>On Thu, 4 Mar 2004 02:01:32 +0900, you wrote: > > >Further to this: > > > >>>As far as the other part is concerned. There is no dilemma. You are > >>>there to record history. not be a part of it or change it. > >>>I've gotten in trouble for this a few times myself. > > > ><snip> > > > >>But that's the pretence - journalist-as-pipe. How it so often works > >>out is that such journalists may talk about their "sources", but to > >>those sources these journalists are resources, used for purposes and > >>ends that can be very contrary to the role of the fourth estate. > > > >The classic current case is that of Judith Miller of the New York > >Times and Ahmad Chalabi, and the matter of WMD. > >What about in alternative fuels and vehicles?
That's why I've taken this discussion further, I related it to biofuels issues in an earlier message. >While to be sure we see many examples of the problem you mention >(journalists just mouthing what some mediocrity in a PR department >tells them, which they half-know to be a 3/4 lie), Estimated at 50% of the news stories in the mainstream press, but it's usually a bit more subtle than that, very often the PR office and the journalist do not encounter each other, there are other ways. >I also see a need >or desire for companies or people to get their message out, not just >in a PR announcement, but a desire to be covered. In that case, I >don't think a journalist is out of line to allow or encourage himself >to be used. Different issue. Journalists can get their news from anywhere they like, no problem with interviewing a businessman, not even if he makes the approach. They may indeed be unable to write the story without pushing the product/company, but here you've abandoned ethics in favour of rules/morals - some papers have/used to have rules against having brand-names in news stories, for instance, but that doesn't make sense either. The question to which there's no across-the-board answer (as with any ethical question), is "Why am I writing this?" The reasons have to fit with the role of the fourth estate, and of they do, that's just fine, and maybe pushing the product will fit with that too. That is not being "used", not if it meets the criteria. And that is not what Judith Miller was doing. Spin and media manipulation are integral to the current energy mess and the fact that biofuels don't get a fair deal. At the Biodiesel list last week someone was declaiming with great confidence that ethanol consumes more energy than it produces, and citing, of course, the much-debunked David Pimentel. He's lying and he knows it, but he goes right on doing it, and it's effective. Best Keith Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
