Reply To: Times article: the money behind Avios

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

The Savage Squirrel wrote:

davefl wrote:

@Rob, when we can’t rely on The Times for quality journalism and fact checking we may as well just give up.

That’s a pretty shocking E&O list for just one article.

If you ever read a broadsheet news article designed for a general audience (all papers) about absolutely any subject where you are particularly specialised/knowledgeable then it’s laughable how poorly informed or miscomprehended most of what is written by generalist print journalists is. This is universal as general news journalists are writers paid to make a subject readable, not deep level experts. Even where you can tell they do know their stuff, explaining obscure nuances and qualifying statements doesn’t sell papers or make articles readable, so they will semi-deliberately introduce errors just as a means of gross simplification to make the thing readable to a general audience. It’s a good exercise as it reminds you that anything you read in a newspaper on a subject you’re less familiar with will also be a gross simplification of the subject with only partial accuracy.

I’ll forgive that from generalist staff writers; when “science correspondents” have a very shaky/wrong grasp of even the level of science reached in A-levels – which is also frequent – well that’s less forgivable…

This is so painfully true. I’ve had the misfortune in my previous job of giving the press office detailed clarifications when a journalist has been preparing a piece, only to then see a final article that failed to use the clarification provided. It’s particularly striking on morning radio where I happily listen along to the majority of topics, then am aghast and ready to write to the editor at any topic I know well.

However, I agree with NorthernLass – long may the mischaracterisation of reward points continue.