The post on CNN's graphic with Switzerland in the wrong place is dumb October 5, 2001 12:01 PM   Subscribe

Lets discuss a typo sent to someone as an email attachment. Post 11138
posted by skallas to Etiquette/Policy at 12:01 PM (10 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



I don't know about that skallas. It's more than just a typo. It's a national news organization that has been misreporting major stories for a month now (from 9-11's plane crashing into Camp David to a second wave of terroists in airports to the recent two "terroist attacks" on planes that never actually happened). I think the point of the thread is a visualization of how CNN is making unforgivable blunders as try they to report (what may not necessarily be) news as fast as they possibly can.

Even if it was a blunder from a graphic designer at CNN, don't they copyedit? Where's the fact checking? They are a news organization. How can you "trust" the news from CNN if they don't seem to have a basic grasp of geography? And if they can't place Switzerland on a map, who's to say that any of their running commentary across the bottom of the screen or on their hideous three panel Headline News layout is correct?

On the other hand, the comments in the thread really don't get to that point. Instead the discussion turned into... well... pretty much shit.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:07 PM on October 5, 2001


(as for the self-link part, I agree with you on that, but it's a fairly innocent self link.)
posted by eyeballkid at 1:07 PM on October 5, 2001


(i just looked at the phrase "innocent self link" and then asked myself, "is there such a thing?" no, probably not. bad link, bad link)
posted by eyeballkid at 1:10 PM on October 5, 2001


I don't agree. I think there's a difference between hosting something like that on your site and pointing people to it, and pointing to your weblog or an article you've written or whatever.

in other words, trying to get a lot of people to look at something you did seems to me to be the point of the "no self-linking" rule, but putting something on your site for the convenience of being able to point people to it seems to me to be very different.

say I got an article published in the Utne Reader. it would be a self-link for me to point to it, right, even though it's not on my site?

on the other hand, a screen capture of, say, salon being hacked-- that was hosted on my site--would count as neither a self-link *nor* a link to salon ;), according to my reading of the intent of the rule.
posted by rebeccablood at 2:00 PM on October 5, 2001


Rebecca: Point taken, but the author also felt it necessary to mention that it was a self link, thereby promoting his/her site. Otherwise, we would have never known it was. That was what really struck me as wrong.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:23 PM on October 5, 2001


the author also felt it necessary to mention that it was a self link,

now, I take opposite view of that: if they *hadn't* mentioned it was on their site, and then someone had checked thir user profile and noticed that the URL was the same (this has happened before), then it would have looked like he/she was trying to get one over on us.

it feels to me like the protocol that has evolved here over time is self-disclosure of every self-link.
posted by rebeccablood at 2:33 PM on October 5, 2001


<waffling>Blurry line (to me, anyway), but I understand it. I guess the recent harsh attitude about the site and adherence to protocols in general on MeTa is seeping into my otherwise fairly uncritical view of MeFi threads. So I ask myself again, "Is there such a thing as an 'innocent self link'?" Yes.</waffling>
posted by eyeballkid at 2:47 PM on October 5, 2001


Non-sequitur? I dont' believe so. I think I qualified that statement with paragraph before it where I mentioned CNN's recent string of Dewey-defeats-Truman style headlines. One messed up graphic is important when you take it in context of the other gaffes that CNN has made in the past month.

What I do agree with, however is that the comments in the thread don't really discuss anything of value. I think that had the conversation turned to CNN's recent misreporting, it would have been an interesting thread (likewise the purposeful deception angle.)
posted by eyeballkid at 3:10 PM on October 5, 2001


ba-DING!!!

skallas id's YABL! yet another bad link

damn! that boy is good!
posted by quonsar at 11:33 AM on October 7, 2001


Damn. I used to do some on-air graphics stuff for CNN; it would have been fun to post in that thread. How did I manage to miss it until now?
posted by aaron at 10:56 PM on October 7, 2001


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