7 ms·

> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to

> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. I've seen better journalism from bloody buzzfeed than I have from some of the "proper" news networks in Australia...

aphextron 9y ago
>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.
  - Cursuviam 9y ago
    I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.
    - WillPostForFood 9y ago
      If 90% of the press is left leaning, no surprise that 90% of journalists lean left, high and low quality alike.
      - tormeh 9y ago
        Um, no, that's not the reason. The people that choose to become journalists often do it for idealistic reasons. They want to enlighten the public about issues they care about. Palestine, for example. Right-wing people generally don't have that many issues they want to tell people about. Everybody already knows how high their taxes are, no journalism needed.
        WillPostForFood 9y ago
        Let me assure you right wing people have as many issues they want to tell people about as left wing people. You might not like them or consider them idealistic, but they do. To be blunt, your comment comes off like you live in a left wing enclave and you have no real human experience with people with differing believes. Which is funny, because that is also how modern journalism comes off - privileged white rich kids at liberal schools who then shuttle down to the equally liberal newsroom, never interacting with half the country.
    - yvdriess 9y ago
      It is almost as if reality has a left-wing bias.
    - nl 9y ago
      This is a convenient fiction. There are plenty of right-wing journalists who have similar quality to left wing. Publishers like The National Review have fine writers and it is hard to argue the a publication founded by William F. Buckley is some liberal organisation. The "problem" is that all these organizations are critical of Trump too.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? 1. He's the most powerful head of state on the planet. 2. He's demonstrably not fit for the job. 3. IT'S THEIR DAMN JOB.
    - hyperdunc 9y ago
      1. Yes 2. By your criteria 3. Their job is to inform the public, not to make things up I don't even like the man, yet I am compelled to defend him against what I see as a greater injustice.
- BigJono 9y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you're blaming blogs and online media for the decline in credibility of newspapers. Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. The only reason they had any credibility before is because people blindly accepted what they said without the tools to verify it. They've had the same amount of journalistic integrity as they've always had. I.E plenty until there's a buck to be made by forgoing it.
  - xg15 9y ago
    > Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. Sources for that claim please? Of course there were always plenty of papers that operated like that (tabloids etc), but I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today.
    - anon1385 9y ago
      >I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today. Why do you assume that? Absolute garbage tabloids have been influencing elections and dominating mainstream political discourse in western countries for decades[1]. In the UK an entire political ideology was created to try and work around the influence of right wing mass media (spoiler: the answer was allowing media barons to dictate policy). If anything tabloid influence is lower today than in the past. Compare the result of the 1992 UK general election with the 2017 one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It
- CM30 9y ago
  You've clearly not seen the UK press. The Daily Mail has been around for decades, and has quality standards roughly on par with Fox News at best. The tabloids have spent years posting any old speculation they can find and sometimes even hacking people's phones for information. And the more respectable papers have generally had their own problems with reporting standards. The likes of the Guardian and the Telegraph should be on the lower end of what's considered journalism, not the upper one. Honestly, the introduction of online news sources has probably helped in a lot of ways, because it meant people might at last be checking information from sources other than tabloids. There's at least a niche for good quality journalism online now rather than it being an 'occasional' fixture in some newspapers on a good day.
  - tormeh 9y ago
    Ah, the UK press. How did that happen? Why do the British like that sort of thing? And I'd also add that the Greek press is also garbage. They don't turn a profit at all and are simply propaganda for their owner's point of view. Their owners usually being family-owned conglomerates. It's as if the Kochs started their own newspaper. I get the impression this is actually pretty common in many countries, particularly eastern European ones.
    - lucasverra 9y ago
      South America too I find LeMondediplomatique (in all it's countries regions) to be a light in the darkness of propaganda. Check it out
      - CM30 9y ago
        Makes you wonder if countries with good quality newspapers and media outlets are the exception rather than the rule. Maybe the US just kind of lucked out there.
        pluma 9y ago
        Wait. You think the US has good quality newspapers and media outlets? I can't think of one "reputable" US news outlet that hasn't knowingly spread misinformation or half-truths at least once over the past year. The "good" sources are generally the least bad ones that happen to confirm your biases more than the rest.
matt4077 9y ago
These are the current headlines of http://wsj.com http://wsj.com and the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com https://www.nytimes.com). Please point out which stories, specifically, are "blatant lies", or "biased garbage". WSJ: - Investors Brace for Clues on ECB’s Tapering Plans - Fed Faces Inflation Riddle - Top Court Revises Trump Travel Ban Scope - Bank Earnings Highlight Diverging Paths Since Crisis - How a Saudi Prince Unseated Heir Apparent - Trump Urges GOP to Seek Agreement on Health Measure - Sen. John McCain Diagnosed With Brain Cancer - Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort to Speak to Senate Panels - Where Will Banks Go After Brexit? Frankfurt Takes Lead - Tech Stocks Eclipse Record From Dot-Com Era - Court Overturns Convictions of Two in Libor Scandal NYT: - Two Weeks on Ice in McMurdo Station, Antarctica - McCain Has Brain Cancer; Tumor Was Found in Surgery - Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions - Trump Loans From Deutsche Bank Face Regulatory Scrutin - China Woos Myanmar as U.S. Focus in the Region Wane - Getting High in Uruguay Is Now a Pharmacy Stop Away - Somalis in Minneapolis Shocked by Police Shooting - President Persists on Health Bill, Urging Senators to Revive It - Opinion: Gustavo Dudamel: A Better Way for Venezuela - Opinion: Charlie Gard and Our Moral Confusion - Editorial: The Dark History of Defining ‘Family’
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Other front page stories from New York Times. -How Fear of Falling Explains the Love of Trump -Trump is his own worst enemy. -If Dr. Trump were your surgeon.
  - rockostrich 9y ago
    All of those are op-ed pieces. While still part of the organization, they shouldn't really be used in an argument about reputability of a news source.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      Understood. But "Biased garbage" I think was part of the original statement. If this doesn't speak to bias of a publication I'm not sure what will. Besides I'm not sure all of the general public understands the difference.
faitswulff 9y ago
Yellow journalism has been around for forever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
sametmax 9y ago
+1. It's very hard to take seriously reputable sources when the work they produce is of such poor quality. Lies, partial truth, clear lobby/politics/companies influences, lack of fact checking... Even the correct ones, doing a decent work, don't provide much interesting analysis or insight. That's why many people are on sites like HN: we get often more values from the comments that the articles themself.
breatheoften 9y ago
Like most things in Australia I was impressed by Australian mainstream news outlets (coming from the US). I have a memory of reading the comments after an article on a real estate related story published by one of the bigger newspapers and being genuinely impressed by the quality of the reader discussion. That kind of feedback and engagement is the only thing that can keep journalism standards high I think.
- prawn 9y ago
  Can you remember which newspaper? There are second/third-tier news sources in Australia that might have quality discussion, but generally it's pretty appalling. I haven't seen any of them make a solid play at community-oriented commentary - things like persistent identities, karma systems, etc. Baffles me when sites like HN and Reddit are visited as much for their comments as the source articles. So many of the comments on mainstream news sites are drive-by insults instead.
parrellel 9y ago
It was legal required in the US for the news to be at least "factual" until... /checks .... a 2003 appeals court ruling.

aphextron 9y ago

>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.

hyperdunc 9y ago
Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.
- Cursuviam 9y ago
  I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    If 90% of the press is left leaning, no surprise that 90% of journalists lean left, high and low quality alike.
    - tormeh 9y ago
      Um, no, that's not the reason. The people that choose to become journalists often do it for idealistic reasons. They want to enlighten the public about issues they care about. Palestine, for example. Right-wing people generally don't have that many issues they want to tell people about. Everybody already knows how high their taxes are, no journalism needed.
      - WillPostForFood 9y ago
        Let me assure you right wing people have as many issues they want to tell people about as left wing people. You might not like them or consider them idealistic, but they do. To be blunt, your comment comes off like you live in a left wing enclave and you have no real human experience with people with differing believes. Which is funny, because that is also how modern journalism comes off - privileged white rich kids at liberal schools who then shuttle down to the equally liberal newsroom, never interacting with half the country.
  - yvdriess 9y ago
    It is almost as if reality has a left-wing bias.
  - nl 9y ago
    This is a convenient fiction. There are plenty of right-wing journalists who have similar quality to left wing. Publishers like The National Review have fine writers and it is hard to argue the a publication founded by William F. Buckley is some liberal organisation. The "problem" is that all these organizations are critical of Trump too.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? 1. He's the most powerful head of state on the planet. 2. He's demonstrably not fit for the job. 3. IT'S THEIR DAMN JOB.
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    1. Yes 2. By your criteria 3. Their job is to inform the public, not to make things up I don't even like the man, yet I am compelled to defend him against what I see as a greater injustice.
BigJono 9y ago
I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you're blaming blogs and online media for the decline in credibility of newspapers. Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. The only reason they had any credibility before is because people blindly accepted what they said without the tools to verify it. They've had the same amount of journalistic integrity as they've always had. I.E plenty until there's a buck to be made by forgoing it.
- xg15 9y ago
  > Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. Sources for that claim please? Of course there were always plenty of papers that operated like that (tabloids etc), but I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today.
  - anon1385 9y ago
    >I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today. Why do you assume that? Absolute garbage tabloids have been influencing elections and dominating mainstream political discourse in western countries for decades[1]. In the UK an entire political ideology was created to try and work around the influence of right wing mass media (spoiler: the answer was allowing media barons to dictate policy). If anything tabloid influence is lower today than in the past. Compare the result of the 1992 UK general election with the 2017 one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It
CM30 9y ago
You've clearly not seen the UK press. The Daily Mail has been around for decades, and has quality standards roughly on par with Fox News at best. The tabloids have spent years posting any old speculation they can find and sometimes even hacking people's phones for information. And the more respectable papers have generally had their own problems with reporting standards. The likes of the Guardian and the Telegraph should be on the lower end of what's considered journalism, not the upper one. Honestly, the introduction of online news sources has probably helped in a lot of ways, because it meant people might at last be checking information from sources other than tabloids. There's at least a niche for good quality journalism online now rather than it being an 'occasional' fixture in some newspapers on a good day.
- tormeh 9y ago
  Ah, the UK press. How did that happen? Why do the British like that sort of thing? And I'd also add that the Greek press is also garbage. They don't turn a profit at all and are simply propaganda for their owner's point of view. Their owners usually being family-owned conglomerates. It's as if the Kochs started their own newspaper. I get the impression this is actually pretty common in many countries, particularly eastern European ones.
  - lucasverra 9y ago
    South America too I find LeMondediplomatique (in all it's countries regions) to be a light in the darkness of propaganda. Check it out
    - CM30 9y ago
      Makes you wonder if countries with good quality newspapers and media outlets are the exception rather than the rule. Maybe the US just kind of lucked out there.
      - pluma 9y ago
        Wait. You think the US has good quality newspapers and media outlets? I can't think of one "reputable" US news outlet that hasn't knowingly spread misinformation or half-truths at least once over the past year. The "good" sources are generally the least bad ones that happen to confirm your biases more than the rest.

matt4077 9y ago

These are the current headlines of http://wsj.com http://wsj.com and the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com https://www.nytimes.com). Please point out which stories, specifically, are "blatant lies", or "biased garbage". WSJ: - Investors Brace for Clues on ECB’s Tapering Plans - Fed Faces Inflation Riddle - Top Court Revises Trump Travel Ban Scope - Bank Earnings Highlight Diverging Paths Since Crisis - How a Saudi Prince Unseated Heir Apparent - Trump Urges GOP to Seek Agreement on Health Measure - Sen. John McCain Diagnosed With Brain Cancer - Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort to Speak to Senate Panels - Where Will Banks Go After Brexit? Frankfurt Takes Lead - Tech Stocks Eclipse Record From Dot-Com Era - Court Overturns Convictions of Two in Libor Scandal NYT: - Two Weeks on Ice in McMurdo Station, Antarctica - McCain Has Brain Cancer; Tumor Was Found in Surgery - Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions - Trump Loans From Deutsche Bank Face Regulatory Scrutin - China Woos Myanmar as U.S. Focus in the Region Wane - Getting High in Uruguay Is Now a Pharmacy Stop Away - Somalis in Minneapolis Shocked by Police Shooting - President Persists on Health Bill, Urging Senators to Revive It - Opinion: Gustavo Dudamel: A Better Way for Venezuela - Opinion: Charlie Gard and Our Moral Confusion - Editorial: The Dark History of Defining ‘Family’

mythrwy 9y ago
Other front page stories from New York Times. -How Fear of Falling Explains the Love of Trump -Trump is his own worst enemy. -If Dr. Trump were your surgeon.
- rockostrich 9y ago
  All of those are op-ed pieces. While still part of the organization, they shouldn't really be used in an argument about reputability of a news source.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    Understood. But "Biased garbage" I think was part of the original statement. If this doesn't speak to bias of a publication I'm not sure what will. Besides I'm not sure all of the general public understands the difference.

faitswulff 9y ago

Yellow journalism has been around for forever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

sametmax 9y ago

+1. It's very hard to take seriously reputable sources when the work they produce is of such poor quality. Lies, partial truth, clear lobby/politics/companies influences, lack of fact checking... Even the correct ones, doing a decent work, don't provide much interesting analysis or insight. That's why many people are on sites like HN: we get often more values from the comments that the articles themself.

breatheoften 9y ago

Like most things in Australia I was impressed by Australian mainstream news outlets (coming from the US). I have a memory of reading the comments after an article on a real estate related story published by one of the bigger newspapers and being genuinely impressed by the quality of the reader discussion. That kind of feedback and engagement is the only thing that can keep journalism standards high I think.

prawn 9y ago
Can you remember which newspaper? There are second/third-tier news sources in Australia that might have quality discussion, but generally it's pretty appalling. I haven't seen any of them make a solid play at community-oriented commentary - things like persistent identities, karma systems, etc. Baffles me when sites like HN and Reddit are visited as much for their comments as the source articles. So many of the comments on mainstream news sites are drive-by insults instead.

parrellel 9y ago

It was legal required in the US for the news to be at least "factual" until... /checks .... a 2003 appeals court ruling.