Coronavirus diary, Friday 20 November

In these high tech days it is not only the traditional news channels, radio and television, that give us the local, national and world news. 

The internet has spawned a mass of information 'platforms' available to everyone at any time, to report and comment on the news of the day.

That sounds  attractive and valuable, but I am increasingly concerned not just by the dangers of misinformation but by the increasingly strident reporting and commenting on the traditional  media. 

My main concern is how they have taken up the 'blame game', finding faults and mistakes and accusing and lambasting those they see as responsible. 

From the tabloids every day we get  indignant tales of incompetence, scandals, chaos, while in some of the up-market papers, columnists with by-lines as big as their egos and salaries - some get £150,000 or more for a regular column - are experts in almost any subject. They pillory politicians and trained experts.

There is nothing wrong with criticism and honest, accurate investigation. It is essential, but the general approach these days is depressingly negative and it does harm to the public and to all those who are trying to safeguard us and improve our lives.

As an old fashioned, dyed in the wool print journalist, I am saddened by the change.

Journalists have never enjoyed a high reputation but I am convinced that when I started nearly 80 years ago reporting was more accurate, more honest and more credible. 

Few of us were graduates; we got out and about to get our stories and report them vividly and and accurately. Mistakes were made, of  course. My most embarrassing was to 'kill' a man.

It was in my early days, soon after the end of the war, when I was covering the Rhymney Valley for the South Wales Argus. I heard that  three disabled ex soldiers had died the same week.

I spent a day on the story, drove up the valley to find two of the families, but could not get to the third, about whom I was given  details which I relied on.  

The information was wrong but I did not find out until a family rang me to say their Dad was not dead. What could I say? I wrote a new story and went to see them to explain. The 'dead man even laughed it off.

That taught me one of the basic rules of reporting - if in doubt, leave out.

These days, fact finding is so much easier and faster so there is less excuse for inaccuracy, but what depresses me is what I see as the increasing arrogance and know-it-all attitude of too many journalists.