MMMM # 482 ---TV News post Williams

     The Irish Times has a much bigger take-away than most on Brian Williams lies.
     They go so far as to say TV News "has lost all its moral authority."

 Although Williams’s determination to wrap himself in others’ valour is indefensible, it seems almost redundant to gnaw on his bones, given the fact that the Internet has already taken down a much larger target: the long-ingrained automatic impulse to turn on the TV when news happens.

     Uh, let's not get ahead of ourselves, editors. Yes, social media alerts people to big breaking stories...but it also spreads false information and outright lies. Somebody needs to do serious study of the information spread by Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram before they declare some kind of Tweetervictory over traditional media. 
     The NY Times writes about Williams too, quoting one of the men who actually was on the helicopter that was shot down:

“Everyone tells. lies. Every single one of us. The issue isn’t whether or not you lie. It is how you deal with it once you are caught. I thank you for stepping down for a few nights, Mr. Williams. Now can you admit that you didn’t ‘misremember’ and perform a real apology? I might even buy you a beer.”

###

A back in the day, pre-computer AP machine.

The AP reports its experiment into computer written stories is going well...as far as it goes.

"...no jobs have been lost due to the introduction of robot journalism. However, the stories produced by robots do "contain far fewer errors" than those previously written by humans."

And probably much less subtlety too.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a longstanding regular feature of TimLennox.com.]