According to Tim Higgins' front-page story in Wednesday's Detroit Free Press, "Chrysler's new chief executive office and chairman, addressed more than 300 senior executives at an all-day meeting Tuesday at Hyatt Regency Dearborn." Turns out Nardelli was sick on Tuesday. When the error was flagged, the Freep added this little ditty to the online version: "Correction: This story has been corrected since it was originally posted. The timing of CEO Bob Nardelli's address to executives was incorrect in early versions of this story. Nardelli is expected to speak to Chrysler execs today (Wednesday)." Yes, well, that's not much of an explanation is it? Clearly,Mr. Higgins wrote his report based on an advance copy of the speech. Oops. The next day, the gang over at The Detroit News felt obliged to include this info in their [follow-up?] story: "Nardelli was ill Tuesday and unable to address the group of 300 top Chrysler executives during the first day of a two-day meeting." They should talk. The Detroit News' relied on unnamed "sources" for its report on Nardelli's speech. As the Brits say, when you're in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.
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You’d think the Freep would’ve learned from the time Mitch Albom wrote a sports article talking about people being at the game who weren’t even in the state at the time.
Have you noticed that we don’t hear much noise these days about the superiority of traditional news sources over the wild west ‘net? The idea they long put forward was that the structure of established news organizations yielded a high quality product thanks to fact checkers, editors, fancy journalism degrees and the like.
Now that the truth keeps coming out about the kind of scandalous behavior which goes on in the endless pressure to meet deadlines we don’t hear much of the high and mighty talk from the conventional media anymore.
The emperor’s lack of clothing is now so obvious that it is pointless to deny it.
As a former newspaper worker, I would have said that Newspapers we’re a reliable source of news and information. The rise of immediate news and a corporate culture full of cut-backs, profit motives and efforts to go faster have resulted in some shoddy practices in the newsroom, bad management and an inability to focus efforts to provide real public service. It’s just a shame that so many college educated people could be so stupid…
Hey. Maybe they went to the same schools as our car execs?
Why not phone it in? What the difference? We’ve heard all this already from other sources anyway.
Dynamic 88:
Because a journalist has an obligation to tell the truth. If they don’t, the lost the one thing they’re selling: credibility.
If the report had said, “in a speech set to be given later today, Nardelli will declare…” fair enough.
The reporter and (perhaps) his editor took a short cut and got nailed.
This is par for the course here in Detroit. For a major city (population-wise, of course), the media agencies efforts and credibiltiy always seem to be sub-par. As for Nardelli, I’m already tired of looking at his fat face.
Anchorage to Miami (strangely both markets are run by McClatchy), Journalists are often tied to their ivory tower — newsrooms no longer have the ability or staffing necessary to cover actual events. It’s a facade that they’re actually at these events. Matter of fact, the public calls in most activity that is covered. At least TV news will go get film footage of the house fires and car wrecks they cover.
As a side note, Gannett owns the Freep and isn’t noted for it’s high journalism standards, good corporate practices or even for having a particularly witty mission statement.
RF
Thought you were taking weekends off?
Anyway, my point was that nothing in the Freep article was telling anyone anything they hadn’t learnd on the net 3 days before.
Yes, it’s true BEB didn’t actually address the group on Tues., and there is that “gotchya” factor, but in the larger scheme of things, why does it matter? A third rate paper writes an article based on an advance copy. I would expect nothing more. It’s not as if a real live reporter from the Freep, in attendance at the actual meeting, was going to ask BEB tough questions about Chrysler’s future.
Yes dynamic 88 your right theres nothing we didn’t allready know. But 3rd rate paper or not.credibility has been compromised.
I read the Freep everyday on line.Now every story or event I read I’ll take with a grain of salt.