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I am sure there was a fully trained crew on hand.

The riff on TV news though, that goes a bit over the top. I talked with the guy who ran the KRON news division way back when it was relevant (we were at a fundraiser and making small talk) and I commented on the challenge of making TV news accurate. His response was that the pressure to 'be first' put negative pressure on 'be accurate' and likened it to software bugs in video games as I had mentioned I was a programmer. His take was that the speed to getting the story out was primary, vetted only by confirmation by one reliable or some number of unreliable and unrelated sources, but accuracy developed over the life of the story. Each update was a bit more accurate than the previous one.

I suggested that seemed like it didn't serve the news consumer well, but he made the argument that they defined 'serving the consumer well' by measuring market share.

I came away as a much more critical viewer of news from that conversation.

That being said, Discovery is going to make bank when this episode is on TV. If I know how a lot of people are with respect to TV (and my experience is from being on Battlebots) then they send a film crew out to video the damage with a waiver that says "sign away any future claim against discovery and we'll pay to fix your house and PUT YOU ON TV!" and they will totally go for it. Maybe Jamie coming by and doing his "over the top amazed" kind of thing looking at the hole etc etc and talking with the 'regular' folks. It will be a highly rated show and draw lots of viewers. They will make some public service announcement about not trying this stuff in what is left of your home, and everyone will be happy. The folks with a hole in their house and car will have their 15 minutes of fame, the show will get a big ratings boost (look for the episode to air during sweeps week) and become another story for the mythbusters crew.

You're over-estimating Discovery. They could've done the same thing when an explosion with a low cloud cover caused a bunch of window damage to a nearby town and they didn't even mention it until a "behind the scenes" special a few years later.

I suspect though that an explosion blowing a few windows is lot less interesting than a cannonball bouncing through a house. I at least would be interested in seeing the damage a cannonball can cause.

An explosion happening at a bomb disposal site breaking a few windows was probably excused because these people chose to buy houses near a bomb disposal site. I'm sure when the city sold the land that the developers were fully informed and likely gave up much of the potential claims against the police department on the issue.

I know I've heard of cities doing similar when land is sold near quarries. For instance, I can call a noise complaint on my neighbor any time of the day for making too much noise, but I can't call a noise complaint on a quarry operating from 7am to 7pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism

I'm not sure if the same term is used in the U.S., but few British journalists have spoken out about what you've mentioned - the race to get the story out first without applying strict fact-checking standards, all happening in an industry where resources are being cut all over the place and making matters worse.

This is les about checking facts than it is blatently putting a news tone/spin on the story.

They are selling sensationalist fear. There is very very little "news" any longer - everything is an emotional product.

They understand psychology and believe that the only way to manipulate the viewerships response is through their emotions - which is far easier to do than through critical thought. They are a self-fulfilling prophecy on the stupidity of their viewership: market emotionalism and do a poor job on actual substance because the viewers only understand emotionalism and cannot critically think for themselves -- or IF they do critically think - then the resultant opinion will be different than the opnion we are trying to sell which is fear.

"but he made the argument that they defined 'serving the consumer well' by measuring market share."

It seems that if a section of the news media defines itself that way then they have defined themselves as just another consumer product.

That is not necessarily a bad thing per se. But it does seem to undercut arguments that the news media should be treated differently from others when it comes to questions like protecting sources, standards for slander/libel, public support, and access to information.

"didn't serve the news consumer well"

Certainly not for every type of story (where accuracy counts more, say medical information or a lost child) but for a story like this it's more like entertainment. I mean does it really matter other than being interesting that this even happened at all?

Side: Agree highly with your PR angle. And even if rights weren't signed away even a good litigator knows what they can or can't get in damages from a case like this. It's not an automatic win with high dollars. You need to prove damages. The physical damage is easily remedied. The psychological damage is hard to prove. And ultimately the lawyer would do better to take his 33% of a quick settlement than to drag this out.

Well, if the lawyer's paid hourly, they are better dragging it out. But as you say, there's just not that much damage.

> In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms.

Wow. I agree there's a lot of misinformation and poor reporting on TV news, but that's like saying the Internet should be ended because of the poor quality of slashdot comments.

> In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms.

Even though it sounds a bit broad, I'll second the idea behind it as I understand it.

> Wow. I agree there's a lot of misinformation and poor reporting on TV news, but that's like saying the Internet should be ended because of the poor quality of slashdot comments.

There's too many misinformation and poor reporting on TV and no way to distinguish truth from falsehood. You wouldn't trust a person who verifiably lied to you 70% of the time. That's why you don't trust YouTube comments. It's a waste of brain resources to even try.

The same thing happened with newspapers and major news station. Even most news from news sites that end up on HN get debunked in comments after few hours by people who actually know the domain.

I personally don't know who to believe now - everyone on "popular news" seems to try either to steal attention, or to advertise something. And the truth suffers.

I for one would be willing to pay a modest fee for news that was consistently accurate and relevant (ie, made sure to catch important developments that are typically ignored by other new sources). Any suggestions?

Private intelligence?[1] They tend to put a much larger emphasis on delivering good information over writing an engaging story. They do focus almost entirely on geopolitical news, though.

Stratfor and KGS both offer free access to a limited set of their analysis.[2,3]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_intelligence_agency [2] http://www.stratfor.com/ [3] http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/NightWatch.aspx

Pay for The Economist? From the articles I have the expertise to judge, they're occasionally insightful and always seem to have at least a tenuous grasp on issue at hand. Which is in sharp contrast to the reporting in other general news sources, which is often hilariously wrong. Only publishing once a week leave a lot more time for fact checking.

For that analogy to be correct, shitty TV news stories would have to be a relatively small proportion of total TV news. That's not my experience.

A number of studies have consistently shown that TV news makes people dumber: more misinformed, more irrational, more confused, and less able to draw reasonable conclusions or make good decisions.

> A number of studies have consistently shown that TV news makes people dumber

While I believe that and I like the conclusion, my inner rationalist screams:

[citation needed]

:).

http://www.alternet.org/media/149193/study_confirms_that_fox...

Fox News != all tv news. Reproduce that study using, say, BBC News or Al Jazeera English (or even better BBC news and Al Jazeera English) and we'll talk.

Not saying those channels are perfect, but not all TV is created equal.

It's true that there is quite a variety but I'd venture to guess that most US TV news clusters closer to Fox than it would to BBC/AJE.

I think only part of the problem with mainstream TV news is inherent in the medium. There's a lot of effort put into making it infotainment.

That particular type of TV news. Not all TV news.

The medium is not the same thing as the type of content.

> The medium is not the same thing as the type of content.

True, it's a generalization, but it's a useful generalization if majority of content specific to a given medium seems to have the same properties.

Agreed. Take http://www.democracynow.org/about for an example.

Please post a URL to any of these studies so I can send it to my Mom. I'm not joking.

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ Pt. 1 http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/outfox/ Pt. 2

http://digitaljournal.com/article/314919 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/fox-news-viewers-le... etc.

It seems I cannot reply to TeMPOraL, but here are some citations:

Iyengar, S. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press.

Iyengar, S. et Kinder, D. R. 1987. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press.

The New Videomalaise : Effects of Televised Incivility on Political Trust DC Mutz - American Political Science Review, 2005 - Cambridge Univ Press http://www.jstor.org/pss/30038915

My M.Sc. in PolSci was useful after all... A third of my master thesis is on that very subject, but it's in french...

For future reference if you want to reply to a comment with no reply option click the comment link and you can reply from there.

Please don't do this regularly, though. The reply option is missing on posts for a time to attempt to reduce bad behavior, and even though it's a bit leaky through the permalink page, using that a whole lot may prompt pg to close the leak. In general, I only use it when I will not be able to reply for hours if I wait 5-10 minutes (about to start a drive, or be in meetings, or whatever).

Define "bad behavior".

People were arguing with each other and creating deeply nested comments, ignoring all other discussion. The delay exists to give them a chance to cool down and reconsider the wisdom of arguing.

The site will permit one to reply after a bit of time. If it is delaying you, it's probably best to use that time to improve your comment by citing sources or editing it to be clearer and more concise, rather than using the cheat to post straightaway.

Petty back-and-forths that don't add any value for everyone else.

If you're not using it for mischief, I don't personally see the harm in it - the "missing" link is still fulfilling its purpose of discouraging "evil" impulses by making it just that little bit harder to carry them out.

Oh my god, the political coverage is the absolute worst. I am embarrassed by the system of politics the US has slipped into.

I had friends in high school who had post-middle-age parents who were absolutely insane politically. Magnets covering their fridge, signs in their yard, on their walls; their house was just full of propaganda. And they would sit there after school watching the fucking news and getting outraged every time they were supposed to. It's clockwork for these news channels.

You have described my parents. I can't stand to be in the same building with them when they talk about anything politics related.

It's really sad to see

Citation(s) please, and does it apply to all countries' tv? I would like to believe that proper news don't yield more misinformed people. (How does this differ from reading a news article on internet?)

I've personally been aware of the back story and facts behind maybe a dozen different US network news reports. In several cases I knew the people being interviewed.

Every single time, the news, as reported, contained glaring factual errors or lies by implication that were introduced to make more of a story. In many cases it wasn't an issue of a reporter misunderstanding the story, but rather an issue of "let's take these facts and meld them into a more compelling story."

That kind of blatant disregard for truth and pandering for ratings has no place on public airwaves.

I can confirm this. I was involved in an incident once. The TV news reporters all came out and covered it. That evening, I watched the reports on the same event from 3 channels. They all got the basic facts 100% wrong, and each channel had a different set of those wrong facts.

It wasn't even an issue of bias, or making the story more compelling. It was simply slap-dash, string any-old list of crap together, run it, and move on to the next item.

It was an eye-opening experience for me.

I'm thankful that the city I live in has no media coverage. We've had police standing off with a guy barricaded in his own home on our street and nothing even touches the news even though they shut off the area for 5 hours.

I have no clue why, I think it might be because you can find police dispatch feeds for every neighboring city except ours. That's the only thing I can think of as I live in a very affluent area and the most we've ever got was the local paper covering a drive by shooting (I live in Canada so it's virtually unheard of, especially in my area - first in 15 years or something)

Compromise: let's just end any subsidies, bandwidth licenses, etc. so we're at least not supporting it...

Except that all local TV news coverage on the major networks is bad almost without exception and cable news has degraded into celebrity news, opinions from Facebook and Twitter and heavily biased, uninformed opinion segments. If you get your news from a television news show you are likely becoming less-informed and more prone to emotional response.

PBS is one of the few organization that still broadcasts real journalism in the US and it is under constant attack by brain-dead politicians, cable news blowhards and some portion of the population whose minds have been dulled by television news.

PBS may do ok on the coasts where they have offices, but they (and NPR) are pretty horrible with reporting in the plains states. Their story on Wiliston ND was so full of errors and stock footage[1] it was amazing. NPR blew the figures on the SD Child Welfare study. They have an agenda that gets them market share and control costs the same way every other ``News'' organization does.

[1] look reporters, ND does not have wandering buffalo herds everywhere, you can stop using the same stock footage anytime.

There's not really another good way to signify ND, though. It's very hard to set up an interesting photograph or stock footage scene in an area that is totally flat, with no natural or man-made landmarks. American Public Media, which makes a lot of NPR content, is based in St. Paul.

Western ND (where Williston ND is) is not "totally flat", it has the badlands. How about show that actual town when talking about it instead of stock buffalo footage? Its like every Native American story shows a Pow-Wow instead of the community the story took place in.

They could have done Lake Sakakawea but it's still hard to get an interesting scene there. Really dramatic badlands imagery would have to come from somewhere like Teddy Roosevelt national park, which is 2 hours away. Arguably, that sort of footage is just as cliche as bison. I think the bison are more representative of the state as a whole. (NDSU seems to agree with me)

The reason they didn't show the town is probably because it is totally ugly. Do you have a link to the episode online? I can't find it.

It was on a couple of months ago, and I cannot seem to find it online either - err. It was a housing piece (boom town / gold rush angle). So, the town is ugly, it is what the report was about. Spend every second giving me the feel of the place of the story and not one second on the irrelevant.

// as a UND graduate I find NDSU's choices to be poor :)

what the heck people, down vote trolls not people trying to make a point, even if you disagree with it. redouble isn't trolling.

Ironically, it's a TV show we're talking about here.

I think you're confusing "bias" with "sensationalism." TV journalists (especially of the local variety) look to sensationalize every piece of news that they can. This is due to a whole host of factors--not the least being plummeting local news ratings.

But most importantly, I want to touch on the following point: "Reporters aren't experts in the subject matter they report." Of course they're not! Journalism itself is not something that everybody can do. The problem you're citing is not because journalists aren't experts in whatever they're reporting (which is a ludicrous notion--news spans so many different subject areas that it would be nigh impossible to house an expert reporter on every subject). The problem is driven by falling ratings and a need for more gripping and sensational stories. Years ago, Ellen DeGeneres even had the joke that she was eating dinner and the local news came on to say, "What you're eating right now can kill you. Film at eleven."

> Journalism itself is not something that everybody can do.

I think the Internet has shown otherwise

I hope that was sarcasm. The Internet has shown that people don't have to work in a newsroom to be a journalist, but it's also highlighted the fact that being a journalist of any note or quality requires the same combination of skill and training and work of any profession. It's really really easy to suck at it, but it's an intangible enough thing that a lot of people don't realize a) that it's something you can suck at, b) that they might suck at it.

I think your argument misses the point. The main advantage of the internet is that the marginal cost of a better report(er) is essentially zero. The marginal cost of a TV second is huge. So detailed reporting material gets pushed out of the market for TV seconds by sensationalist crap.

On the internet, you have the chance to look for the better material. On TV, the circumstances behind the business model drive it to CNN headline news quality.

Far be it from me to defend TV news - my print journalism professors used to love to point out now there's more info on the front page of a newspaper than in an hour of TV, and you can scan to the parts that interest you. TV news is 99% garbage in my view.

That said, the internet also has a high noise-to-signal ratio. Yes, searching helps, but there is a type of in-depth reporting that you simply can't do unless it's your full-time job and you're able to travel when necessary. That's the value that news organizations can provide.

A random blogger who happens to be talented and financially independent could do great reporting. One who only has a few hours a week and no budget to devote to the task is severely hindered.

The parent post was about journalists, not about journalistic entities, unless I did miss something.

I think the Internet revealed that the common denominator is not where you work (a newsroom, your bedroom) but that you're good at your job. That's all.

The dwindling great news organizations are like a good university -- you have amazing resources at your disposal, you are surrounded by peers who hold you to a very high standard -- so by that measure traditional journalists lucky enough to work at a place which still provides that infrastructure have a leg up. Internet journalism at its best has proven that that what those institutions offer at their height are merely great tools to get the job done, but they don't at all define what the job is. The medium, and even the resources available, don't make a good journalist. They can help, sure, but what makes a good journalist is being a good journalist.

Its a lame and simple point to be making, but it was a direct reply to the parent post.

---

To really get dicey... The parent post argued that the Internet has shown that everybody can be a journalist. I really strongly disagree, but I guess that's because it boils down to an argument about "what is a journalist." If "journalism" to you is "telling someone what you saw," then yes we are all journalists, Tweeting about our sandwiches! Imparting information concisely to your audience, fact checking, treating the information you're handed not as the end of the job --as information to be straight-up regurgitated-- but instead as the beginning --facts to confirm, stories to investigate, quotes to react to-- is the stuff that matters to me when the word "journalist" is applied to someone. That is a real, complicated thing that few want to do, and even fewer are good at, let alone "everybody."

Anybody can copy and paste a press release, anybody can provide a tip on what's happening around them spatially, but not everybody can be bothered to follow it up and make sense of it. Journalism is taking a ton of information, coupling it with original research, and synthesizing it down to something people can understand. You don't need a newsroom for that, nor does being on the Internet magically make you better at it. That's all I'm saying!

Late coming back to the post but...

Think of it from the perspective of local news / journalism. Most local papers are going under and their competition is Patch (traditional journalist with a new medium) and their friends on Facebook / Twitter.

From this perspective, which is not a small segment of the world of journalism, yes anyone can be a journalist now.

I was a local television reporter for a long time, before switching to the digital side of things.

You're totally correct with most of the above.

One of the crazy (and sometimes fun) parts of the job of being a local television reporter is trying to be an expert in something new every day.

Really what it comes down to is having to try to figure out how to distill down a huge amount of information into a one minute, thirty second chunk of video - when you do that, by nature, only the 'sensational' stuff makes the cut.

Then it gets cut again by someone who has no idea about any of the stuff you left out of the story when they write a promotion about it, which is how you end up with teases like "What you're eating right now can kill you".

> They were all experienced and were very prepared. In the end they found themselves in a situation where they had to have search and rescue pull them out -- going forward or back wasn't an option.

As a very experienced and avid hiker myself, I'm extremely curious about this. Can you provide more details? Did anyone that was on-site blog about it?

Injury is the only thing I can think of...

Thanks

This coverage isn't quite as bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj-CErr0VOY

TV news has more in common with entertainment than journalism.

You could probably get the same amount of content from reading news story summaries for 5 minutes as you get from an hour of local TV news.

And depending on where you got your summaries from, the accuracy would likely be much, much higher.

Yes, daily TV news is crap and it's awful that it influences so many people.

But take comfort in the fact that tomorrow, TV news will have new happenings to blabber about, and yesterday's crap will be forgotten. People who care will read the full story weeks later and get something resembling truth.

That's true, but the part of the reason that it's a big problem that various news sources are so slap dash is the way the human brain works. Once a person has read a news story, it's more difficult to displace those "facts". People generally believe the first story they read, even if they read a correction later. Even if you are aware of this type of cognitive bias it still occurs. Obviously it can be overcome but it's much better to try and get the most accurate version first.

When combined with other biases, this is why polls routinely show many people still believe some story that was reported even after it has been widely discredited.

That sounds like any contact I've had with TV news or newspapers from the inside. To be charitable, the way I'd put it is: they can only afford the time to write the story, but not enough time to really understand the story.

It's not the fault of TV news. Like so many other things, the blame goes all the way upstream to the anonymous mass of idiots that comprise humanity (for almost all values). TV news is meeting the demands made by its market, which doesn't absolve their responsibility for participating, but also doesn't really make it worth much to "end TV news in all forms". We have to teach the people how to do good and not evil. If any of you know how to do this, please get back to me.

I don't think you need to take it that far to say news should end. Personally if each person that was the subject of a news cast had the option to say whether it aired or not would be enough.

It sort is along the lines that if the person wasn't made available for comment then they'd have no story at all. That way the person gets to say whether the information provided is factual or bias or an alternative.

While your final sentiment is overly strong, there could be good TV news, and this particular bit didn't come out as overly critical or judgmental to me, phrases like "before spiraling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile" and "and bounced around like a pinball" don't help to convey the story accurately.

I stopped watching the news years ago. TV news channels have unfortunately become corrupted by the tight competition for viewership, and they are willing to do shameful, pathetic things to get a story that will help them get their ratings up. What they do isn't reporting anymore. It's entertaining.

At least in the U.S., TV news isn't intended to inform; it's intended to sell advertising, and juicier stories sell more advertising. Expecting news from TV "news" (at either the local or national level) is like expecting news from Dancing with the Stars.

Reminds me of the Human Giant TV News sketch... http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/8a81dd6b88/human-giant-mont...

Reminds me of the BBC's "How to make a news broadcast":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4

FWIW, I'm trying to fix this. Anyone else who's passionate about this, WebGL, Quartz Composer or other video graphics technology, get in touch with me.

You don't live in reality. Or at least your reality is not that of the average person.

Startup idea: web-based news TV channel with experts reporting on stuff (with votes).

TV news is no better and no worse than other forms of journalism.

That seems unlikely. Relative to print, production cost of video is high, airtime is limited, the audience is less sharp and more fickle, and producers are much more profit-focused. It'd be miraculous if TV news managed to overcome those handicaps and get up to the level of print journalism.

It only works if its an independently funded public service broadcaster like the BBC. Generally, the BBC news is widely accepted in the UK to have more accurate reporting than the press. Especially compared to tabloid newspaper stories, which most people realise that you need to take with a strong pinch of salt.

Ok, maybe I phrased that a little too strongly. How about this: you can't count on print journalism not to be shockingly inaccurate, same as TV journalism.

I'd say long-form investigative documentary essays and films that take months to years to produce are a significantly better form of journalism than TV news.

I disagree, the reporting is much more restricted and guided on TV what with all of the advertising partners and the push to be "family friendly."

No, the longer the reporter has to make the story the better a job they'll do. So TV reporting, which is produced continuously, tends to be the works, followed by daily newspapers, followed by weekly magazines.

Dude a cannonball was fired within clear sight of a residential neighborhood. Regardless of what you thought of the news reporting quality, it's pretty indefensible, negligent behavior.

It seems as if this happened at Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, which they say is surrounded by foothills.

No, it's a military firing range. actually went over the hills. looks like a pretty big open area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=camp+parks+prfta&hl=en&...

From what I understand it hit a hill and bounced which is how it ended up trashing that area. While vary dangerous it was not traveling all that fast. Basically, an 80mph bullet is not that dangerous, but an 80 mph 100lb softball is.