40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
YIKES!!!!, August 27, 2010
If I gave any credence to the press prior to reading this book, it's completely gone now. The Jessica Lynch and Katrina stories alone were enough to make me scream, and I have a degree in Journalism. Not too long after reading this book, I watched ESPN's 30:30 documentary on Michael Jordan playing minor league baseball. I distinctly remember, at the time he was doing that, all I read and heard was what a mistake for him to be doing this and what a failure he was at it. Turns out all of that was untrue. Jordan applied the very same work ethic to baseball that he had applied to basketball and was actually succeeding in minor league baseball at the age of 31. The most disturbing thing about the documentary came when a Sports Illustrated writer said his story, explaining how much Jordan had improved as a ball player and why he may have what it takes to actually play in the Big Leagues was killed by Sports Illustrated because the press overall, wanted Jordan back in basketball. And if you recall, the story we were handed when he came back to Basketball was that he missed the game and that he had finally given up his stupid dream to play baseball. Turns out that wasn't true either. He came back to basketball because of the baseball strike putting him in a position where he would have to cross a picket line and he was not willing to do that. This book is filled with well known, historical events I'd read about and came to believe as fact, when in fact they were either fabricated out of thin air or greatly embellished. It's a book worth reading.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent primer on how the media gets it wrong., November 19, 2010
I'm a news junkie. And, increasingly, a media critic.
Today I read nothing, hear nothing, see nothing from any news outlet that I am not skeptical of.
Objectivity in journalism, if it ever existed, is certainly rare today and many so-called journalists are quite skilled at mixing their personal opinions or editorial outlooks into what are supposedly news stories.
W. Joseph Campbell , a Professor at American University, takes apart "ten of the greatest misreported stories in American journalism" - and he does it wonderfully well.
This is not a dull book. Professor Campbell has a reasonably lively style for an academic.
He has chosen ten stories that have taken on mythical dimensions:
1. Press mogul William Randolph Hearst allegedly fomenting the Spanish-American War.
2. The panic engendered by Orson Welles' "War Of The Worlds" radio broadcast.
3. Murrow and McCarthy
4. The Bay Of Pigs
5. Walter Cronkite on the Vietnam War
6. Bra burning at Atlantic City.
7. Watergate and Woodward/Bernstein.
8. Crack-babies.
9. Creating the Jessica Lynch myth
10. Hurricane Katrina.
Using contemporaneous accounts, Campbell provides a solid basis for his claim that the underlying story was turned into a myth by the media - and, usually, without ever admitting or acknowledging it.
His chapter on the falsity of the Edward R. Murrow myth is particularly good. He demonstrates that Murrow himself and his producer Fred Friendly never claimed that they were the instigators of the downfall of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, whose reputation was already quite a way down the slope. In fact, as Campbell points out, Murrow was relatively late to the McCarthy bashing party. Campbell does an excellent job of showing how media myths become canonical truth once the entertainment industry gets hold of them as they did in "Good Night And Good Luck".
He also examines how the media is slow to admit its errors, if it ever does.
Anyone who consumes news will find this book worthwhile. Campbell has done a service to the public, if not journalism itself.
Jerry
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Having Fun with Some Journalism Myths, June 25, 2010
Joe Campbell loves to burst media bubbles, and in this fascinating volume he gets to pop 10 of them. For journalists, it's a fun read, and one that delivers some surprises. For non-journalists, it's a cautionary tale about how people so often pass along ideas that sound true, without checking out their veracity.
Some of his myths--notably the one that says Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down President Nixon with their Watergate disclosures--are easily dispelled. Of course, there were official investigative, judicial and legislative processes that really led to Nixon's resignation after wrongdoing was uncovered. But exploring the case with Prof. Campbell summons as much thought out of the reader as it does from the author. "What do you know, and when did you know it," indeed!
In some cases--like the question of whether brassieres really were ever burned, to create the common notion of "bra-burning" by feminists--you may want to do your own research to validate his assertions. But even that would be a fun process, in the spirit he creates.
He doesn't like the idea of journalism prizes much. And his disapproval of them is one area where I'd disagree, as a student of the reporting that the Pulitzers recognize. One reason the Times-Picayune WON the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina--one of his 10 cases--is that the paper so effectively debunked untrue horror stories after the storm, for example. The fact that the Times-Pic originally carried some of those erroneous stories, and corrected them later, when reporters were back on the scene, makes its public service even greater in my book. (Actually, it IS greater in my book, which is a book
Pulitzer's Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism about the Pulitzers.)
But "Getting It Wrong" will get you thinking. And it's likely to have you identifying OTHER possible media myths for the Campbell to dig into. Did businessmen REALLY jump off ledges on Wall Street in 1929? I don't think that the reality fits the perception. Professor?
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
