They say on the web-site they already went "to press" by way of explaining such a gaffe. But of course, that's a very long time and a mighty strange way to explain it all.
I just tried for an hour to post a little something about my feelings there. It's tasteless and I think if this were another kind of situation they would not run it quite like this. Absolutely to me this is insensitive and about something I find perhaps a bit more. Opportunistic even. The content does need to be written, certainly the interview important, but it speaks to the need really in what we do, to do it thoughtfully and compassionately. It reads to me as if it someone thought this was sensational enough to get read like this. But I'm not sure.
Really weirding me out.
After going through site registering and a bunch of nonsense I then could not post due to a word limit ( 1350) that must be really short, as I was short. After fixing that it asked me to register again and then I just got tired. Still I want to air my feelings. So I thought...I will here.
I read this within the LA Times, they should ask a few questions themselves about this. It was ridiculous to carry in this form.
So here is the link to the article in Parade... 'A Wrong Must Be Righted'
It's maybe a little less strange on the internet within the context there, but in the paper with this cover that reads as if she were alive, the tone throughout with no explanation, that is just kind of cold. Or something. Something makes me feel this strongly.
And so....here was what I tried to send them that they would not accept.
To Parade Magazine....
It is one thing to go to print with an interview that was given shortly before an assassination that is, essentially, a call out to the world with insights on the thinking of the leader that was killed.
Thay is a duty to be taken in all seriousness.
Altho your Parade seems an unlikely place for that kind of work, okay you did decide to interview a world leader.
Some of your content today in this article clearly contained this, something the world should hear from the mouth of a soon to be murdered woman leader.
However, this article and the cover headline seems just really odd. I read, then reality checked the date three times and had to come here on this site it was so disturbingly strange, check out other comments and then go through the labor of registering to comment. It feels so wrong. In deference to those that are mourning, and due to the seriousness of this, why on earth run a cover and article not contextualized somehow. With some sentence indicating she's died.
Newspapers do go to press with deadlines but as far as I ever knew they do strive for "timeliness, appropriateness." If you were to tell me you go forward with no way to change content even when the person dies or a major new story hits like this with that many days,say if some serious issue hits with this kind of time, I would not believe you. Say what?
Let's say using this logic over a week before the Twin Towers were blown to bits (10 days) you did a cover article on dining and life there in the Towers...and then Sept. 11 happens, but you carry not a word of that as if reality was altered. You mean we would read that happy dining and business cheer piece over a week later? No. You know you'd be out of business I think.
Someone "decided" to run this that now carries a huge responsibility to apologize
(especially too from the papers that allowed it in their pages) at the least for the insensitivity in the way you packaged this. It's so very bizarre.
And you should have pulled it.
I agree with you 100%- this lack of contextualization is a bit of an outrage-especially since the press release from Parade about this story was dated 27 December- I would think there was planty of time to qwrite some wrap-around text to frame the article in context; in fact it behooved them to do this-
ReplyDeleteThe manufacturing guys over at Evolving Excellence have some comments on how long publication lead times created the Parade fiasco with the Bhutto article. Interesting about how the digital files are created in India and the publication outsourcing demands.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/01/parade-bhutto-a.html
Thanks to you both for reading and very interesting comments.
ReplyDeleteI just read the link, Ken. Very interesting too but considerably shocking to learn that what I think of as news, well, really takes a pretty long time to get to print.
You know I think then....perhaps....I lost my thought... to picturing my open mouth Sunday. This was a time to take on the cost.It sounds to me like they knew that too. All the editor NPR appearance stuff to "explain." It just gets stranger.
So then I think the pressure to do "sure thing" pieces over possibly more volatile or in the minute must be a real reason why usually Parade cover articles are usually to me pretty lame, still....this was so insensitive without some note. Stamp, written before her death on the cover then with a big red sentence. At the least.
You would be learning from this perhaps in a similar publication to shy away from controversy... yet another reason the media is driven from what I think of as better reporting or investigating towards a kind of work that seems to be about money.
Yikes. A lot to think about.
If I taught journalism, ethics, media, a course in a college related to current events I'd be all over this as a way to talk about the role of media, the business aspects as they weigh on decisions made.
Speaking of which this link and it's information about going to print and the cost to stop or change , reminds me on some strange level so strongly of the pressure on doctors in care situations with insurance company intrusion. Not always the best way is cheapest. Discussions from this are really about free press as well as how the print media is changed by instantaneous nature of news, as well as the limitations and the issues around print in the current technology age.
I read one comment on the Parade site where someone said essentially-" great going another way to kill print media" and another comment where someone spoke to this as representative of how the world views us. As, I suppose, able to put out a piece that would be so insulting to her memory by its oddness, in it's insensitivity to the murder. Such thoughtful ways of looking into what this "says," do need to be done. Apologies and I think a considerable tribute. Also on their site you cannot write Pakistan, it gets stars on the first letters which is so odd too.
Certainly important to discuss outside of just an article in Parade in a multiplicity of ways.
Thanks much for commenting.
coming from a media background - I'm quite sure they didn't pullthe piece because it was already in production and if they pulled it - they would have lost advertisers who didn't want to be part of the piece. I would hope those advertisers show their displeasure and move their ads elsewhere. This was sloppy journalism - and they should have pulled the piece - even if it meant they had to reprint.
ReplyDelete