Monday, February 25, 2008

Junkies

Some folks cannot shake a habit.

From the news organization that gave you "Kyūma Fumio ready to buy F-22s" and enough untrue claims of incipient regulatory changes to choke a black bass, comes the latest in the string of "No, this is not an honest interpretation of what the interview subject said, but no harm/no foul right?" news flashes.



Actually, no, it isn't.

Why does the FT feel it necessary to over-promote its interviews? Do the editors think their paper's reputation to be so low that unless the headlines scream of juicy exclusives, no one will read the article?

More importantly, do the editors of the FT realize how their hyping of their exclusives pollutes the news stream? This AFP retelling of the main revelations does the FT a huge favor by dialing down the temperature to reasonable levels.

Unfortunately, not all FT exclusives have been brought back down to reality by the efforts of competitors.

A paper with a global reputation should not be relying on the kindness of strangers to police its excesses. It should, indeed, be policing the exaggerations and misleading representations of others.

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