How "Gotcha" Journalists Mean Well But Twist Facts
As the kid of a Journalism / Mass Communications professor ("Dr. I"), I'm very fond of reporters and journalists. I bemoaned the mistake the print media made in the 1990s by resisting online sales. Yes, ebay was a threat to the classified ads, which were about 1/3 of revenue (subscriptions and ads were 2/3). As advertising dollars then also migrated to the internet, and free content eroded subscriptions, it's amazing that good reporters like Barbara Davies at DailyMail are able to make a living.
But you can't run a paper based on a 1960s strategy.
So, if something rather ordinary and gradual, but important, has been happening for decades, how does a good journalist juice up the content? Add a little spice - or sugar - to a story?
Bigass Font!
If my dad were to edit the headline, confident in his classified ads and advertising revenue, and not afraid of losing subscribers to the 1960s "Yellow Press", he might have written something more educational, less twisty.
"Report reveals today's cheap clothes end up in Africa."
This would ease up a bit on the "gotcha", because Africans today are a LOT more affluent than they were in the 1960s. They buy a lot of new clothes, made by increasingly efficient Asian clothing manufacturers. As Hans Rosling/Gapminder noted a decade ago the screaming poverty of the 1960s is long gone, and good damn riddance.
As the kid of a Journalism / Mass Communications professor ("Dr. I"), I'm very fond of reporters and journalists. I bemoaned the mistake the print media made in the 1990s by resisting online sales. Yes, ebay was a threat to the classified ads, which were about 1/3 of revenue (subscriptions and ads were 2/3). As advertising dollars then also migrated to the internet, and free content eroded subscriptions, it's amazing that good reporters like Barbara Davies at DailyMail are able to make a living.
But you can't run a paper based on a 1960s strategy.
So, if something rather ordinary and gradual, but important, has been happening for decades, how does a good journalist juice up the content? Add a little spice - or sugar - to a story?
Bigass Font!
The fast fashion trash mountain: Shocking report reveals today's cheap clothes are so badly made they often can't be resold — and end up rotting into a toxic soup in Africa
If my dad were to edit the headline, confident in his classified ads and advertising revenue, and not afraid of losing subscribers to the 1960s "Yellow Press", he might have written something more educational, less twisty.
"Report reveals today's cheap clothes end up in Africa."
This would ease up a bit on the "gotcha", because Africans today are a LOT more affluent than they were in the 1960s. They buy a lot of new clothes, made by increasingly efficient Asian clothing manufacturers. As Hans Rosling/Gapminder noted a decade ago the screaming poverty of the 1960s is long gone, and good damn riddance.
