather, thwey had seen the fuss, asked a few questions, and as i said, made up what they didnt know. Subsequent stories were based on more factual reports, but as the following stories differed from the original reports, it can be percieved as inaccurate reporting. At the time the story first hit the paper's, Joe had not spoken to them, nor had the 4th person in their party, they were actually talking to the swiss police at the time and were not known immediatly to the press until a slightly later time. As for the claim Joe made that the papers said Channel 4 were refusing to give the tape to the police or anyone else, which was false, as channel 4 did assist the Police with this, was actually reported because of a chance remark overheard by again a so called witness. The witness had actually heard the remark of "I wonder if the Channel 4 crew will hand over the footage" translated to the papers by the witness as "the channel 4 crew wont hand over the footage" Yes, i have done my research, and found this out from a friend of mine in Switzerland, as well as a friend of mine involved in Englsh journalism. I will admit, that I made my judgements in my earlier post based on what I had read from joe, making the assumption, that since he was there, he was correct. Journalists are first and foremost human, and to err is human, also, they ake the same choices as we all do, we do rely on people we consider reliable, and if someone tells you, they "saw" exactly what happened, you do tend to believe them, which is what happened in this case. Sadly cases like this do tend to be sensationalised, the tragic aspect is what tends to sell nowadays, like a murder story, there is little regard to the Victims family, it is seen as freedom of the press, the right of the public to know etc. As far as i am concerned, in the cases of such murders, the person that is accused is often tried by media first, it can make the finding of a non partial jury extremly hard, and regardless of how heinous the crime, the person has the right to a fair trial. Anyway, Thank you to the person that gave me the addy for joe's website, I have posted in there, and I'm awaiting a response from there at the moment.
Karen, may I offer my condolences, I didnt know either of you but I have lost a friend on the mountains and I feel for you.
Whenever I have been involved with newspaper reports, or they have reported about anything I know about,the reported event has had little resemblence to the actual event/issue. I work on the breast screening vans and the way the media reports breast cancer risk can cause a great deal of anxiety and women often greatly over estimate the likeyhood of a bad result.
