Conventional news is a tough business these days. The erosion of ad revenues and the fragmentation of audiences have bankrupted many papers and seen a fundamental change in the ways news is gathered and presented.
Monday night’s episode of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show opened with a critique of CNN that was triggered by the news network ‘fact-checking’ a Saturday Night Live sketch that was critical of President Obama.
Stewart and his team looked at CNN’s poor record of fact checking on its own programs.
Fact checking is the function of news. That is the public service they provide.
CNN isn’t alone; a lot of news outlets aren’t doing that kind of fact checking. Where is the critical analysis of numbers, checking methodology.
Too many interviews on CNN end with “We’ll leave it there” as Stewart showed in rapid succession. Too many misleading studies are just being “left there” without appropriate critical analysis.
I can relate to this segment from The Daily Show.
Are “facts” going to be determined by the loudest voices or majority opinion?