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I also see it in major newspapers like The Guardian. Particularly around political stories, like Jeremy Corbyn and his new shadow cabinet, they seem predisposed
by _petronius 11y ago
I also see it in major newspapers like The Guardian. Particularly around political stories, like Jeremy Corbyn and his new shadow cabinet, they seem predisposed to describe every comment made about them as putting the politicians "under fire" or some other such melodramatic term. And then when you read the actual quotes in the article, they are fairly tame, gentle criticisms.
This happened twice just this week, once with the (constructive, rather softball) comments made by a union leader about Corbyn himself (to which the reaction was something along the lines of "oh no, he's losing the support of his base!"), to the rather mild back-and-forth about John McDonnell's sarcastic crack about Mao in Parliament (which the media basically manufactured into a fake story, all the while implying that McDonnell is a crypto-communist, while he is nothing of the sort).
Anyway, rather than it being about a specific subject, I guess my point is that I am pretty down on journalists in general these days, because chasing the story and filling the news cycle (in any medium) seems to have taken priority over actually substantive reporting of things that matter.
- domfletcher 11y agoThis sort of thing is why I think Corbyn's strategy of opening distaining the media may ultimately pay off. I'm hoping that people will tune more and more of this noise out and then start going directly to source when they want to hear what someone has to say.
- jensen123 11y agoThe Internet certainly is making it a lot easier to go directly to the source, and skip the old-fashioned media.
- redthrowaway 11y ago>John McDonnell's sarcastic crack about Mao in Parliament (which the media basically manufactured into a fake story, all the while implying that McDonnell is a crypto-communist, while he is nothing of the sort). Is anyone saying he's a crypto-communist? All I've seen is that it's yet another example of Corbyn's shadow cabinet being fantastically terrible at politics. It's not feeding the "Labour are outright marxists" narrative, it's feeding the "Corbyn is incompetent and sooner or later the house of cards will fall" narrative.
- _petronius 11y agoI guess I was being a bit hyperbolic. But Chuka Umunna's comment about how "I would never quote a communist" and the GHCQ noting the figures about deaths during the Great Leap Forward seemed to be a tacit implication that McDonnell was somehow endorsing Mao, rather than taking a swipe at Osborne.
- rfrank 11y agoDo you feel the same way about software devs who work for food delivery/laundry service startups and the like? Writing clickbait is no better or worse than "changing the world" one delivery at a time. Everyone's just chasing easy money.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThat's why I label them "dishonest" in my head, and blacklist the worst offenders. Yes, I won't use your service if you bullshit too much in your copy.
- knughit 11y agoHow is helping people for money equivalent to lying to people?
- rfrank 11y agoHow is a "sharing" economy, or the vast majority of startups, helping anyone but stakeholders? Without citing a particular piece of content it's hard to say anyone's lying, just being way too dramatic for more clicks. Because that is the current incentive structure for web publishing. Bullshit outrage pieces make way more money than long form investigative peices that are significantly harder to make, and exponentially less people read. Just like working on big hard problems takes more time/talent/research. Easy money and complaining for everyone!
- nikatwork 11y agoThere's a clear ethical difference between a frothy startup and deliberately provoking negative public behavior.
- rfrank 11y agoDoes secret deliberately provoke negative behavior? How about yik yak? Until the incentive structure changes for writers, they'll keep writing that stuff. Just the way it is.
- teh_klev 11y agoCraig Murray has been watching the McDonnell "Mao" thing, seems it's really just the Grauniard that's doing its dinger about this: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/11/the-guardians-anti-corbyn-campaign-plumbs-new-depths/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/11/the-guardian...