The Poynter Institute is a journalism school and research center that owns the Tampa Bay Times in Florida and has stood tall for journalistic excellence in multiple, impressive ways for years now. Sadly, it recently clip-clopped backward to the point of tripping over an inanity and falling on its head.
We want true news, Poynter had been saying, but what it gave us was fake news about fake news, telling us 515 websites were guilty and should be pushed out of business, a tactic synonymous with oppression of the press. The list was reportedly put together largely from statistics merged from varied fact check sites and immediately upon release was identified as bogus.
Some of the “lying” news sites, after all, were highly reputable sources of splendidly edited, honest, well-researched stories and commentary, as anyone the least bit familiar with the industry would know. The composition of the list of mainly conservative sites had to have been careless and any vetting a matter of closed eyes and ear plugs.
Poynter, which withdrew the list with apologies, is conceding recklessness and says it will do a lot better next time, although I for one do not think there should be a next time. First off, if you’re going to publish such a list, you ought to spend time looking carefully at just about each and every widely used site on the internet and not just throw a lot of questionable data together in some kind of mishmash.
