This blog is in the reaction to
the C-Span article. Although I was not present when the "reporter",
Ms. Colias was interviewing my fellow students, it is the general consensus
that her portrayals of the students were completely inaccurate, and she almost
seemed to put words into her interviewee's mouths. I
was not impressed by this article or the journal’s defense of its
journalist. The editor admitted to
having a heavy hand while editing, yet he also claimed that he gives his
journalist—I quote—“almost complete freedom.” From my point of view these two
comments are completely contrary to each other and cannot both be true at the
same time. “Mr. Pancake”, as a cleaver blogger coined him, had some valid
points, but he also tried to weasel out of talking about many pressing questions that we had. In conclusion, the
C-Span article is, in my opinion, a poor representation of the skill of journalism and fulfills the stereotype of sleaziness that often can be associated with the press.
I agree with many points in this post -- Mr. Pancake had a lot of contradicting statements that, I feel, completely invalidated his arguments. I do agree that he had many valid points, and he also avoided many of our questions by veering to side stories that had nothing to do with the conversation. I am also disappointed in how misrepresented our classmates were, and it is disheartening to me that even our own local newspaper would resort to heavy manipulation for the sake of sales.
ReplyDeleteTo add to Ashley and Payton's observations about contradictory statements, while "Mr. Pancake" was talking to us, he often told us that he "talked to the reporter" and "didn't think she'd been entirely justified in what she did." However, he also said that he thought it was a great article that was very "on point." He also seemed to think we were over reacting. This was very telling to me, and I don't believe he took out concerns totally seriously. He said what we wanted to hear, but inside he didn't see a problem. He seemed to think that this whole business was just something kind of funny. I don't think his opinions of teenagers are very high.
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