Writing “News” dated 2008 is not Legitimate Media Work

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Some people take no thought of the news they link. However, not all news sources are credible. It is not enough just to pick up stories and link.

From the titles alone of these so-called news, you could see that they are catchy but misleading. However, these are calculated to be like that - to tickle your mind to read on if you are not careful.

Let's take this link newly posted as an example: “19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency.” This means that the election is over and that this technician has already won. It is misleading, at the same time it appears legitimate. It makes people read on, but one has to have a critical eye.

The source, Avant News, “Tomorrow’s News Today,” is not given credibility by serious people. At most, this news source is a joke. It is only predictive or is making guesses and then writes “news” out of that guess – wild guess, no matter. It is making business out of news, but news that is merely speculative.

In principle, news is a reproduction of an event, hence the element of objectivity. But here, the business is to ride on an imagined future and an imagined news – so there is no objectivity. But there is money, of course.

Angling, you say? Angling does not necessarily mean you move away from what is true. To provide an angle to news means to project one part as the center or focus of your news. However, you do not fabricate the angle. It is already part of the truth that you deal with. You only enlarge it over the others – and yet you do not falsify anything unlike what this 2008 “news” had done.

This one is pure imagination – a fiction using the real name of a real person who is an international figure, just to be able to hinge upon public attention for increased readership.

Check, therefore, what is written in there before you do any linking. If you link these items, you do a great disservice to people who expect legitimate news. Moreover, you encourage the usurpation of true media work.

Read for items like “temporally realigned” – what ever that means – as an equivalent of an excuse or disclaimer when there would be complaints in the future.

Check on the date the news is supposed to have been written. It may be two years later yet.

To illustrate, read this item -

19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency
Temporally realigned by admin on 2006/9/25 10:49:05 (7401 reads)
By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2008

Have you noticed the date?

This is not legitimate news. People who do this cash in on entertainment rather than do true media work.

Arrogant Big Media

Re: "We The Media: Rise of Citizen Journalism"
Dan Gillmore, OhmyNews (internews)

Arrogance of big media, yes. And they so project dominant or power groups that those marginalized become more marginalized.

In one local media, for example, you often see terms in print media like “Muslim bandits,” “Muslim thief,” “Muslim rapist.” Muslims then feel constrained to complain. Nowhere in media, they say, do you find terms like “Christian bandits,” “Christian thief,” “Christian rapist.” Why is it that when perpetrators are Christians, the adjective fails to act up?

Traditional media more than divide people. They compete to the point that they manufacture news even. No one knows which is true, and yet they thrive with all the advertisements around - which, in turn, do their part to function negatively towards a more helpless society. Kudos to Citizen Journalism!

We The Media: Rise of Citizen Journalism