I should hurry and get my degree, if this guy can get hired...

Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
I became aware of this too late to read the original story, but apparently an Eric Slater wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times about the rising problem of fraternity hazing at Cal State Chico. All I've been able to find from the Times are some interesting corrections.

From the March 31 edition:
[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]An article in Tuesday's California section about hazing at Cal State Chico mistakenly said that a pledge to a fraternity at nearby Butte Community College died of alcohol poisoning. He did not die but was hospitalized. The article also said Chico has a population of 35,000; according to the city, the population is 71,317. In addition, University President Paul Zingg was quoted saying the school would shut down its Greek system if problems with hazing did not abate. Zingg made his comments to a group of 850 students and others, and his remarks were quoted in the local media. He did not speak with The Times. Also, although the article characterized the school as being well-known for its basketball program, its winning baseball program may be best known outside campus.
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Basketball program? I knew Chico has one but hadn't heard much besides that, although I can see where that mistake would be made depending on who he talked to. As for the University President's comments, anyone who's taken any good journalism classes should know that if you're quoting someone from an already-published story, you don't take credit for getting the quote yourself: "We'll shut down the the Greek system if this keeps up," Zingg told the Chico Enterprise-Record. Slater should have known 35,000 was lowballing the population; California city limit signs have populations written on them, and it seems like it wouldn't be hard to tell the difference between a city of 35,000 and one twice that size. It only takes a minute to Google for the local Chamber of Commerce site if nothing else. And as far as the "we said someone died; he didn't" thing... that's good for a laugh or two.

But it gets better:
From the April 19 Times:
[/font]
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[/font][font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]On March 31, The Times published a correction of four errors in a March 29 article about controversies arising from fraternity hazing at Cal State Chico. At the same time, editors began a full review of the story, which was published on the front page of the California section. Based on that inquiry, which included a visit to Chico by a Times editor, the paper has concluded that the article fell far short of Times standards.[/font][/font] [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times] [/font][/font] [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]Beyond the specific errors, the newspaper's inquiry found that the methods used in reporting the story were substandard. The quotations from anonymous sources and from two named sources, a Mike Rodriguez and a Paul Greene, could not be verified. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times] [/font][/font] [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]Additional inaccuracies found during the investigation include the following: [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times] [/font][/font]

  • [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]
    [*]In describing a hazing death this year, the article said that the victim died after drinking five gallons of water from a "rubber bladder bag." The Butte County district attorney reported that the amount of water exceeded five gallons and that it came from a plastic jug, not a bladder bag.
    [*]The story also reported that the victim was alone at the time of his death. The D.A. reported that this was not the case.
    [*]The article attributed to "medical examiners" the idea that the victim may have experienced a moment of euphoria shortly before his death. That belief has been expressed by the victim's father, who told the Chico Enterprise Record that he based it on his own research. Butte County's district attorney said it does not appear in any medical reports related to the current case.
    [*] The article said that the parents of Adrian Heideman, a hazing victim who died in 2000, showed their son's day planner to hazing expert Hank Nuwer. Nuwer informed The Times' readers' representative that he was not shown Heideman's day planner by his parents; he heard it described by Heideman's father over the phone.     [/font]    [/font]
[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times] [/font][/font] [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]Separate from the March 29 article, a review of an earlier story on the same subject revealed another error. On March 5, The Times reported that eight fraternity members had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. In fact, eight were charged with hazing, and four of them were also charged with involuntary manslaughter. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times] [/font][/font] [font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]The writer of both articles, Eric Slater, has been dismissed from the staff.
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[/font][/font]

[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]I'll expect this to show up in journalism textbooks in the near future.
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[font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]But this story just wouldn't be a story without this quote in the Enterprise-Record from Slater, who was "asked to resign" by the Times and has retained an attorney for wrongful-termination legal action:
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[/font][font=Verdana, Times][font=Verdana, Times]"Myself and my attorney are looking over the request and will get back to the L.A. Times by morning," Slater said Monday.
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[/font][/font]
 
Yo can get a job at Reuters. They allow editorializing in their news pieces.

Ailes, Gore Square Off Amid Laughs By Paul Bond
Thu Apr 21, 3:10 AM ET



Fox News chief Roger Ailes on Tuesday defended the top-rated cable news channel from an antiwar heckler while deflecting some good-natured ribbing from former Vice President Al Gore about a perceived rightward tilt at Fox.

Ailes, during a discussion about the media's role in democracy at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, also endorsed the integrity of many bloggers, a sentiment shared by U.S. News and World Report publisher Mortimer Zuckerman, also onstage.

CNN's Jeff Greenfield set the spirited exchange in motion by mentioning a Pew study that found that 52 percent of Fox News viewers are Republican and only 13 percent are Democrats.

"I don't know the relevance of a Pew study," Ailes said. "I do know that 100 percent of the people who work there are liberals."

"What about Herb, the guy in maintenance?" Greenfield joked.

"He's downstairs watching Fox," Ailes shot back.

Gore lamented, in hushed tones followed by thundering oratory, that the political dialogue is not in Congress as it has historically been but instead in "30-second television commercials that are not the Federalist Papers."

Gore's animated demeanor prompted Greenfield to wonder aloud how Gore earned a reputation for being a stiff and dispassionate public speaker.

Quipped Gore, in a news-anchor voice, "Al Gore distinguished himself tonight from the wooden podium behind him."

Gore also questioned the TV news media's role in promoting, or creating, society's "serial obsessions," such as the Michael Jackson trial and the Terri Schiavo feeding-tube controversy.

While viewers might get every aspect of a titillating trial, they apparently weren't told in strong enough terms that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Gore said.

Greenfield, noting that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, asked Ailes, "Were we ill-served by the coverage in the run-up to the war in Iraq?"

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

But as Ailes began saying that Fox News reported not just the Bush administration's claims but also what the United Nations, the Clinton administration and the CIA had been saying, a heckler shouted, "Bulls**t!"

"If you want to come up here, we'll get another chair. If not, you can have another drink," Ailes responded as the crowd of more than 2,000 roared.

"If all the media agrees with the same point of view, that's not good for Americans," Ailes said, noting that but for the efforts of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, no other news outlet would have reported the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal.

Greenfield began the session by asking, hypothetically, how today's mainstream media, faced with the Cuban Missile Crisis of four decades ago, might have contended with an Internet site "that everybody reads" and features a "flashing siren" with splashy headlines.

"The only Web site I know with a siren is the Drudge Report," Gore said. "The Internet doesn't glue eyeballs to the screen the way television does."

Ailes said that though Fox News won't "go to air from anything off a computer," many bloggers are accurate news sources.

"Bloggers are not only checking the accuracy of CBS, they're checking the accuracy of each other," he said. "We know which bloggers -- within a very short period of time -- are generally credible and which ones are not."

Zuckerman agreed, saying: "What you get off the Internet is unbelievably passionate. That's all to the good."

Said Ailes: "Freedom of press didn't invent democracy; democracy allowed freedom of the press to flourish. We need to defend democracy."

Earlier, in a presentation about global warming, Gore got laughs by showing a cartoon from "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening that starred a giant ice cube and a yellow-haired girl who looked a lot like Lisa Simpson.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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So what? I could do the same thing with the New York Times and probably get paid better.
 
Let him work for tabloids like Chcr said. I am sure you can get a real job in journalism. Just maintain the integrity as much as you can
 
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