Tucson Citizen.com
Paranormal Old Pueblo - Paranormal News and Opinion, latest UFO News, supernatural and unexplained phenomena.

The evolution of a UFO-related article: How things went from bad to worse

by on Oct. 10, 2010, under UFOs

Okay, last UFO reporting by the mainstream media related post. I wanted to present three articles for readers to examine, followed by a poll. I read three articles today about a UFO conference in Philadelphia. I came across a UPI article first.

The UPI article was filed under “Odd News”: UPI ARTICLE

The UPI article made very little sense to me, so I decided to find the original article that UPI condensed.

Before I found the original article, I came across an AP version. The AP version didn’t present the MUFON folks as crackpots as much as the UPI article, above, managed to do. The same quotes were included, with more information to put the quotes that UPI used into context.

The AP article was filed under “News”: AP ARTICLE

Then, I found the original article, link below, in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Of course, an odd man at the conference was written about in great detail at the end of the article. His presence at the conference had been omitted from the AP article when they condensed the article. Personally, I didn’t see the need to include him in the first place. I’ve seen guys like that in the world outside of UFO conferences. Really, to assert that people like this guy only materialize at UFO conferences is extremely unrealistic. They are found every day at restaurants, at the grocery store, and at the mall.

The original article was filed under “Local News”: ORIGINAL ARTICLE, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

You are welcome to elaborate on your selection in the comments section below.


Copyright by Cherlyn Gardner Strong. Reprint is permitted provided that credit of authorship is provided and a link back to the source.


Read more of Cherlyn Gardner Strong's posts off site at: Paranormaloldpueblo.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 10th, 2010 at 6:02 pm and is filed under UFOs. Tags for this post: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

RSS feed for this post (comments)
  • palabra

    I voted for UPI. It had a catchier headline vs. the very dry AP headline.

    I ruled out immediately the original Phildadelphia Inquirer article simply because of the Hills’ abduction presentation shown prominently with photo and caption.

    I think “abduction” feeds immediately into mainstream reader skepticism at the highest level. There are 3 evolutionary stages of public acceptance, in my opinion – listed in ascending order:

    1. Unidentified craft. The unusual, physics-defying reality is most provable yet still tied to so much bias that public skepticism has barely been overcome.

    2. ET existence. Most sober reporters and researchers seem to agree that without proper documentation and acceptance of the above unidentified craft phenomenon, we’re simply not ready yet to devote much effort to where and how these craft originated or who/what is providing the maneuvering intelligence.

    3. Abduction. This goes beyond unproven ET existence (somewhere in the universe) to a higher level of supposed knowledge of ET-specific  _activity_, in my opinion a stretch of thought that very few people are willing to undertake.

    So, the cart’s before the horse at the Inquirer, again, in my humble opinion.

    Thanks for this very interesting UFO brain-teaser!

    • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

      Interesting! UPI was not the one I chose.

      I liked seeing the full context of the quotes. Without the full context, and if I wasn’t into UFOs to understand what they were talking about, the MUFON folks would look sort of weird. I didn’t like the UPI or PI headlines, because they were too cutesy. I preferred the AP article headline, which was to the point (dry, yes). There’s no right or wrong answer. I see improvements that could be made on all three, but I like the AP article the most. It reported the conference as more of a serious topic. Nice, I hope that more people comment on this! Thanks Palabra!

  • Pingback: The evolution of a UFO-related article: How things went from bad to worse | ufo-tv.com

  • palabra

    With a background in advertising, headlines mean a lot to me. Thanks for acknowledging differences without having to be “right or wrong”!

    • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

      As far as the mainstream media goes, I do have to acknowledge one point that I haven’t yet. That is that journalists have BOTH skeptics and believers to please. It puts them in a tough spot. So, if they report seriously, the skeptics get mad. If they don’t report seriously, the believers get mad. I say just report the facts and stay neutral. (my personal opinion)

  • palabra

    Correction: “cutesy” headlines mean a lot to me. My guess is that you have a more scientific orientation and can handle “dry”. My educated guess is that UPI’s “cutesy” headline will attract more readers, thus my vote. But I could be wrong.

  • Pingback: ufohq.net - The world's largest LIVE UFO news UFO headlines UFO links information resource updated 24 X 7 X 365 | Blog | Fresh From Twitter: The evolution of ...

  • Pingback: The evolution of a UFO-related article: How things went from bad to worse | Johnsblog - I Know I'm Right...

  • Pingback: The evolution of a UFO-related article: How things went from bad to worse – Tucson Citizen | ufo-tv.com

  • Philippe

    I liked the the AP article the best, if only because it didn’t include the gratuitous account of the man with the pinkish nuggets - an addendum  which may have been an unconscious (or backhanded) attempt by the writer of the Philadelphia Inquirer article to invalidate the seriousness of what was discussed at the MUFON conference.

    <i>”….They will look at a sharp photo and say it’s a fake…….Then they’ll look at a blurry photo and say it’s not a good one…….”</i>

    What UFO debunkers imply is that what they believe is non-falsifiable. This, by itself, makes their belief irrational.

    <i>”……Decades of research have produced solid proof in the form of soil samples and radar disruptions, photographs and corroborated first-person accounts, Dolan said, yet the public continues to ignore reality……”</i>

    Public ignorance of the UFO reality will continue until such time as the President (Daddy) goes on TV and confirms that UFOs are real. Until Daddy tells us something is true, we don’t really believe it.   This dynamic applies whether we are adults or small children.

    • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

      I thought there was quite a bit of stereotyping in the original article that carried over to the AP and UPI. Of the three, I preferred the condensing by the AP. Personally, I would have wanted to know more of what was discussed at the conference. Instead, we got to read how the MUFON folks feel ridiculed by skeptics. The reporter focused on that, along with the pinkish nugget guy.

      Certainly, at a conference, there were some useful, educational topics covered. My guess is that the reporter had little to no UFO knowledge and didn’t understand what was discussed, so she focused on the people. For the sort of reporting I was hoping to see, I should rely on UFO Digest or other UFO-related publication. That level of reporting wouldn’t interest many readers, though. However, if journalists in the mainstream media insist on covering UFOs, they should become educated on the topic. They don’t have to be believers…just understand the topic. Unfortunately, reporting by the mainstream will continue like this, until ever there is disclosure.

  • bwilson

    I voted for the AP article.  None were particularly good, but the AP article was the most to the point.
     
    Didn’t like how all the articles worked “aliens” into the topic.  People seem to want to confuse UFOs and whatever their source might be — two very different topics IMO.  Also, again IMO, abduction topics are another thing entirely.  If the conference was addressing all of that, then it should have had a tighter focus.
     
    On this topic, it seems that the priorities of those interested in the phenomena have been scatter-gunned since the topic became well known in the late 1940′s.  Ms Gardner Strong is on to something when she says that first we need to learn more about the “ships” (or whatever they may be) before we can come to any conclusions about their origin.  While I respect Dr. Mack’s work regarding abduction, it is, as one poster here mentioned, yet another step away from the core question of “what are the UFOs?” — and speculation of what is really happening in those cases will not resolve much without knowing more about the “vehicles” and any “crew” they might have.
     
    Mainstream media assumes that all of this nonsense and they are happy to lump it all together.  The thoughtful of us realize this attitude on the MSM’s part has a serious problem, though:  Let us assume for one moment that there really is nothing to all of this — that all sightings are mistaken and alien/abduction experiences are all psychological.  Even if that is true, that alone would be a huge, overwhelming story to report because it would indicate that a significant percentage of the nation is mentally ill in one or more ways.  But the MSM wants it both ways — they want to laugh at the reports but not report the implied story that the USA may have a huge mental health issue.
     
    Personally, I’ve no doubt that some of the reports do come from people with mental health issues.  But all of the reports – no way.  Something odd is going on, but as a society we try to wish it away.  That is an unhealthy mental indicator as well.  But don’t wait for a large media outlet to publish a story on that topic.
     
    Cheers
     

    • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

      Thanks for your input. Insightful as always. The MUFON folks were speaking to their like-minded audience members, like about how nice it was to be among folks who don’t think they are crazy. In the UPI article, one could assume that these statements were made directly to the reporter. I think that the article should have covered MUFON’s purpose and touched on the actual of the lectures, rather than just the titles. I think that members of the MSM fear that readers wouldn’t be interested in reading that. With Leslie Kean’s book gaining credibility from those not traditionally interested in UFOs, I think that the MSM should give that type of fact-based reporting a try.

  • fraser007

    I just wish that you would post articles about the hard incidents. The Zamora Case and there are others with good observers that reported UFO’s.

    • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

      I’ll for sure get to those, Fraser007, especially that one. I’m getting off my soapbox regarding the MSM with this article. :-)

      • fraser007

        I understand. This is your blogsite and when I was working the one thing I hated were people saying…”why dont you…!”
        I would love (is that better!) if your blog site would cover the hard cases and the potential of life on other worlds. Lots of material out there.
        Just because that an object is misidentified doesnt make it a UFO. Like I said the drunk at Three Points at 2 am seeing an F-16 doesnt cut it with me.
        Thanks for listening.

        • Cherlyn Gardner Strong

          Absolutely! I would love to spend more time on that specific material, though being unpaid, it has been tough to spend a lot of time on research to obtain just the facts. For those stories, I would like to also interview the people involved, if I can track them down. So, those stories would take a few days to pull together, if only spending a bit of time each day on it. Although general coverage could work, too, without delving too deeply. My favorite post is my Eastern Airlines post. It didn’t delve deep and did not include interviews. It was an original article based on my observations over the years about the airline. Someday, I aim to really spend some time on developing that particular story!

          I don’t comb the MUFON reporting database for just that reason you mention, one report is not going to cut it for me. I love suggestions, please keep them coming!

«
»