Well, what can I say? I'm a journalist, and it's all true. Mostly. You just have to do quality control on the stuff you read -- the proprietors of newspapers persuaded themselves long ago that spending money on having enough high quality journalists to keep the reporting accurate and relevant doesn't do anything for circulation.
Spending it on bingo does. Splashing 'exclusives' does.
Gossip and rumour presented as fact does.
Spending it on staff, they think, doesn't.
Look at the new Metro papers, which are put together with a tiny staff mostly from wire reports. When that ATP had to land with half its gear up, the caption on the Metro photograph (taken as it came in, props VERY visible) was "The stricken jet dices with death" or similar. You just know that NOBODY in the editorial or production process even looked at that caption from the moment some underpaid, overworked subeditor typed it in.
Not all papers are the same, and not all journalists are the same. When the Indy started, there was a new sense of doing it properly -- and for a while, it worked. Then the company tried to launch the Indy on Sunday, and ran out of cash -- result, the rest of Fleet Street sighed with relief and went back to its bad old ways. It'll be a while before the experiment is repeated: the Brits just don't like spending money on quality product.
I could go on, but I won't. The company I work for does computer magazines, and started about ten years ago with a policy of doing rock-solid editorial backed with loads of research. We had as many people on one magazine as our competitors did on five. The rest of the industry laughed and said we'd be gone in six months. We weren't. We did very well. Mind you, we had a three-year path to profitability and some VERY scary times at the beginning, but most other new titles have six months at best to make dosh. Now we're being pulled apart by new owners, and I'm off to the wonderful world of online... and, surprise, the rest of the British industry shows no signs of even noticing that the model of getting things right and earning the trust of your readers is workable.
It's a bloomin' shame, it is. But people keep buying the papers, *then* complaining that they're rubbish. As if Murdoch et al could care less, once they've got your money.
R