Canada Offers Lesson On How Media Can Cover "Breaking News"| Crooks & Liars [View all]

[Fred Sanders]

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/10/canada-offers-lesson-how-media-can-cover

As I have been intimating, America is going to get a lesson from Canada on how to handle the terrorists and their propaganda that the American media purposely and irresponsibly plays forward to generate fear.

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James West at Mother Jones wrote a great piece about how well and mannered the CBC covered the Canada shootings Wednesday, as compared to how the American media uses the ridiculous "Breaking News" hyped up nonsense that gives us no information, but hopes you'll stayed tuned anyway because they tell you it's "Breaking News."

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today gave a master class in calm, credible breaking-news reporting.

Anchored by the unflappable Peter Mansbridge, news of the shootings in Ottawaunfolded live on the CBC much like they do here in the United States: lots of sketchy details, conflicting reports, unreliable witnesses, and a thick fog of confusion. All of that was familiar. What was less familiar was how Mansbridge and his team managed that confusion, conveying a concise and fact-based version of fast-moving events to viewers across Canada and the world.

This live bit of level-headed reporting by Mansbridge, from around 11:10 a.m. Wednesday, should be given to journalism students around the country. It basically contains everything you need to know about why CBC did its audience proud:

MANSBRIDGE: And so, the situation is, as we say, tense and unclear. And it's on days like this—we keep reminding you of this and it's important—it's on days like this, where a story takes a number of different pathways, a number of changes occur, and often rumors start in a situation like this. We try to keep them out of our coverage, but when they come, sometimes from official sources, like members of Parliament, you tend to give them some credence. But you carefully weigh it with what we're also witnessing. It's clear that the situation is not over. It is clear the police are in an intense standby situation and continue to be on the lookout, and until somebody blows the all-clear on this we will continue to stay on top of it and watch as the events unfold.

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"Watch as events unfold"....as opposed to forwarding every unsubstantiated rumor before another media outlet reports on the unsubstantiated rumour.

Here is the error riddled and panicky reporting, from a liberal site, it is astounding how bad American media is on actual breaking news. How many errors can you count, other than the entire premise and headline?

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/10/22/3582987/numerous-gunmen-suspected-in-coordinated-shooting-in-canada/
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From original Mother Jones article:

Canada's Coverage of the Ottawa Shootings Put American Cable News to Shame

"No newscast, especially live news, is immune to mistakes, and during the initial haze of leads and counterleads, it's easy to point fingers. But for the six-some hours of CBC broadcasting I watched off-and-on (mostly on) today, I never once felt lost in the wall-to-wall speculation that has characterized so many recent breaking-news broadcasts in the United States.

It seems like others on Twitter agree that CBC did pretty damn well today:"

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/10/cbc-ottawa-shootings-cable-news