The Problems of Journalistic Inaccuracy - Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls

For this post I selected two articles that touch on the founding of new Girls Rock! camps. The New York Times article from 2005 discusses the first summer of the Willie Mae Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Brooklyn, NY while the Golden Gate Xpress article details the founding of the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp (BAGRC) in Oakland, CA in 2008. I am interested in these articles in combination because both camps have a similar story of being inspired by the original Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, OR, which exemplifies a larger trend of the spread of the Girls Rock! movement. Karla Schikele, the founder of Willie Mae, framed the New York version to closely follow the Portland model of Rock Camp, keeping many of the workshops and basic tenets of feminism and empowerment consistent. BAGRC's founders Carey Fay-Horowitz and Claire McCabe were similarly moved by the Portland camp's model and were inspired by their volunteer experience there to start their own camp in Oakland. 

In searching for articles discussing the founding of new Rock Camps, I found myself being extremely wary of the validity of the facts in the articles. More often than not, Rock Camps, and especially new ones, get written up in small local papers where the journalistic standards for proofreading and fact-checking fall by the wayside. From personal experience dealing with the press in relation to the Portland Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls (RNRC4G) and their general inability to quote interviewees correctly, or to get the facts correct, I have come to question the accuracy of almost all articles related to Rock Camps. However, that being said, I chose these two articles, because to the best of my knowledge they stay true to the facts and to the camp's mission. On the other hand, if I didn't personally know many of the people quoted in these articles, I wouldn't necessarily have a sense of when they were misquoted, or when the description of the camp and its goals was inaccurate, which then poses a bigger problem for the advertisement and proliferation of Rock Camps, in that they run the risk of being misunderstood through poorly written press. 

Oh, and here are the links to the two articles I was talking about in the beginning of this post: 

Bay Area Girls Rock - Xpress SFSU

Willie Mae Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls - NY Times