“If you’re just going to repeat press releases, why have the press?” – Dan Lyons.
That’s fantastic insight from Lyons in these times of churnalism. Lyons was supposedly banned from CNBC for telling one of its reporters to apologize to viewers for being serially wrong about Steve Jobs’ health.
Instead of Lyons being banned from the network for calling out a reporter who refused to admit he was responsible for regurgitating spin, CNBC should look into doing some real journalism and tightening its editorial standards. Plenty of journalists do real journalism and know how to separate spin from fact. You can’t be a good journalist if you believe whatever people tell you.
In fact, the best advice I can ever give a young journalist is to not believe anything anyone tells you without corroborating evidence. People are always trying to use journalists. Watch this clip and see how several CNBC reporters/anchors/non-journalists defend their inability to act as a filter.
