See, here's the thing about mistakes: People don't make them intentionally. That's why they're called "mistakes."
So threatening to fire people is not an effective mistake-prevention strategy. People will avoid engaging in intentional behavior that would cause them to be fired, of course (assuming they want to keep their jobs).
But people won't go, "Hey, I was planning to fuck up royally today, but now that I know that I may get fired for that, I've decided to take a different, not-fucking-up approach instead." It doesn't work that way.
What the "make mistakes and you're fired" threat WILL do is totally stress people the fuck out, and stressed-out people are probably likely to make more mistakes. So expect more mistakes on FNC in the near future.
@MisterHippity: Sorry, but I don't think you could be any more wrong here. I worked at a fairly small circulation newspaper for a few years, and there was one thing my editor did not tolerate: factual errors. Getting the facts right, is the most basic, essential thing a paper can do. If I had made the mistakes that Fox News did, or the New York Times did in its Cronkite story, I would have been fired for sure. He let me know this all the time. And you know what? I learned to double check things. I learned to go back over my work and just think to myself "how do I know that for sure?" It's really not that hard, and multi-million dollar news organizations should be able to get it right.
@MisterHippity: Wrong. When mistakes are made repeatedly and there are no major repercussions standards of quality go down. Good for Fox News. More "make a mistake and you're fired" policies throughout corporate America (and the government for that matter too) will pull us out of a recession faster than anything else. We cut waay too much slack as Americans. We want to give everyone space and time to grow and then we get caught with our thumbs in our asses and a trillion dollar IOU for China.
@oneinsixbillion: If a lot of mistakes happen, you examine the process that led up to them and fix it. The problem usually related to a bad process — not a lack of worker motivation.
Or, alternatively, the mistakes are the result of incompetence, in which case, threats won't help either. You can't make an incompetent person competent by threatening them.
What you describe may be true of poor work quality born of laziness or indifference - lighting a fire under somebody's butt might help in that case. So too, however, will positive reinforcement, which is a more pleasant choice in my book.
But I'm talking about out and goofs like Fox News putting the "Going Rouge" spoof on the screen instead of the real "Going Rogue" memoir. That's probably not a result of worker indifference or laziness; it's a problem where they don't have good fact checking, and perhaps also people working in positions they aren't bright enough to be in. But threats of being fired won't help prevent mistakes like that.
@Paul Peters: I've worked for a newspaper too. As a reporter, you basically won't survive if you don't get your facts right. The alternative is to go find a different career. So I don't think that's comparable. You need to have the competence to be a reporter. Then, of course, you have to be careful and double check things.
But in general, in the workplace, mistakes like that Going Rogue thing happen because they don't have the right peopel in the right jobs, and the right process in place to cathc mistakes.
It's pretty clear whomever created that artwork with the book cover didn't know there was a spoof out htere, and couldn't tell the difference. That problem is ignorance, no laziness - you had people who just weren't informed enough to select content going on the air. they should have somebody with that competence checkint the stuff before they put it on screen. So it was a process and competence problem.
The threats of firing people made by that blowhard are NOT the way to correct a problem like that. Anyone who's worked successfully in business management knows this.
@MisterHippity: I think if the Going Rouge goof happened with the wrong book going up for Dreams of My Father or something it would have been made out to be part of the vast right wing conspiracy of delegitimacy. I think a lot of the most vitriolic criticism of Fox News comes from people outside the TV "news" industry. Whether you're at Fox News, CNN or WPIX, there are 100 things going on simultaneously in your news room and your control room is a non stop crash fest. And in that context, this memo seems to get it right, with its advice of doing less but doing it better.
@wadeanderson: I'm not going to reply to your entire, long comment, because I don't feel like getting in a boring argument.
I'm only going to excerpt this part: "You can make fun of me, and I will be reassured that all of you are cynics and hopeless." and laugh, and laugh, because... well, for obvious reasons.
But the actual quality control memo doesn't say it will fire people who screw up. It says there will be a "zero-tolerance" policy but then says the discipline for the errant worker can be whatever FNC wants it to be, including just a letter to a personnel file. Big whoop.
The whole memo is ultimately all bark and no bite.
@MisterHippity: It's a typical lawyer move of sounding threatening without ultimately being obligated to do anything. Trust--if they really intended to implement a policy of firing people that made the mistakes, they would have said that. And they didn't. "Up to and including termination" means "we can do anything and are required to do nothing." If I as a lawyer was put to task with drafting a "quality control" policy that gave the boss lee-way to do anything they wanted in response to an error--including nothing--this is exactly how I would word it.
And even dumber, they can already fire anybody they want to without cause except in the rare cases of employees that have for-cause employment contracts (and I guarantee you the people in the editing rooms don't have such contracts). So the memo does nothing but re-state the status quo in language that sounds intimidating but means nothing. Kind of like Fox News itself.
@minge: Conservatives have never been wrong about anything ever in the history of everything...in their own minds. Which is exactly what makes them so dangerous.
But what about the on-purpose "mistakes" like "Foley, D" above? Oh, I know, They'll just stop covering that stuff alltogether to fair and balance it out.
Ah, the old bait-and-switch; who goes to work at Faux Noise expecting "accuracy" to play any part? It's like accepting a job as a secretary and finding out you're also responsible for the bathroom plumbing.
A "mistake chain" is to Fox News what a polymer chain is to PVC — an inextricable component in its material constitution. To eliminate the chain is to eliminate the product.
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/23/09
Which is why Rupert wants to hide his newspaper content, he's preparing to take his errors to print!
11/23/09
So threatening to fire people is not an effective mistake-prevention strategy. People will avoid engaging in intentional behavior that would cause them to be fired, of course (assuming they want to keep their jobs).
But people won't go, "Hey, I was planning to fuck up royally today, but now that I know that I may get fired for that, I've decided to take a different, not-fucking-up approach instead." It doesn't work that way.
What the "make mistakes and you're fired" threat WILL do is totally stress people the fuck out, and stressed-out people are probably likely to make more mistakes. So expect more mistakes on FNC in the near future.
11/23/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
Or, alternatively, the mistakes are the result of incompetence, in which case, threats won't help either. You can't make an incompetent person competent by threatening them.
What you describe may be true of poor work quality born of laziness or indifference - lighting a fire under somebody's butt might help in that case. So too, however, will positive reinforcement, which is a more pleasant choice in my book.
But I'm talking about out and goofs like Fox News putting the "Going Rouge" spoof on the screen instead of the real "Going Rogue" memoir. That's probably not a result of worker indifference or laziness; it's a problem where they don't have good fact checking, and perhaps also people working in positions they aren't bright enough to be in. But threats of being fired won't help prevent mistakes like that.
11/27/09
But in general, in the workplace, mistakes like that Going Rogue thing happen because they don't have the right peopel in the right jobs, and the right process in place to cathc mistakes.
It's pretty clear whomever created that artwork with the book cover didn't know there was a spoof out htere, and couldn't tell the difference. That problem is ignorance, no laziness - you had people who just weren't informed enough to select content going on the air. they should have somebody with that competence checkint the stuff before they put it on screen. So it was a process and competence problem.
The threats of firing people made by that blowhard are NOT the way to correct a problem like that. Anyone who's worked successfully in business management knows this.
11/27/09
11/28/09
11/23/09
I'm only going to excerpt this part: "You can make fun of me, and I will be reassured that all of you are cynics and hopeless." and laugh, and laugh, because... well, for obvious reasons.
11/23/09
The whole memo is ultimately all bark and no bite.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
" Please know that jobs are on the line here."
The messages seems clear enough to me.
11/24/09
And even dumber, they can already fire anybody they want to without cause except in the rare cases of employees that have for-cause employment contracts (and I guarantee you the people in the editing rooms don't have such contracts). So the memo does nothing but re-state the status quo in language that sounds intimidating but means nothing. Kind of like Fox News itself.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
If I remember the Falafel Chronicles correctly, that's not what Bill O'Reilly thinks.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09