{"id":933,"date":"2008-05-10T01:53:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-10T07:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=933"},"modified":"2008-05-24T22:31:07","modified_gmt":"2008-05-24T21:31:07","slug":"can-you-trust-the-media-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/05\/can-you-trust-the-media-reviewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Trust The Media? reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">P<\/span>lease forgive the shameless self-promotion but <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic\">Can You Trust The Media?<\/span> picked up <a href=\"http:\/\/books.guardian.co.uk\/review\/story\/0,,2279068,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">a review<\/a> at the <span style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: bold\">Guardian<\/span>.<br \/>\n<span id=\"fullpost\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Phone-in voting scams, dodgy trailer editing, silly-season reports of great white sharks cruising off English beaches &#8211; the media apparently has a problem with trust. How to win it back?<\/p>\n<p>Wrong question, says Adrian Monck: trust is something that obtains between individuals, and no one should be so silly as to \u201ctrust\u201d a large newstertainment organisation, which is mainly in the business of gathering people in one place to be advertised at. Consumers ought to be sceptical.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe media is not in the information supply business,\u201d writes Monck, himself a TV and newspaper journalist. \u201cIt\u2019s in the distraction business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his amusingly blunt style, he scores a lot of hits against naivety and wishful thinking on both sides of the argument, with colourful topical and historical anecdotes (there was no golden age of media reliability).<\/p>\n<p>He nicely skewers the idea that bloggers can replace reporters; and notes the surprising truth, discovered during the second world war, that bad news from the front is better for citizens\u2019 morale than good news.<\/p>\n<p>We expect too much from the media, he argues in an expansive conclusion, because it has replaced religion for so many people.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we should be demanding greater freedom of official information, for instance the online provision of court transcripts. An excellent idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please forgive the shameless self-promotion but Can You Trust The Media? picked up a review at the Guardian. Phone-in voting scams, dodgy trailer editing, silly-season reports of great white sharks cruising off English beaches &#8211; the media apparently has a problem with trust. How to win it back? Wrong question, says Adrian Monck: trust is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[678,7,81],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cyttm","category-journalism","category-media","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}