Earthquake confounds media
by Michele Coelho
News of an earthquake next to NZ, and the danger of an impending tsunami almost meant Auckland city would be destroyed.
The earthquake took place 475km south of NZ near an archipelago known as the Auckland Islands.
But to some parts of the world, the news was that the tremor had happened next to Auckland city.
It wasn’t long before the foreign media realised their mistake and quickly changed the information, but it was long enough to cause some fuss.
Many international students in Auckland received several calls from family and friends overseas asking if everything was alright, or if they were evacuating the city.
Although there was no big damage due to the mistake, at least none that we know about, it still should make us wonder how long people will have to double check something they’ve seen on the news.
I guess it is fair to say mistakes happen and journalists are bound to make some little mistakes at any point in their career, but let’s not forget they’ve chosen a profession in which truth and accuracy means everything.
Besides, mistakes relating to world geography are inexcusable.
I think most people know journalists don’t know everything about geography except for the basic necessary things.
But I also think they expect that these journalists will at least check data, which is not that hard to do, and then be confident when writing a world news story.
A similar mistake happened some years ago when CNN mentioned in one of its news that Buenos Aires was the capital of Brazil.
That mistake turned out to be the ‘real’ news both in Brazil and Argentina. Go figure.