These days more and more people are shifting from newspapers and in part from TV channels to their corresponding e-versions.
I used to read a couple of newspapers in the morning but now I just point my browser to BBC and other news websites when I want to know what’s happening in the world.
With this fundamental shift in how we obtain information, it is of paramount importance that our sources be reliable and up to date.
Unfortunately, this is not the case – as our conventional newspapers/TV channels lift content from the internet (without quoting) and not with enough knowledge on the topic.
During this, they miss out information or misrepresent facts. You don’t have to look far and deep to confirm this.
The author seems unaware that the movie in question, “The Tourist” actually stars Johnny Depp as a lead, not Brad Pitt. Furthermore the article says that it’s Angelina Jolie’s and Brad Pitts’ first movie together, which is wrong. Their first movie together was “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” which premiered in 2005.
This is simply unacceptable. Geo is a major player in the news and entertainment market and them publishing such inaccurate articles is a travesty. One wonders how many of their other articles go published without any sorts of checks and verifications.
Here’s another example.
The irony is they claim to be the number one newspaper in Pakistan. The link to the firewall in question is: http://swaf.seecs.nust.edu.pk/project.php
As you can see it’s actually a project being offered to the finals year students at NUST. Here’s an excerpt from the project description.
“Semantic Web application Firewall is a research group in UG block at ground floor (SEECS)”
The article claims that the firewall was actually designed by a leading Japanese company and NUST professionals aided the development. – insert a facepalm here – Its quite clear on the homepage for the SWAF that NUST are working in close collaboration with a Japanese company DTS mainly and not the other way round.
One might think that the reporters just grab random parts of interesting news from internet and color it according to their taste.
IF this is so, which seems the case, I question their claim of being the number 1 newspaper. Being the best also means to produce the best stuff, a fact being ignored apparently.
The bottom-line is that major newspapers and TV channels need to realize that the editorial and reporting quality that goes into their channels and news should translate to their internet counterparts too. With inaccurate articles like these, they are only losing readers as well as being made punch lines of jokes.
Thanks to Bilal Bajwa and Kamran Bukhari for tipping us on this
I my Self catch them many time their urdu version of newspaper is full of mistakes. But still they’re in top 100 list of alexa by country pakistan.
I also check many times that newspapers get news from bbc urdu websites bcoz many times i had seen that i read a news on bbc and next day that news was published in many newspapers with just small editing.
News are often passed by third-party agencies or ‘syndicates’. Sometimes, these news are carried in the similar manner in almost all the papers.
BBC itself gets reports from Reuters, AFP and Associated Press. They use the same text and only remove stuff that would not be company policy or their editorial style.
And this article must be a part of ‘Government conspiracy’ to stop GEO group!
and I can hear the top staff saying: ‘Who cares?’
Geo/Jang Group and few others too, sell their news through Sensationalism, and we can always find this true on TV, newspaper, websites…all of them..
first of all , all the material who promotes unislamic culture (example : movies / songs / indian drams etc) should be banned on every channel , on every blog too.
LOLZ! That’s how we deal everything with an ‘e’ attached to it :p
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The Firewall is actually nice, if you can search through the site, randomly you will find a Demo Video of it in action ;) (hint: at an FTP server of there’s).
I have a bad experience related to this project :p
BBC Urdu service is one of key source for many newspapers in Pakistan, but I write to BBC Urdu service from time to time for their clear bias in reporting for Pakistan.
Their reporters are “NON-RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS” and with an addition of “MONITORING DESK” as source BBC Urdu stories can be seen in Pakistani newspapers.
Every newspaper has its ideology and works with that. Indeed, there are quite a few “Liberal Extremists” out there.
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I expect much worse frm Jang group.who r actualy fighting a jang against common sense and reality
James Bond Ke Nayee Film November 2010 Mai Release Kar De Jaay GEE :-)
_ Daily Jang
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/jan2011-daily/13-01-2011/u59104.htm
even I want to add something…
check this out…
http://twitpic.com/3qn504
Hilarious…..nothing compared to ridiculous
reporting in western news agencies…..do you really think this is so terrible ? I suggest you spend a little more time organising your site so that its readable, and forgive the confusion between Brad Pitt and Johhny Depp…Its hardly as erroneous as forgetting to report drone attacks as in western journalism..or the floods for that matter…I think western reporting was something along the lines of ‘oh its raining in Paksitan, worst disaster ever…next?’
fire your criticism where its deserved