NST guilty of shoddy journalism - Little Bird
A Little Bird is not happy with the current standards of journalism practised in Malaysia. At a press conference called today the Bird, one of many who claim to be in communication with the National Free Speaker Jeff Ooi, voiced particular disapproval of "opaque and even downright negligent source-citing, which makes it impossible to tell if the story has any credibility or not." The Bird's ire was directed specifically towards one story in particular, which appeared in the NST on Feb. 25, with the headline "Police to probe blogger Jeff Ooi."
Jeff Ooi himself had expressed outrage at the story's lack of sources, and asserted on his blog that "This story breaks the cardinal rule of good journalism. There is no source attributable to a reliable spokesperson."
There was some confusion over the second of the abovementioned sentences, since by all accounts it can be interpreted as "There is no source attributable to a reliable source." At the time of posting no sense could be made of this. The Little Bird, however, insisted that trying to make sense of it is "besides the point."
"I'm behind Jeff 110% on this issue," said the Little Bird, "Especially since he has set such high standards for journalism by constantly citing myself and my avian brethren, widely known to be the most reliable spokespeople to whom leads should be attributed. I'm not sure what he meant by this being a 'cardinal rule', though, since I am in fact a finch."
A cardinal.
A finch.
When reached for comment, a Maxis spokesperson said, "Frankly, I'm not sure what this has to do with us at all." Upon further investigation, though, it was revealed that Maxis refused to provide telephony services to the Little Bird on grounds that a nest cannot be accepted as a billing address.
"Those guys think they can treat people like dirt just because we're not actually people, strictly speaking, but Little Birds," said the Little Bird, "Well they won't be laughing so loudly when they find out what juicy news I've got for Jeff next. Cheep cheep."
Jeff Ooi himself had expressed outrage at the story's lack of sources, and asserted on his blog that "This story breaks the cardinal rule of good journalism. There is no source attributable to a reliable spokesperson."
There was some confusion over the second of the abovementioned sentences, since by all accounts it can be interpreted as "There is no source attributable to a reliable source." At the time of posting no sense could be made of this. The Little Bird, however, insisted that trying to make sense of it is "besides the point."
"I'm behind Jeff 110% on this issue," said the Little Bird, "Especially since he has set such high standards for journalism by constantly citing myself and my avian brethren, widely known to be the most reliable spokespeople to whom leads should be attributed. I'm not sure what he meant by this being a 'cardinal rule', though, since I am in fact a finch."
A cardinal.
A finch.
When reached for comment, a Maxis spokesperson said, "Frankly, I'm not sure what this has to do with us at all." Upon further investigation, though, it was revealed that Maxis refused to provide telephony services to the Little Bird on grounds that a nest cannot be accepted as a billing address.
"Those guys think they can treat people like dirt just because we're not actually people, strictly speaking, but Little Birds," said the Little Bird, "Well they won't be laughing so loudly when they find out what juicy news I've got for Jeff next. Cheep cheep."
posted by Not Billy, Edward or Yorke at 02:44
1 Comments:
i am incensed that jeff ooi has shown such insensitivity towards the birds by not even knowing which is which.
this is like calling a prophet a muhammad or vice versa when the distinction is more than trivial.
Post a Comment
<< Home