We talked about slant before. However this is heavy slant which has another name 'fiction'.
6. EXPERTS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR NEWSPAPER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/weekinreview/31bott.html
New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent has critiqued the practice
by his newspaper and others of relying on information from "expert
analysts" without informing readers that many of the experts
represent the interests of their financial sponsors. "Bad reporters
find experts by calling up university press relations officials or
brokerage research departments and saying, in effect, 'Gimme an
expert,'" he writes. "Really bad reporters, paradoxically, work a
little harder: knowing the conclusions they want to arrive at, they
seek out experts who just happen to agree with them. Give me a
position, and I'll find you an expert to support it - and not just
an expert but one with an institutional affiliation sounding so
dignified it could make a nobleman genuflect. Give me a Center for
the Study of ..., an Institute for the Advancement of ..., or an
American Council on ..., and often as not I'll give you an
organization whose special interests are as sharply defined as its
name is not." Worse yet, some reporters seem to simply invent
anonymous experts as a way of inserting their own viewpoint into
the story. For example, Okrent took a look at the the October 26
issue of the Times noticed that 17 articles in that issue "cited
the wisdom of 'experts,' 'industry experts,' 'military budget
experts' and the like, but failed to name - or even describe - a
single one."
SOURCE: New York Times, October 31, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1099195200