Welcome to Sandbagged.net. We hope to be a community of news consumers, subjects, that hope to help each other understand and deal successfully with the media outlets that serve us in the United States.
As much as the people behind the newsprint, tv cameras and electrons demand transparency in the institutions and people they cover, we ought to demand the same transparency in them. This site offers updated ways on how to deal with members of the media.
Found this story in Medium’s daily list which is catered toward my interests. Setting aside that news stories are perceived through a lens of our own making and that Breitbart could actually be fair (false shudder) I wanted to bring up that this story about a newly-published researcher in Britain published his findings in the few interactions with news media about his work.
The key takeaway I gleaned from it is that his interactions with the front-line news media: reporters was generally good as they seemed to understand his research. But he finds that after the phone call has ended that there were layers of other “subeditors” that has applied its spin to the reporter’s work. This is fully in line with my experiences and that more than half the time the front-line news media, those who face the public to get accurate information to satisfy the needs of their publication. But the nearly faceless people you never hear about can have their own agenda and that’s why you always should be careful in speaking with reporters, photojournalists, etc your real concern is about those you cannot see.
The researcher applied his own research findings in his interaction and expectations with Breitbart and found his findings were true. There’s more about this Breitbart angle but that’s for another post.
Former CBS’ News reporter Sheryl Atkinson posts on her blog some hard work documenting our mainstream media’s errors in fact reporting. As a former journalist, I can see these mistakes in reporting as very grievous and are avoidable. Of course, it’s work to go against your instincts and actually do the leg work to actually back up your assertion in a news story. If you read her post, 50 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List, you’ll see a pattern of “too good to check” assertions that were written without verifiable facts and times assuming things that aren’t “knowable.” My journalism professors in the early 80s would be aghast if confronted with this truth.
There are lots of takeaways but here is one: Those in these mainstream houses cry out about “Fake News” implying that they are the only ones who have the resources and the objectivity to print the truth. First, as those who know a little about journalism history, anyone can be a journalist, providing they write, learn, and verify their facts and label their conclusions as opinions. This is not where only the big ones are the arbiters of truth. This is important as Apple, Google, and others pick and choose those they presume to be fact-based journalism sources, ignoring those outside the mainstream who build a reputation for quality journalism. I know of some blogs that present journalistic values that qualify to be included, but they won’t because their point of view falls outside of the big players’ view. Throwing in only FoxNews as proof that you’re allowing other viewpoints doesn’t count (I’m looking at you, Apple).
The other notable item I noticed here is how many times certain names keep appearing in these items. An outside person looking at this could be forgiven for thinking that some of these reporters aren’t learning from their mistakes.
I just can’t let the day get away without acknowledging internet news entrepreneur Matt Drudge’s speech 15 years ago describing his story and notoriety to the National Press Club. I watched the speech again and am struck by this quote:
And time was only newsrooms had access to the full pictures of the day’s events, but now any citizen does. We get to see the kinds of cuts that are made for all kinds of reasons; endless layers of editors with endless agendas changing bits and pieces, so by the time the newspaper hits your welcome mat, it had no meaning.
This is the key to why I work on this blog. Continue reading
Louisville Courier-Journal
The Courier-Journal, the largest newspaper in Kentucky and a longtime advocate of leftward politics, in a generally conservative state, is seeking to replace its longtime conservative editorial columnist after he quit when its editor spiked a column he turned in. The reason I bring this up is because of what was in his column that caused the editor to spike it: transparency in Courier-Journal editorial writers. Because I don’t want this site to be a right/left, I’m linking to a story of the editor’s response. Continue reading
Being a tech nerd, I came across this story that piqued my interest because it seems to address the nature of how much you can trust what you read in a reputable media publication. You can read the backstory for yourself, but for those that don’t have time, the short story is that Cnet, a reputable tech publication online published a list of the ten best products of the recent Consumer Electronics Show that included DishHopper. The product, while probably neat, isn’t important, but what’s important is that this product’s creator is being sued by CBS who insisted that Cnet remove that mention of DishHopper. CBS can do that because as owners of Cnet, they have the right to do so. It became a story because a few staff members left Cnet in a public huff.
The words from the opinion piece are a restatement of the core of this site: Continue reading
Visitors who poke around the pages here will know that I’m for transparency, that is opening a window into the U.S. news media that writes news stories about us and our business. So as this story develops, I’ve got to share some insight into how the Journal News in White Plains, New York not only felt there was news interest in finding out how pervasive the number of legal handgun owners were in their two-county area, but also in the pushback as a blogger published the names and home addresses of the employees of the Gannett-owned property.
Now the next shoe has dropped as I expected they would and the management felt that they had to protect their employees at work from unknown elements. Continue reading
I try to be nonpartisan here and my interest in this story is to shed some possible insight into the thinking of NBC attempt at showmanship and the follow-on consequences. I bring noted media critic @HowardKurtz’s opinion into what the District of Columbia police should do in response to David Gregory’s showing a magazine clip for a semi-automatic gun that is illegal to possess in that district where the show was taped.
I bring it up is for two reasons: First, the very fact that it has gotten any sort of play is due to the many voices of the Internet bringing up what would have been ignored by the media in the past. Continue reading