Sharyl Attkisson: The Same Subjects, Biased Reporting

"Untouchable subjects, fearless reporting" is the description of Sharyl Atkisson's personal journalism website. But when every subject is the same and the reporting isn't even truly investigative, there is reason to have problems with her being a good journalist. 

Good journalism abides by all ten elements and seven yardsticks, but in a series of articles written by Attkisson you can see she breaks many of them such as fairness or verification, newsworthiness, and inclusiveness.  

The Last Days at CNN

Sharyl Attkisson resigned from her job at CNN because she felt the organization was failing to cover news on the democratic party because she thought they were liberally biased. What's ironic about all of this is that she is the one who is failing to meet the element of verification. Sharyl conveys obvious signs of being biased just by looking at her website. On the site you see many stories covering the democratic party, often attacking President Obama, but not as many covering the republican side. 

The First Article: Support for Trump

One of the most recent articles is "Donald's Duck: 7 Reasons Why nothing Sticks to Teflon Trump" in this article she lists claims that people who oppose Trump supposedly say (none of these were sited) and basically why they're wrong. However, in some of her responses she would simply dodge the statement as if it didn't matter anymore... which isn't how it was intended to work.

One of the points in particular caught my attention, "#5. Trump personally insults people." In her response she went around the point saying "... his penchant for insult outweighs the skillset he has to accomplish things that matter."  Now, people may truly think this, (but we wouldn't know because she doesn't say who she gets these comments from) but she didn't disprove the point or even try. Her "reporting" she did on this "news" was so minimal that the informational article turned into her using her own opinions to argue the opposing side. In a single article Attkisson has failed to be objective, cover what is newsworthy, and provide context. This is not good journalism.

The Second Article: Attacking Healthcare

As I was scrolling through the portion on her website entitled "NEWS" I found an entry that was nowhere near what news is. This entry was a short description of a forum she put on the site. The forum was called, "Obamacare Fail Stories." Not, "Obamacare Stories," or "How Healthcare Affected the People?" but a single forum on the negative side of healthcare. Sharyl could've easily made the forum include stories from people that had positive views on the subject to get that fairness and all sides of the story but she did not do this. This was another story with two yardsticks broken: Fairness, and Newsworthiness.

Change

 To continue about her career she needs to stop, read up on the ten elements and seven yardsticks, and ask herself (or me) what she is doing wrong. Maybe then she will realize how she fails to cover both sides of a story, report on newsworthy topics, report at all, and site her sources.