News exaggeration or false news

Dundalk Daily

While I was watching Sky news this morning on the TV i also received a Sky news alert on my computer desktop. The thing is that the TV version was reporting that more than 150 people had been kidnapped in an education building in Iraq, yet the online alert form the same company and at the exact same time reported that 100 people had been kidnapped. As someone who watches Sky news all day (not by choice) I think that they exaggerate news like nobody else. Some stories that make their news during the day wouldnt even make it on to the radio.

Tom Dunne

One word - tabloid.

I've stopped watching Sky news completely. They are pitching the news at the lowest chav on the street, dumbing down and sensationalising.

Dundalk Daily

I agree Tom but the thing is I dont think chav and tabloid types watch news, do they ?

Tom Dunne

Judging by the texts and e-mails Sky News read out, I think they do

Dundalk Daily

Just got a news alert in from the Guardian, they report "up to 150" kidnapped and the kidnappers were wearing "comando" uniforms (Sky- police uniforms). Guardian were over 1.5 hrs late with their "news alert". Now I fully understand the complications of reporting especially from a warzone but should these stories differ so much in this real-time news age.

flogen

Dundalk Daily wrote:

Just got a news alert in from the Guardian, they report "up to 150" kidnapped and the kidnappers were wearing "comando" uniforms (Sky- police uniforms). Guardian were over 1.5 hrs late with their "news alert". Now I fully understand the complications of reporting especially from a warzone but should these stories differ so much in this real-time news age.

Well if people are going to report the rumours they hear the minute they hear them it's bound to happen; it's kind of like the way estimates on deaths in natural disasters changes as time goes on, new information comes to change the thinking on it.
RTÉ.ie, like the Guardian tend to hold back until the situation is clearer... this proved to be a clever move when those two Fox journalists were kidnapped in Iraq a month or two ago; Breakingnews.ie reported one was Irish when in fact he was from New Zealand

Dundalk Daily

Flogen do you not think its important to be first with the breaking news.

flogen

Not if the information you're giving is innaccurate; Sky News proclaims itself to be first on the scene a lot of the time but news shouldn't be a race.
Of course it's important to get the information out there as quickly as possible, but it's dangerous to allow time constraints to impact on the reality of the situation.
I can't think of any story that Sky News got completely wrong, but it's probably worse when they get little bits of it wrong rather than the whole thing.
BBC News tends to have a good balance, and I don't think that has suffered from not being there 10 seconds before everyone else; flicking between the two stations coverage of a plane being grounded in the US was interesting, with the BBC grounding their reports in what they knew or had verified from officials, and Sky saying stuff like 'it's believed that...' followed by elaborate details that in many cases proved to be way off.

lostexpectation

not a very big deal this, up to 150 is fine, have you got alot of spare time on you hands DD

mike65

Agreed! Sky were'nt very wrong may not have been wrong at all. 24 hrs news exists to spurt out 'news' 24 hours a day so they "have" to be first even when they are completely wrong. As for RTE holding back - its more a case of RTE not being able to verify anything until a UK source has done it first I suspect.

Story reporting timetime via google news

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&hs=M8d&client=opera&rls=en&resnum=0&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=150+kidnapped&scoring=d&sa=N&start=720 work back to the present as see how the numbers change quickly from 25 to 100 to 150 in less than 1 hour.

Mike.

Liam Byrne

With some organisations it doesn't matter how long they wait.....they'll still exaggerate - just ask anyone in Limerick and/or anyone in the Sunday Indo or Sunday World.....

That aside, I do think that Sky are regularly too eager to be "first", though; a decent news organisation will get accurate news relatively fast.....a ****e one will be too slow yesterday's news tomorrow, while an over-eager one will be too fast and therefore inaccurate and unreliable.