The online entity that used to be the Pulitzer Prize winning Birmingham News, Mobile Register and Huntsville Times crossed the line to tabloid sensationalism, click-bait headlines, and rumor mongering. All in the name of "covering" the divorce of Governor and Mrs. Bentley.
Of course it is a story, and a big one, but rumors and supposition and "perhaps maybe possibly we think" writing that has accompanied some of the stories has been awful. It may reflect the continued downsizing of the newspaper's staffs.
The Montgomery's Advertiser's Josh Moon wrote about it in Sunday's paper, pointing out one story quoted Facebook!
"If we’re going to start using Facebook posts as a source, let me be the first to report that actor Morgan Freeman has died. Again.
The goal with the way these stories are structured is obvious – to finagle a way of turning rumors into news by using just enough factual info to hopefully mask the uninformed, unconfirmed speculation at the heart of it all."
It used to be important to read everyything we find online, including on this website, with a Mount Rushmore sized grain of salt.
But when the former newspaper leaders are simply grabbing non-facts and publishing them, the same goes for what used to be the reliable, better correct and late, than first and wrong newspapers.
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“The standard joke is that Saban doesn’t understand the economics of the
publishing world,” Burke said. “I read thousands of stories on Saban
and they weren’t authorized. Did Bob Woodward get Barack Obama’s
permission to do books about him? No. Journalism is not done by
permission."
Author of an UNAUTHORIZED bio,
quoted at www.Poynter.org
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of www.Tim Lennox.com]
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