Cut-and-paste journalism

Editorial offices around the world rely more and more on cut-and-paste journalism. Well, everybody does and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. There's no need to reinvent hot water. Provided you know what you are doing.
If you cut the head and cut the tail and paste the tail where the head should be, well... you get the picture.

If I go to the plenary meeting of the National People's Congress or to a press conference, grab a bite and a beer (or two) afterwards and then jump in a taxi or head to the subway, in the meantime the story has already been put on the web by Reuters, AP, CNN, BBC World and a hundred plus other media. Editors in Brussels or Timbuktu don't have to wait for their local correspondent to file his story. Its all on the web! Just cut and paste! The only problem is: editors in Brussels or Timbuktu don't know what they are cutting and pasting. The result is disgusting, disinformation at best and a travesty of “quality journalism”.

The TV equivalent of cut and paste is the 10-second sound bite. At a press conference at the Great Hall I was almost literally jumped upon by a female CCTV journalist the moment she discovered I could speak Chinese. In another setting she could have got away with it :-) But she only had one question. I don't answer one question, because I don't want to be turned into a 10-second sound bite.

There is a time for play, a time for booze and a time for serious reporting. You can even mix it in a cocktail. But in the paper or on TV, the outcome should be worth reading or watching, providing accurate information, not cut-and-paste tails on the shoulders.