Dump and deny journalism

Like pump and dump stocks, dump and deny journalism…. Hat-tip to former On Dit editor David Penberthy…

Over at News Ltd, David Penberthy of The Punch has another crack at Canberra-based political journalists. He reminds readers that in the past off-the-record was used for only one of two reasons: to protect whistle-blowers, a la the Watergate scandal, or to add texture to a story. ‘The type of stories we have seen about the Labor leadership could be described as dump-and-deny… we in the media should reflect on our complicity in this type of journalism…. It’s my view that we have not only damaged ourselves, but more gravely we have let down the public by feeding them stories which look thin, tendentious , convey deliberately misleading sentences to blur the origin of the information.’

(Walsh, 2013:205-6)

See also what EP Thomspon had to say about ‘leaks’ from government – and what sort of receptacle receives leaks… (hint: urinals)

There’s now (as ever?) a poisonous symbiosis between hacks and the political “class” (See Guy Rundle’s observations on political castes in his Quarterly Essay ‘Clivosaurus’.

Probably need to re-watch Season Five of The Wire…