THE NEW YORK POST
Last Monday the Murdoch-owned paper's website ran with a story
that began "Investigators have a suspect -- a Saudi Arabian
national -- in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings." The Post
also ran a separate report headlined "12 DEAD, 50 INJURED AFTER 2
EXPLOSIONS ROCK BOSTON MARATHON." Rather astonishingly, a link with
that headline still appeared on nypost.com as late as Friday
afternoon, though the story itself was updated to reflect the
actual death count of three and "more than 130 injured." The
uncorrected story about the Saudi Arabian national, meanwhile,
still closed with this line: "A law enforcement source confirmed to
the Post that 12 people were killed and nearly 50 were injured in
today's blast."
On Tuesday, Vanity Fair's Juli Weiner gave credit where credit is due,
generously producing a short list of the facts the Post got right
(e.g., the paper "correctly reported that the Boston Marathon takes
place in Boston, Massachusetts" and "Participants in the Boston
Marathon are, in American English, colloquially referred to as
"runners.'") By Thursday, when the Post ran its notorious "BAG MEN"
cover -- with a full-page photo implicating two innocent,
bag-carrying men as possible Boston bombers -- the gloves really
came off. Mainly because the Post's editor, Col Allan, stubbornly
defended his cover in a terse statement: "We stand by our story.
The image was emailed to law-enforcement agencies yesterday
afternoon seeking information about these men, as our story
reported. We did not identify them as suspects."
Upon learning of the wiggle room that Allan allows his paper,
Gawker's Tom Scocca ran a piece titled "Is the New York Post Edited by a Bigoted
Drunk Who Fucks Pigs?" (Scocca conceded that "we have no
direct knowledge" of Col Allan's drinking, and when it comes to
bestiality, "We do not know. It would be irresponsible to
speculate." The piece has racked up more than 180,000 page views as
of this writing.)
Verdict: Fatally guilty. Not only has the countdown clock on
Allan's "retirement" been started but it's increasingly clear that
the New York Post -- a fake business that hemorrhages countless
millions each year and survives solely because it's one of
Murdoch's favorite toys -- will be shut down by News Corp. not long after ol'
Rupert shuffles off this mortal coil. Or sooner, if Rupert's grip
on his print empire is compromised by News Corp.'s planned split
into two companies.
CNN
There's no way you didn't see all the media-about-media about
one particular bit of media: "Jon Stewart Skewers CNN" (Washington
Post). "Jon Stewart Slams CNN" (Politico). "Jon Stewart Eviscerates
CNN For Boston Bombing Coverage!" (PerezHilton). "Jon Stewart Rips
CNN as "Human Centipede of News' Over Boston Bombings Report"
(TheWrap). And so on.
The gist of Stewart's
takedown: CNN repeatedly trumpeted its "exclusive" scoop
that authorities had arrested a bombing suspect Wednesday -- which
was exclusive, Stewart pointed out, only because it was completely
wrong.
Verdict: Guilty-ish. Stewart's breathless, very funny -- and
viral -- segment aside, CNN actually corrected its report within an
hour. Here's what correspondent John King said on the air:
"Clearly, there was either some confusion or some misinformation.
Sometimes that happens in a case like this. But these are sources
we have been talking about for a couple days who have been giving
us reliable information." You know what? I accept that.
REDDIT
There was a lot of handwringing last week over the
"crowdsourcing" of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, with
much of the spotlight shining on social-news site Reddit. The
Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal, for instance, in a post titled
"Hey Reddit, Enough Boston Bombing
Vigilantism," wrote: "Investigating these bombings is just
not a job for "the crowd,' even if technology makes such
collaboration possible."
Please. First of all, people talk about stuff on the
internet -- all kinds of stuff, including breaking news -- and
we're not going to be able to put that genie back in the
bottle.
Second, characterizing speculative/analytical internet chatter
of the sort seen on Reddit as especially irresponsible ignores what
happened pre-internet: People spread rumors offline and pored over
sketchy information put out by the traditional media -- including
literally sketchy information, like officially released
police composite drawings that sometimes turned out to be laughably
off-target -- and flooded law-information tip lines with
overwhelmingly useless information.
Third, Reddit is not some shady little corner of the web
populated by paranoid vigilantes. The 8-year-old site closed out
2012 with more than 37 billion page views, 30 million posts and
400 million unique visitors. In other words, blaming
Reddit for its supposed troublemaking is, basically, like blaming
the internet or humanity itself.
In the end, the best, most reliable information invariably got
"upvoted" (upvotes increase any given post's visibility). And
rumors and speculation not only got downvoted, but counterbalanced
with frequent posts promoting caution and directing to the FBI tip
line those with seemingly, possibly valuable information --
including an eerily clear shot of "white-cap guy" (later ID'd as
suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev) fleeing the scene of the bombing.
Verdict on Reddit: Not guilty.
Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" media columnist for
Advertising Age. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.
