Neil MzcDonald's observations are not new. Nearly three years ago I was privileged to be present at Texas Christian University's Bob Scheiffer School of Communications annual "state of the profession" colloquium chaired by the aforesaid Bob Schieffer (the highly respected Dean of CBS News reporters) and a panel consisting of a who's who in
reporting around the world. Note those were actual on the scene
reporters not news
readers or talking heads who never get out of the studio. There were several major surprises at that colloquium:
- The unanimous opinion of the panel that even the largest news organizations were not doing an adequate job of fact checking stories.
- Very few news organizations were or could exercise even cursory editorial oversight
- Rising costs and falling revenues were resulting in the use of unverified and questionable sources
- A majority of "news" was coming from unpaid bloggers many of which have little legitimacy
- Bob Scheiffer's assertion, "Washington is broken and I don't know if it can be fixed" followed by the announcement of his retirement from CBS News
The situation has not improved since then.
