Last night Media Watch had a look at the recent story about animal rights activists wanting to have a polar bear cub put down and found that it originated with a tabloid beat up that completely misrepresented the people in question. It seems that pretty much every week they have a story which has been passed around the world’s media without anyone checking the facts behind it (for example last week there was misrepresentation of the comments of an ADHD expert). Should every news outlet check out the details of every story they come across from the source? Well, can you imagine being the subject of a story that gains attention worldwide and having every newspaper, radio station, tv station, news websites ..etc contacting you for verification? Also it would be a huge burden for these people to check every single story that crosses the news desk by contacting the source, on the other hand they must bear responsibility for anything they present as news. I’m not sure exactly where a reasonable compomise lies, but I suspect that currently we are not there. For a start, if someone gets a story from another news source, perhaps they could at least find out whether that news source obtained it or verified it first hand. At the very least, in a case where the story involves something quite outrageous (like animal activists wanting to kill an animal) then it seems that extra checking should be done.
Media Watch had a particular interest in polar bears last night with another story about the questionable use of a photograph of polar bears. This is an interesting example as the photo illustrates a scenario which is predicted to occur (or possibly already is), but that is not what is actually depicted in the photo. The proper use of this image would have been to say that it was taken in summer, close to the coast, but to point out that under the predictions of climate models that this is a scenario that would be played out far from land, leaving the bears stranded. I note however, that those using the photo were not necessarily aware of this, so I’m not suggesting dishonesty. Essentially it is the same problem as above – something gets passed through enough hands that the origin is forgotten – so there is basically the same solution, given that it is such a striking image some investigation into its origin would have been wise.