June 27th, 2008
The Mail & Guardian, in an article today on politicians claiming they were quoted out of context, had me pronouncing this inanity: “Being quoted out of context usually means that the person is quoted in a context they don’t want to be quoted in.”
Let me tell you what I remember saying. I don’t have it word for word, but it was something like this: “Claiming to be quoted out of context has become the refuge of scoundrels. The first excuse of a loose-tongued politician who says something embarrassing is that they were misquoted. When they can’t use this one, maybe because they were recorded, they now say the quote was used out of context. Sometimes it was, but often it is just an attempt to blame journalists for their own mistakes.
“But look at the case of Vavi (the trade union leader who said he was quoted out of context when he said he would die and kill for Jacob Zuma). He used the word ‘kill’. There is no context which can justify that word.”
So how it came out the way it did in the M&G, I am not sure. Was I quoted out of context?
Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print
Anton Harber: Media
Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio
Among the main results from the World Association of Newspaper’s Newsroom Barometer (a survey of 700 editors and senior news execs in 120 countries) for this year:
- 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- A plurality - 44% - believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure. - From Editors’ Weblog
There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.
The report, entitled ‘Public Trust In The News’ was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. - From Editors Weblog
Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy - Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2004).
Journalism in the Age of the Market
- Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, Centre for Civil Society, University of KZN, Aug 2002
The Untimely Death of SA’s Finest Daily - Sunday Times, May 2005
“Two Newspapers, Two Nations? The Media and the Xenophobic Violence” from Go Home or Die Here, edited by Shireen Hassim Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby (WUP, 2008)
Remarks at Goedgedacht Forum, October 2008
The rise of social network journalism - From The 2009 Flux Trend Review (Macmillan, 2008)
A recent piece by me on the Zapiro cartoon row which appeared in Comment is Free, a Guardian blog.
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1. Bernard | July 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Maybe! The Times newspaper dated June 25, 2008 on pg 21, run with a story with a headline: “Rudderless society heads for rocks”. It started, I quote: ” It is clear that collectively and individually we are a deeply wounded people. Profound damage was inflicted over a sustained period of several decades by the apartheid regime and the psychic wounds are extreme” unquote, and ‘out of context’!
What Paul Ashton, Astrid Berg, John Gosling, Peter Hodson, Helise le Roux, Gillian Mudie and Gerald Stonestreet (a group of analitical psychlogists) were definately right when they say we are a sick society!
The group were refering to the recent eruption of xenophobia violence and brutality in South Africa. In addition, this is what they had to say… Neurobiological research on the development of the human brain has shown conclusively that a lack of adequate parenting during the first 18 months to two years of life can result in demonstrable delays in brain developments. According to this group, this might cause significant behavioural problems later.
Right, I’m not saying Mr Vavi did lack adequate parenting during his childhoods era, but this analysis or research bring us a bit next to a reality. Or maybe, there must be a recent update of the Oxford Dictionary with additional different meanings ofr the word ‘Kill’. Perhaps, is time for other people to go for a psychaitric check-up shortly after delivering a speech or giving comments to the media! I hope i’m not quoted out of context!
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