Reporters and Parrots

Google's research director, Peter Norvig, has an issue with journalists.

1. Parroting: The reporter's job is to do research to find the facts. But too often they seem to parrot back whatever is fed to them by press releases, politicians, or other news reports. My friend Joe C. calls this the stenographic approach to reporting.
2. Deception: Public figures lie (Marth Stewart, Kenneth Lay), and reporters do not know who to trust. Reporters lie, either to advance their career (Jayson Blair) or to serve the interests of their corporate sponsors. Sometimes the deception is self-deception: reporters (and others) believe what they want to believe.
3. Innumeracy: Prof. John McCarthy has touted the slogan He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. Perhaps the budding reporters with an ability for arithmetic end up in other fields (like me), but it does seem that reporters repeatedly show they are not capable of simple multiplication and division.
4. Equal Time: Perhaps influenced by the sports pages, reporters tend to see issues as a competition with two sides, which must both be covered. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes one side is right and the other is objectively wrong. Reporters should do enough research to determine who is right and say so. They are too easily manipulated by those who have no facts on their side, but get equal press time anyways just by talking loudly.

Link