When bias hangs in the balance

Comment by Barry Tucker                    12 March, 2013

Journalists face a lot of problems getting the full story, understanding it completely and filing it before the deadline. But that’s the job.

The issue of balance (providing both sides of the story) is made harder when “the other side” won’t talk to you.

The Sunshine Coast Daily’s Kathy Sundstrom has encountered this problem and wrote about it in an opinion piece for her on-line newspaper.

I don’t agree with Kathy’s decision to offer a copy of another story (penultimate para) to the source to check its accuracy. It’s the reporter’s job to get it right. Asking the source to do this for you leads to censorship and spin.

Kathy Sundstrom

Churlish pollies and a dose of Brough stuff

Refusing to talk to a reporter who has written something they don’t like is another childish tactic.

So often “the media” is blamed for not reporting both sides. Yet, equally as often, the other side of the story is impossible to get hold of.

For someone with political clout to then refuse to talk to a reporter because they weren’t happy with a report written, sometimes weeks or months ago, is churlish.

Read all about it