Help Expose Bad Journalism

This week, help us promote good journalism by exposing the bad.

Bad Journalism News Hunt
From Monday through Sunday, we'll be hosting a News Hunt for Bad Journalism, to highlight journalism with serious flaws -- news reports and opinions that are inaccurate, biased, irresponsible or superficial. For this special News Hunt, we will be joined by journalism students from Santa Clara University, led by professor Sally Lehrman. 

Each day this week, we'll feature different examples of bad journalism from a variety of sources across the political spectrum, and ask you to rate them, so we can identify the worst stories at the end of the week. Here's how we're breaking it down:

• Monday - News Reports
• Tuesday - Opinions
• Wednesday - Pundits from the Right
• Thursday - Pundits from the Left
• Friday - Media Watchdogs 
• Saturday - Fact-Checkers

(note that this blog post was updated throughout the week with new stories for review -- see below)

News Literacy Guides
Since this News Hunt for Bad Journalism is a departure from our normal routine, we encourage you to consult our News Literacy Guides for helpful tips. First, read these articles from two of our esteemed advisors, who are both journalism professors:

• "Crap Detection 101" by Howard Rheingold (Stanford University)
• "Think Like a Journalist" by Michael Bugeja (Iowa State University)

Also check out NewsTrust's Quick Review Guide on how to review a story. These articles and tutorials will help you ask the right questions and quickly identify bias, misinformation, weak sourcing, shallowness and other problems in reporting.

News Comparisons
How do you rate the stories below? Throughout this week, we've compared questionable stories from several categories. 

News Reports

• Obama team continues efforts to isolate Fox News - Fox News

• Tricky o's 'doctored' photo - New York Post

• Racial tension on Martha's Vineyard simmers as Barack Obama arrives - Daily Telegraph

Opinions

• Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals - Chicago Sun-Times

• Lack of universal health care is a mass killer - The Progressive

• Why Fox News is un-American - Newsweek

Pundits from the Right

• What's Obama gonna give me? - Glenn Beck (Fox News)

• America 2009: Banana Republic - Rush Limbaugh (Rush Limbaugh Show)

• Does Kevin Jennings support NAMBLA? - Sean Hannity (Fox News)

Pundits from the Left

• Conservative infighting dismantles GOP - Keith Olbermann (Countdown)

• Republicans hit new low - Randi Rhodes (Randi Rhodes Show)

• Keeping the pressure on Reid - Rachel Maddow (The Rachel Maddow Show)

Media Watchdogs

• Neutralizing the opposition - Washington Post - by Howard Kurtz

• Attack on White House criticism of Fox follows years of GOP assaults on media - Media Matters

• Obama bashed Bush Administration for criticizing NBC in 2008 - NewsBusters - by Noel Sheppard

Fact-Checkers

• Health care reform: A summary of recent distortions - PolitiFact

• Heather Graham Teaches Us About Polls - FactCheck

Join our News Hunt this week,to help us expose more stories that fail to uphold the journalistic standards that citizens rely on. To keep track of our scores, check our Least Trusted Stories page (listing our lowest-rated stories so far), as well as our Bad Journalism page (featuring recent stories for review).

And if you come across another example of bad journalism, please post it on our site (be sure to tag it "Bad Journalism" under "Topics," so it will be listed in our News Hunt pages).

Make A Donation
If you believe in our cause, please consider making a donation to NewsTrust. Your contribution will help promote good journalism -- and pay for quality news feeds, new tools, site improvements, community outreach and educational programs. We're nonprofit and funded through grants and donations from members like you. Can you show your support today with a one-time, tax-deductible donation?

-- by Fabrice Florin, Derek Hawkins and Kaizar Campwala

Comments

[Chanchal Dutta]

Dear Editor,
I trust your organisation and similar organisation of progressive jornalism should also be started at India. You will be surprised to know that on 13/14th october,2009 two Central Goverment Ministers not only misbehaved with the TV journalist but they molest a women journalist of 24Ghanta TV Channel of Kolkata. You could enquire from them in [email protected] Surprisingly not a single news papers of India has protes against that crime.