William F. Buckley, the pundit, once wrote in his column that "flying is committing an egregious effrontery upon the laws of nature." Another writer picked up the quotation and included Buckley in a story on celebrities who fear flying. Buckley complained: "The snippet came from a column of advice to the airline for the benefit of those who fear to fly. I have great respect and sympathy for them, but it happens I have never been one of them."
Buckley said he had soloed with 45 minutes of instruction, patrolled a war zone in a light plane, chased kangaroos in Darwin in a helicopter, flown upside down at twice the speed of sound in a jet fighter and so on.Buckley was victimized by a "media fact" - a plausible but incorrect statement, often one of interpretation, that appears in a reputable publication and forever thereafter is recycled by writers and researchers without checking. They perpetuate an error or warp the original report.
- TAKE THE STORY about the suit against the Deseret News' refusal to run a picture in an ad for a church, the World Peace Movement of 'Amelika. The Deseret News says the picture was of a figure in biblical robes and was to appear over a scripture, but is actually of Israel Malupo, the church leader, who is of Polynesian descent (Media Monitor, April 20, 1992).
Though race was not an issue when the complaint was filed in 1992, the media began calling it "the case of the dark-skinned Jesus." At least one television newscast did so again two weeks ago, when the suit was before the Utah Supreme Court. The Deseret News continued to contend the issue was not race but sacrilege. But other media won't give up easily on the catchy term "dark-skinned Jesus" no matter how arguable it was and continues to be.
(Coverage of the case also has left the impression that the ad itself was banned; that of course was not the case - only the picture was rejected. The Deseret News has itself contributed to this misunderstanding. The headline over the story on the court decision was at best vague: "Can newspapers reject advertising? Religious leader appeals refusal to run ad showing a drawing of Jesus." It is also unclear whether the picture was a drawing or photo.
- THE MOST PERSISTENT "media fact" of recent years involves former Gov. Richard D. Lamm of Colorado. Lamm is the fellow who was reported to have told old folks in a speech on costly high-tech medicine in 1984 that they have "a duty to die," and as at least one headline writer had it at the time, to "drop dead." The Salt Lake Tribune threw that back in his face when he spoke here the following year (Media Monitor Sept. 24, 1985).
What Lamm said was, "We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life." He said he was "raising a general statement about the human condition, not beating up on the elderly."
The University of Utah's alumni magazine, Continuum, found it worthwhile to refer to and clarify Lamm's remarks again this month as part of its introduction to a special edition on health care for the elderly. It notes that Lamm was "widely castigated for the alleged remark."
- DESPITE SUCH DISCLAIMERS, and despite many corrections in many newspapers - including the Colorado papers - and media criticism like this column, the "duty to die" remark keeps surfacing.
The New York Times again addressed it in a rare "editor's note" in the corrections section about a month ago. The Times said that in an Oct. 1 story a passage said Lamm "drew widespread antagonism when he said that the elderly if ill, `have a duty to die and get out of the way.'
"But that version of Mr. Lamm's remarks is a distortion. . . . He said then that insufficient attention to detail by the news media had led to a misinterpretation."
The Times noted that incorrect accounts of the remarks appeared in the Times nine times in 1984 and 1985.
Even if one accepts the argument that not every secondhand remark can be checked out, in this case the misinterpretation had been so thoroughly discussed in the press and in its trade journals as to make its repetition as a "news fact" absurd.
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Offensive ads
"Should publishers accept all ads but run disclaimers or explanations every time there's a chance that the message (or messenger) might be deemed offensive?"
That question is asked in an article in Editor and Publisher, the daily newspaper trade journal, Nov. 20.
The article is about a decision made by the Lafayette, La., alternative paper, the Times of Acadiana, and the question is answered by its publisher, Steven May.
May accepted an ad from the Ku Klux Klan because, he said, of his commitment to freedom of expression. He found his decision troubling even though the Klan has toned down its rhetoric since David Duke's campaign for governor.
Whether to accept an ad depends, May said, "on, one, the publisher's own conscience and, two, community standards. Each situation is an individual call, something you have to take one at a time."
His editor says one benefit of running the ad was the opportunity it gave the paper to discuss the Klan's "increasingly sophisticated tactics."
Reader reaction was mixed. May says the Klan may be back in the paper; if not, "it will not be a result of my having banned them." May offered to give an NAACP scholarship fund half the $900 it received from the ad.