On Thu, 2005-11-03 at 12:56 +0000, Andrew Brown wrote: > Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > >> Journalists don't like being lied to. > > > > Unless it sells more news ;-)
> No. I've been a journalist on national papers for twenty years now. And I have been reading papers that print lies or at least distortions of the truth for a lot longer than that. I have also done quite a lot of freelance writing some of it for national papers so I'm not devoid of any experience. The comment is not about you personally, but that there are a range of vested interests and not all journals or journalists are of the same virtue. You seemed to have ignored the ;-). > I don't > like being lied to. I never have done, unless I know -- and the liar > doesn't -- that I can prove he's lying. So you like being lied to if you can prove the lie? Well that probably does make a more saleable story :-) The degree of the likely distortion of the truth rather depends on the journal but also the political perspective. One person's truth is another person's lie. As a journalist I would have thought that you would make a distinction between rational and political argument. In the context of marketing its mostly political. MS will talk up their products. They will avoid outright lies because as you point out "MS are a bunch of liars" probably makes a better headline than MS exaggerate a bit. However, if they tell the journalist that Office 12 has a revolutionary new file format and the journalist prints it without reference to OOo how close to a lie is it? Revolutionary implies its the first time its been done, so the next journalist then picks that up and prints "MS invent new method of saving files". Promoting and marketing OOo is just the same. Unless a journalist specifically asks why bring up weaknesses? But beware of outright lies because if these are proven it will be counter-productive. In the marketing game play up the positives, play down the negatives. Get lots of people to have confidence in your product, tell them what they want to hear. That's the name of the game. If you want rational objective reporting, research all sides fully and don't rely on one side for your information and then report the facts without your personal perspective. Its simple really but not many journalists manage it. Its why getting information from a range of sources can be important. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMSL --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
