Posted by Gary Schwitzer in General journalism issues
This isn’t a health news story.
But it could have been.
TVSpy.com estimates that 27 local TV stations across the country all used the same script for filler material. They reported:
Conan O’Brien poked fun at content-sharing in local news this week, showing a clip on his show of several anchors repeating the same phrase — “push the envelope” — while reporting on the late night host’s plans to officiate a same-sex wedding on his show.
The original source of the copy was CBS Newspath, according to staffers at two stations featured in the clip. Although “Conan” only showed 18 stations, a search of TVEyes.com reveals that 27 stations reported the story using identical wording.
In each case, the TV station has filled news time at no expense, grabbing a feed from CBS without having to pay a reporter to hit the streets and do some enterprise reporting on some important local issue.
Watch and weep.
We’ve written many times about journalism-via-news-release. Here’s an example that didn’t involve TV news but print journalism.
Comments are closed.
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
While this story adequately addressed 7 of our 10 criteria, the 3 on which it missed were significant omissions, yet could have been easily addressed.
Solid medical conference reporting, with many expert interviews and good context provided. Goes far beyond the conference presentation itself.
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