Do we all know how journalism is supposed to work? Maybe a primer for those who follow mass media.

1. You hear something, you may have sought it out, or it may have fallen in your lap, it's interesting, intriguing, and possibly scandalous.

2. You fact check when you've found out, check the credibility of the source, and then you look for other sources. If you can't find other sources, you shelve the story, because it's not verifiable.

3. You find a second source. You check the credibility of the source, if it seems good, you write the story. You submit the story, along with your sources, to whoever decided what to run with. If the story and sources pass muster, the story runs.

Many reasons for this, but #1, you've done the work - you have more than one source, and those sources are, as far as you know, solid. However, sometimes things slip through the cracks, and something turns out to be wrong - there's a "supposed to" for that as well.

1. You place a retraction, with at least as much energy and positioning as the fallacious story, apologizing for being misinformed.

2. You remove the original story from any online placement, or at the very least correct it, and ensure the correction has at least the visibility

These days, an "I think the government did this" from an unsourced, unconfirmed statement will go viral, and if it turns out to be untrue, media will silence the original story, but no retractions at all. All the readers/viewers who read and shared never find out it was fake.

That's not news or information, it's viral propaganda.

#Media #Reporting #News #Sources #Information #Honesty #CanadianMediaFailed #CanadianMedia

Question for anyone in mass media who isn't a conservative shill.

If you wrote a story about Pierre Poilievre being a low information guy who's accomplished nothing in 20 years in public office, but has somehow managed to become a multimillionaire on a government salary, and mentioned that he marched with criminals and white supremacists, supported an intended insurrection, and donated money to that same insurrection, as well as delivering coffee and doughnuts to them, would it get published, or would they show you the door?

Or if you said these things on air live (all verifiability true), and questioned why 50 CPC MPs donated money to that convoy, who had a written goal of removing a duly elected government they were angry had won, would you be escorted from the building and blackballed?

#CanadianMedia #CanadianPolitics #MainstreamMedia #Bell #Rogers #Postmedia #Reporters #Anchors

I posted this as a reply to @alexboyd earlier, but I think it should go out to all reporters - she asked for input on people who hate reporters. And while there are some, I think people should know that they're not who you need to hate, be angry with, or take your anger out on.

I don't have an issue with reporters, I don't believe most are intentionally disingenuous, misleading, or purposefully withholding information - I think media organizations, and their foreign and/or biased owners are focused on pushing narratives, and discourage their employees from sharing balanced information that might conflict with the narratives they want to put in front of people.

For reference, Postmedia, which owns most of the newspapers in Canada, is owned by Chatham Asset Management - a MAGA friendly venture out of New Jersey. They're best known for a conspiracy rag, The National Enquirer (Bigfoot anyone?)

Bell and Rogers, who control most of the TV news in the country, are more interested in tax breaks than facts. Big media is not your friend, and the people who work for them don't have a lot of options - they have rules they need to play by, one being don't piss off the owners of the company. Not like they have tons of options without leaving the country, or are going to get a good reference if they defy ownership (and likely wouldn't get published/aired anyway)

CBC, their board is pretty conservative leaning too. Weird, as the CPC keeps threatening to defund them, and did to a degree when they were last in power, but they still seem to be beholden to them.

As an example (one of many possible), WE (the charity)

When the CPC freaked out about a scandal, it was all over the news, and it improved CPC polling, and damaged Liberal polling - but when it was discovered that it wasn't a scandal, the enthusiasm to share vanished completely, and if there was anything, it was buried and treated as nothing. As a consequence, the majority of people who rely on mass media still believe WE (the charity) was a scandal, and are unaware that the CPC killed a children's charity to create a scandal that didn't end up a scandal at all.

Reporting that would have harmed the CPC, and a media with ownership that cared about being truthful would have reported it, but there was radio silence.

I have yet to hear mass media mention that the majority of boil water advisories have been lifted across the country - the number of people who think nothing has been done is massive.

I'm sure the majority of employees of Rogers, Bell, and Postmedia would be on board with reporting these things, but ownership? They don't want to allow anything that might hurt the CPC's fortunes, or raise the Liberal's fortunes.

Still, mad at media ownership, not reporters. Having heavily partisan ownership means people who rely on mass media in Canada see things through a very partisan lens.

#CanadianMedia #CanadianPolitics #Canada #FreePress #FakeScandals