A
few weeks ago, my favorite football team made a major move in NFL free agency
by trading away their star tight end Jimmy Graham to the Seahawks. They also traded away young promising wide receiver
Kenny Stills to the Dolphins, and a
veteran pro-bowl guard, Ben Grubbs to
the Cheifs. Additionally, they released some other veteran players, such as Pierre
Thomas. This is a lot of moves for a NFL
team to make over a few weeks.
During
this period of time, there were many false reports written. For an example one
report said that one of the teams cornerbacks, Keenan Lewis was on the trading
block (http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2015/03/conflicting_reports_say_keenan.html).
This turned out to not be the case. Another example was that Drew Brees was on
the trading block. (http://thedevotedfansopinion.sportsblog.com/posts/1949270/rumor_alert__drew_brees_on_the_trading_block.html).
These
false reports made me think about ones reputation as a writer or reporter. I
think if you want to have a good reputation as a writer, you cannot risk
writing something that isn’t true, just to get a lot of views on your
article. Although, some of these false
reports got a lot of attention and views, the website and reporters that published
these false reports, or rumors have hurt their ethos. Whenever people see a
report from a reporter, or website that has previously written a false report,
they tend not to believe them. In this
class, I think that one can learn from this example, by making sure what we
write is accurate to build our credibility and ethos.
It is interesting to note however, that there are so many of these news sources that write these false reports, that I tend not to believe any of them. When it comes to internet reporting, I never take anything as fact. I watch a lot of soccer, and the trade season is exactly the same. There are rumors and false reports of everybody and their mothers being traded, and you can't trust any of them. It is absolutely true that in order to maintain credibility, you must stick to the truth. However, the rumors don't stop in the media, because no one has credibility to begin with, so no one tries to keep it.
ReplyDeleteI think reporters and news organizations make these false reports to get attention. They call it "speculation" or a "rumor" but normally they have no credibility at all and they just try to make a splash so people will read their report, or watch their show so they can make money off of ads. But there are still some sports writers that don't use these methods, and their credibility is much higher which is typically recognized by people who read a lot of sports news.
DeleteI think reporters and news organizations make these false reports to get attention. They call it "speculation" or a "rumor" but normally they have no credibility at all and they just try to make a splash so people will read their report, or watch their show so they can make money off of ads. But there are still some sports writers that don't use these methods, and their credibility is much higher which is typically recognized by people who read a lot of sports news.
DeleteI think credibility is very hard, especially with all the people who now have access to the internet--really anything can be out there and said. I think it is important to take everything you read with a grain of salt. This is also a really good example of why we should always use multiple sources to back up a claim.
ReplyDelete