The media did not really care much about accuracy then, and its even worse now.
One notable exception I have found is this channel https://www.youtube.com/@wildwestfaces The narration is often of first person memoirs of historic events and the images are relevant and sync well with the narration.
It isn't about money or resources. Even the biggest budget Hollywood productions regularly pass off incorrect ships in full understanding that most viewers cannot tell a sloop from a brig. Sometimes it is about cost or practicality, but more often it is about which ship comports with audience expectations.
I mean, as a viewer, if I spot a naval historiographer routinely using wrong footage, then how certain can I be they're not also playing fast and loose with what they're saying? After all, the only piece of clear evidence that I have points towards them not caring.
As for what "comports with audience expectations", maybe this is an extreme position, but to me, intentionally choosing something incorrect but more recognizable is gaslighting at scale - it reinforces the misconception in those already exposed, and introduces it to those new (usually young) to a topic.
Now, the abysmal nature of name brand corporate history videos is another matter.
Not doing so is exactly the same as the Hollywood thing; focusing on the narrative rather than the actual teaching, which seems to me psychotic behavior for anything purporting to teach. If you’re misrepresenting the image of the object for narrative convenience, the immediate question is how much of the other material has been butchered for that same convenience? The priorities are out of order.
It’s a violation of viewer trust, and it’s only acceptable in the sense that the viewer often doesn’t know they’ve been tricked… because they were viewing it for the precise reason that they don’t have the knowledge to differentiate between a truth and a lie on that subject
To say that, you would also need to know the actual accuracy rate of media over time. I don't think anyone really knows that without perhaps having done a PhD thesis on the topic.
What's more, good media publishes citations & corrections: https://www.theguardian.com/info/complaints-and-corrections
They will correct things like that when pointed out. On the other hand, honest mistakes of the wrong photo is not that uncommon. In this case, I think the resource was looking for just a stock photo. I did not read the article and immediately think, "Oh yeah, random tower in the middle of nowhere USA, this is for sure a picture of that tower". Perhaps just me..
Regardless, on wrong image, I've certainly noted that a few times - for example reading protest signs that are clearly for a different time/issue than what is being documented (EG: protests in Russia in like 2010s and the news was running images from things that happened 15 & 20 years earlier).
God forbid they just write their article with no photo at all. Better to use a wrong one apparently.
I think this is hypercritical. If there is a story about some dolphin, if there is a picture of 'any' dolphin to give context, is that then the "wrong one" and suddenly a ding against the newspapers accuracy worthy of running a correct? Particularly when there is a context line stating "this is just a random dolphin to give you an image of a dolphin."
> Better to use a wrong one apparently.
Humans are very visual creatures - in some ways - yes. Even conceding that the picture is the "wrong" one, which again I think is a hypercritical judgment.
basically, not looking good for the future of reliable media
How does one even measure accuracy? Number of corrections might indicate it, but who is to say that all of media is forthcoming with corrections. How does one control for digital vs non-digital distributions? Is the rate of accuracy different per medium, and how would that roll-up for the overall organization?
I think the meta-observation still holds. The response to "media organizations are all inaccurate and this has gotten worse!" - is asymmetric compared to the effort to make the statement. Happily hacker news has a culture where statements are assumed to be opinions (unless otherwise presented with a citation or somethign), and opinions are generally not held to be worth much in this discourse.
Yeah, I'd assume it's just you. My default assumption for a photo next to a piece of text is that the two are directly related, in particular the photo being the subject of the text.
Okay, so maybe they wanted to have a photo, but there's no way to frame this that makes the journalist or the outlet look good. Intentionally or not, choosing a wrong photo is still screwing with readers' perception of reality.
> Okay, so maybe they wanted to have a photo, but there's no way to frame this that makes the journalist or the outlet look good. Intentionally or not, choosing a wrong photo is still screwing with readers' perception of reality.
Doing a search for how other news websites reported this story, only the CNN used the "correct" image. A few others used different images without even giving context it was a different tower. A few of the other ones are certainly more egregious, not labelled at all..
Other/wrong image:
https://www.fox9.com/news/radio-tower-stolen-wjlx-alabama
https://nypost.com/2024/02/11/news/alabama-radio-station-wjl... (about a minute into the top clip, there is B-roll with generic radio tower images)
https://boingboing.net/2024/02/09/200-foot-radio-tower-stole...
Actual image:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/08/us/stolen-transmitter-radio-t...
No image:
https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/someone-stole-a-jasper-radio...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/09/radio-...
> Okay, so maybe they wanted to have a photo, but there's no way to frame this that makes the journalist or the outlet look good. Intentionally or not, choosing a wrong photo is still screwing with readers' perception of reality.
Choosing a "wrong" photo that is CLEARLY labelled, I don't agree with this opinion. I find that hypercritical. Seemingly we simply disagree.
As you say, it also waits until a reader notices factual mistakes, the other ones just slip through. Last point, you don’t have any backing to conclude that their mistakes are honest, and not the result of intent of bias. Given their bias is always in the same direction, I do not believe for a second that The Guardian isn’t putting its thumb on the scale when they only reproduce the part of scientific studies that goes in their editorial direction, conveniently leaving the rest unsaid.
This is not true. A single counter-example is all that is needed to disprove the assertion "the guardian never.." Counter-example:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/10/asthma-of-th...
In this section, the source article is linked (which is: https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035232/), that section is:
> When Attwood first identified EoE in the late 1980s, it was vanishingly rare, with estimated rates of less than 10 per 100,000 people. But just like food allergies, which are also mediated by eosinophils, EoE has become increasingly common in all age groups, from young children to the over-70s, for reasons we do not fully understand.
> Estimates from the British Society of Gastroenterology suggest that it now affects approximately 63 in 100,000 people, which Attwood says is sufficient to make it technically “a common disease”.
The same article links other studies..
I don't believe I said that. My impression is that they certainly do pro-actively correct mistakes and do not rely on just readership. At the very least, the 'corrections' section is discoverable from their home page. I can't find the corrections part of some other news websites.
Please provide evidence that the Guardian does not do any of their own corrections.
> Last point, you don’t have any backing to conclude that their mistakes are honest, and not the result of intent of bias.
I don't think you have any backing for that either. Though, what backing would anyone need for any kind of slant for "we published a generic picture of a radio tower" (with clear context note on the image) - how is that a slant due to bias?
> I do not believe for a second that The Guardian isn’t putting its thumb on the scale when they only reproduce the part of scientific studies that goes in their editorial direction, conveniently leaving the rest unsaid.
I would ask you please provide backing for this assertion/opinion. (It's going to be difficult to determine whether it's your bias in reading something to think an extraneous assertion is an omission compared to something you think that is related but is either unrelated or incorrect. But, if you have a good resource that has done the systematic research, and relies on reproducible science, that would be an interesting read)
A clearly labelled image of a radio tower for a sensationalist story that a radio tower in Alabama was stolen, that.. that clearly labelled image is evidence of "left wing bias" and the "the guardian... putting its thumb on the scale." I don't think this is the story to choose for that particular hill to die on.
> "A different radio tower, which has presumably not been stolen"
I would just not include a photo at all.
There's a world of difference between an old free-standing Long Lines tower and the straight-and-narrow guyed tower that actually disappeared, just as there is also a world of difference stature between Roseanne Barr and Gwen Stefani.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but each of those thousand words has negative value when they're simply wrong.
I feel like that would be part of the bare minimum of your job for a newspaper.
If you can't meet that standard, don't run a photo, or don't run the story. The world won't come to a standstill because a partisan rag from a provincial backwater didn't run a filler item about a wacky heist halfway across the world.
Like others said, I too would choose to not include any photo at all - there's no way to frame inclusion of a wrong photo as something good.