Churner prize
03/04/08 09:20 Coffee machine moments
Here's a good site, called the Churner Prize.
What's 'churner', you ask? It's simply a
reference to churning, the act of turning a
press release into editorial copy without
bothering to sanity check, go and find your own
story or anything old-fashioned like that.
It's something journalists are never encouraged to do (that should probably be 'encouraged never to do' in English). A lot of us end up doing it from time to time, though - in technology journalism it can actually be valid sometimes in order to make completely sure your technical details are accurate in whichever story you're writing at the time.
It's an excellent idea, highlighting lazy journalism like this, and a wake-up call to many of us. I'll no doubt fail completely to let you all know when one of my pieces makes it onto the site.
It's something journalists are never encouraged to do (that should probably be 'encouraged never to do' in English). A lot of us end up doing it from time to time, though - in technology journalism it can actually be valid sometimes in order to make completely sure your technical details are accurate in whichever story you're writing at the time.
It's an excellent idea, highlighting lazy journalism like this, and a wake-up call to many of us. I'll no doubt fail completely to let you all know when one of my pieces makes it onto the site.
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