Re: Saturday report on National Public Radio (NPR) on human radiationexperiments in Cincinnati (fwd)

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 11:45 AM 3/4/97 -0600, you wrote:
>	It seems to me that NPR should investigate stories of this type
>more thoroughly before giving such a completely one-sided presentation.

BRAVO, DR. COHEN, FOR A SUPERB RESPONSE TO THE NPR PIECE.

NPR's one-sided presentation is a fine example of what I mean when I talk
about the difference between a reporter and a journalist. A reporter, as in
in this case, simply records information provided by the person with the
agenda, and replays it on the air - no critical evalution of the material,
no verification of claims, no opposing views or claims. Usually, a reporter
doesn't even have to go find a story - the person with a specific agenda
will contact the reporter. How many such pieces have you seen where the
news item consisted solely of information provided by a person who spoke on
condition of anonymity? A journalist would have sought balance and placed
the spotlight on more than one person's claims.

As I said before, we have more reporters than we have real news.


Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.