Bad Journalism and Harmful Effects of Mass Media

[Bastian]

A thread to post examples of bad journalism and how thoughtless and irresponsible journalism can have disasterous effects.

Also consider posting:
* the date, time, and the name or website from which the article is quoted.
* examples of distortions made by journalists - typically false information that is invented purely in the interests of sensationalism and hype as these make the stories more interesting.

[Bastian]

quoted from: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=58804
Piano Man is 'mentally ill': lawyers
05:48 AEST Wed Aug 24 2005
AAP

AP - Lawyers for the mysterious "Piano Man" who turned up on a British beach four months ago said that their client was mentally ill and had not faked his symptoms.

Two lawyers identified the young man, who began speaking to doctors on Friday after months of silence, as Andreas Grassl, 20, from the southern German village of Prosdorf, near the Czech border. They declined to say where Grassl was at the moment.

Christian Baumann, one of two lawyers representing the young man, told reporters his client was suffering from a severe depression when he was found wandering on a beach in southern England on April 7, soaking wet, distraught and unable or unwilling to talk. Baumann denied media reports the months of silence had been staged.
[...]
Some British papers had reported the man couldn't play the piano at all, but sat and picked at the same key over and over.

Baumann said that Grassl, although self-taught, was a proficient musician.

"He didn't speak, but he certainly did play piano," the lawyer said.

After Grassl was found, the British media jumped on the story, reporting that the man was an accomplished pianist and likened the case of the "Piano Man" to the Oscar-winning 1996 movie "Shine", about acclaimed pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a nervous breakdown while playing.

The lawyers declined to comment on reports that Grassl had been contemplating suicide [...]

Imagine if I suffered from some form of mental breakdown and then had the media broadcast your story all around the world. How much harm and humiliation it would bring both to myself and my family. This kind of irresponsible reporting is enough to bring people to suicide and for what purpose? The only reason it is reported is because the newspapers will profit from these sensational stories, not because it is important information that will benefit our society.

[Yothu]

This kind of irresponsible reporting is enough to bring people to suicide

There is an excellent book
"The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum : Or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead" from Heinrich Böll that deals with that matter.

Review of A Reader:

A minor incident in Katrina Blum's life, turned into news by needy papers, sets in motion a series of destructive events which make the incident a horribly defining one. Boll leads the reader into an evaluation of the so-called "disintrested" and "unbiased" media, who make their living from revealing the darker side of human nature. A good book to read in the aftermath of any media "discovery" or "controversy".