My friend Dale wrote this terrific essay about the way news stories are often made, using the example of the inevitable “Black Friday” holiday shopping story that every newspaper and radio and TV news program runs after Thanksgiving:
There should be a book titled “How News Is Made,” a book that could be for journalism what “The Jungle” was to the meatpacking industry. My version would offer no conspiracy theory, but I’d point out the preponderance of sloppiness and lazy thinking coupled with a herd mentality, most especially in business journalism. I found a great example to illustrate what I’ve been thinking about, tipped off by an article written by Carl Bialik in the Wall Street Journal.