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Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism

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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.

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

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?

Joseph Campbell uses 10 common media myths to show you can't always believe what you hear on TV or read in the papers. Repeated often enough, a story can evolve into a "fact". Some of the myths tackled here are relatively innocent (Orson Wells caused mass panic when he did a version of War of the Worlds on radio) or the Bra Burning in Atlantic City. Some are much more serious - Was mega rich Journalist Hearst responsible for whipping up US masses into a frenzy to go to war with Spain?

Campbell is correct in stating you have to know all of the facts before making a judgment. The media's job is to tell & sell a story. The more lurid, shocking, heroic, (fill in the blank), the more it will sell. Reporters, many times not even on the scene are pressured to say something. That has not changed at all, so these examples are good reminders of the old fashioned advice - consider the source & take it with a grain of salt. Jessica Lynch was rescued during a night raid in Iraq, but was the raid staged?

What didn't I like about this book - it's easier to tear down something than it is to build - in each of the stories there are elements of truth, but by attacking a narrow portion of it, you can 'debunk' the myth. For example - maybe Hearst did not say to his employee "you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war". OK - myth busted. But it does not answer the larger question - how much of Hearst's yellow journalism contribute to the Spanish American War? Certainly Walter Cronkite does not deserve all of the credit for telling Americans we could not win in Vietnam, but as a most respected journalist, he gets a nod. If the author truly wants to make a point, why not write a book that states what really happened?

This is good reading to remind us that you can't always rely on what you're hearing, consider the source, look to hear more than one perspective when you're forming an opinion. If you already understand that, then it's still a good book to skim and see what the other side of the myth has to say. Inaccurate reporting - newspapers, radio, tv, books all have to sell. As long as that's true, you can continue to expect more of the same. The need to feed the 24x7 news cycle only increases the probability of inaacurate reporting.

In "Getting It Wrong," journalism prof. W. Joseph Campbell debunks ten media myths:

1) William Randolph Hearst's alleged telegram to Frederick Remington (Spanish-American War, 1897) in which Hearst promised to "furnish the war;"
2) Orson Welles' broadcast of "The War Of The Worlds" caused widespread panic (1938);
3) Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" television broadcast (1954) caused the fall of Communist-hunter Senator Joseph R. McCarthy;
4) The New York Times censored advance news of the Bay of Pigs invasion, at President Kennedy's request (1961);
5) Walter Cronkite's televised report (1968) on Vietnam convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson that continuing the war would be futile;
6) Women's-libbers burned their bras in protest during a Miss America Pageant at Atlantic City (1968)
7) Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's stories in the Washington Post (1972) brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon;
8) A generation of "crack babies" was doomed to permanent brain damage (1989);
9) Private Jessica Lynch fought like Rambo when she and her comrades were ambushed in the Iraq War (2003);
10) The immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (2005) was an orgy of murder, mayhem, and riot.

Campbell's book, bolstered by over 50 dense pages of endnotes, by and large sustains these points, although on a close reading it seems that the "myth" in some of these stories is a matter of degree (Campbell admits that Welles' broadcast did cause some consternation, and that bras were burned in Atlantic City). Few people will be surprised that the media sometimes gets it wrong, but I find it encouraging that corrections, including this book, are freely available; most news junkies will enjoy reading it.

Maybe "Getting I Wrong" was the editor's idea, a lighthearted title to help sell a boring and pretentious book. The author is a journalism professor who writes, unfortunately, like a professor rather than like a journalist. His book is basically an overblown academic article of very average quality, researched by reading newspaper articles about other newspaper articles. It would be easier to bear if it had anything original to say. But none of this is new; Campbell reports only on myths that the media itself has already admitted are myths. And it has nothing novel, clever, or interesting to say about their causes or cures.