Talk:Churnalism/Archives/2013

Needs major work

First up, to even survive at this nme you'll need some pretty substantial sources demonstrating that "churnalism" is the actual term used by a significant portion and majority (if there's a more common term then article needs to be there) of reliable sources in the field to describe this practice. A single reference from an Australian writer in no way proves world-wide usage or majority usage.

Second, quoting a poet in an article about a real topic? That's not encyclopedic style. At all.

Third, you can't present someone's opinions as if they are fact just because you provide a link to them. Claims of lesser quality etc. have to be courced to a specific speaker in the text, as others may disagree.

Fourth, it's a bad idea to try to claim stats that you only know about because a newspaper quoted a book that said there were studies... that's two degrees of separation from the original, if there even is one, so we don't knwo how accurate it is. We don;t know what other studies there are.

All in all this seems like a bit of WP:SOAPboxing with a couple of minor sources cited to give it an appearance of being a real article. Without proving the word is more than a minor neologism there'd be no way to even improve this. Without some major cleanup I'll put this up for deletion soon. DreamGuy (talk) 15:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have made some additions to address the points above. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised to see the claim that local newspapers rely on stories which are increasingly bought to them by professional PR representatives justified by linking to an essay whose author, when he wrote it, was National President of the Public Relations Institute of Australia. It's possible that he is not impartial on the topic of the role and importance of public relations. I have edited the article to make it clear that this claim is the topic of a senior figure in the PR industry. However, if anyone can find a different source, that would be even better.Hobson (talk) 00:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have added a source on the developing relationship between PR and journalism Colonel Warden (talk) 06:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Effect on reporting

An editor added this section

“ The uncritical repoduction of press releases as news stories is recognised as a particular problem in the area of science and medicine, where commercial interests of the pharmaceutical, food and alternative therapy product industries are promoted and validated by apparently independent media accounts, characterised by Ben Goldacre as Bad Science. Goldacre argues that the dominance of this type of story undermines public understanding of science and public health initiatives. ”

However, the reference does not support the text above because it indicates that the problem in such cases is that reporters insert their own pre-conceived views into a story rather than parrotting what's in the press-release. That is not churnalism - it is an older problem of reporters twisting the facts and selectively reporting to suit their story. Also, it is not clear that this is a particular problem for science/medicine, as opposed to other fields. The section therefore seems itself to be an example of distortion and so I have removed it.

Colonel Warden (talk) 07:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

"only 12% of stories were generated by reporters"

Should that say "only 12% of stories were orginatedby reporters"? Maurreen (talk) 02:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Generate and originate have the same meaning in this context. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Reversion

It is courteous to explain reversions. Wire stories are not used to create articles. Wire stories are articles. Maurreen (talk) 01:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Please see Editing Today Workbook, for example. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

It's also courteous not to wait two months. Maurreen (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)