![]() Pritchard issued the following statement to CBS News: ![]() Understanding what it might look like to an outsider and drafting just the right statement could have transformed the Tappan Zee High School story from perceived censorship to old-fashioned common sense.īy his own admission, Dr. In a business where so much is out of our control, there are still steps we can take to try to prevent stories from being misreported, help our media friends with journalistic integrity, and ultimately protect the images of the brands we represent. How can we ensure more credibility in reporting? How can we know that the news we’re reading is credible? How can we protect the credibility of news when the motivation is revenue? Those clicks, shares, and eyeballs translate to advertising revenue, and they ensure the reporter-whose name occupies the byline-lives to see another day as a journalist.Įven with the truth readily available, “journalists” are strategically developing stories as a way drive their own value, and nobody is bothering to check the facts because of how quickly the news needs to be pumped out. News stories today live and die by the number of clicks they generate. To quell any concerns, he directed the staff to cover the sets until the night of the performance.Īlthough the proliferation of online news has created a cornucopia of new channels for public relations practitioners to deliver their clients’ stories, journalistic integrity has taken a back seat to speed and revenue. To make matters worse, and thanks to the same technology that helped this negligent news story go viral, Pritchard went on to explain that the banners were “photographed by students and put on social media with no regard to context.” There were two, large banners with swaztikas (sic) displayed in a public space two weeks PRIOR to the actual performance. These banners appeared without any explanation, and, unless you were affiliated with the play, would not have known that this was part of an upcoming theater set. It would have been irresponsible to permit these flags to remain in place without any explanation as to the context of why they were displayed in the first place. Pritchard, who magnanimously set the surprising record straight. In other words, the logical explanation was left out in order to sensationalize the news and drive a windfall of Pavlovian clicks to the story-and now also a host of others who didn’t bother to fact check. Journalistic Integrity: The Swastikas Case In perfect propaganda fashion, the truth behind this story was obfuscated to evoke controversy and emotional outrage. It quickly reached viral status, enraging countless other news and opinion editors, and sensible civilians far and wide. The stage will be devoid of swastikas when high schoolers present the Mel Brooks musical this weekend. Robert Pritchard, superintendent of South Orangetown Central School District in Blauvelt, New York, had overstepped his bounds and, in a very Third Reich-style move, censored the Tappan Zee High School production of Mel Brooks’ now-classic musical comedy ‘The Producers.’ The headline begged for my click and I willingly obliged. “High School Removes Swastikas From Production Of ‘The Producers’ Following Controversy” One such story recently found its way to the above-the-fold section of my Facebook trending news feed, and it was predictably outrageous. Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.With more news being shared than reported, the danger of a misreported story reaching official viral status, above journalistic integrity, is real. ![]() It distributes that content and makes money from it through advertising. In the same way, Facebook (FB) takes advantage of content created by its users-users who in many cases are publishers and news outlets. Users created blog posts and HuffPo distributed and made money from them via advertising.ĭespite that, the Huffington Post was clearly a media company. To take just one recent example, The Huffington Post didn’t create much of its own content in the early days, before it hired a reporting staff. He said the company he co-founded isn’t a media company because “we do not produce any content.” Instead, it just builds tools that let users interact with each other, which includes sharing news, he said.īut is creating content the best way to define whether a company is a media company? Not even close. Zuckerberg may not want to admit it, but Facebook is one of the largest and most powerful media companies in the world, and getting larger. But is that description accurate? Not really.
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