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>Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to pai

>Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists who are "free to write anything" as long as it serves their masters. Now that almost anyone can publish their opinion and share it with everyone, the ones who have been doing their thing for hundreds of years are being exposed.

anigbrowl 9y ago
This ignores the fact that many journalistic endeavors have been borne out by historical factors, although perhaps in your model of the world all journalists and social change occur only at the will of powerful forces which manipulate things from behind the scene. But not you, of course.
- ameister14 9y ago
  If you're trying to say that journalistic endeavors occurred because of multiple historical factors and not just a shadowy cabal, which is what I think you were trying to say, you may mean borne out of, not borne out by. 'Borne out by' essentially means 'proven by,' whereas 'borne out of' means 'came about because of.'
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    I mean by. I typed factors when I meant events because I was half-listening to someone talking at the time :-/ To be clear, my point is that journalism can be evaluated by how well it predicts outcomes, or how reliably it documents things that are subsequently judged to matter.
egwynn 9y ago
Just because we’ve removed a perverse incentive from the past (the oversight of the wealthy) doesn’t mean we haven’t replaced it with an even worse incentive (engagement-first monetization).
awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
> >Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda Wow. Then they need a lesson in the history of journalism. They might want to read up on hearst and pulitzer and the founding of modern american journalism. > "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists who are "free to write anything" as long as it serves their masters. Agreed. It's a credit to the media how well they do their job to brainwash that they fool us into thinking they are objective and truthful. At the end of the day, foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other. But somehow, we have been told over and over that our guys tell the "truth" and the enemy spreads propaganda.
- thebokehwokeh2 9y ago
  > foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other This is a textbook example of the lazy, uneducated thinking that causes fear and outrage. Lazy lazy lazy false equivalence. To say that "they're all the same" is absolutely not the case and nor will it ever be. The sooner people become more discerning of the information that they consume, the better off we all will be. There is an extremely large gulf in the baseline quality of reporting between those two outlets. If you cannot discern that, then you are too far gone.
  - chroem- 9y ago
    Just because you find one source more politically palatable than the other does not make your preferred news outlet less susceptible to being propaganda. It was the NYT after all which convinced the public that Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth with WMD's, and the only solution was to give him (and his oil fields) a little taste of Freedom.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Those two things are not mutually exclusive. All other things being equal, I'd rather cite the NYT than Fox News. That doesn't mean the scale of bias isn't the same between NYT and Fox News. With regard to quality of reporting I think the gulfs really lie in the outlet/format. TV/cable news is worse than traditional/print news. Daily news is worse than weekly/monthly, etc. When you're reporting 24 hours a day you've gotta sensationalize a lot of shit to keep people watching. If you only print once a day, not so much. Once a week, even less so. I've gotten to the point now that I usually try to avoid the TV and daily print news altogether. If it's not important enough to make it in a weekly newspaper, it's probably not worth knowing about.

anigbrowl 9y ago

This ignores the fact that many journalistic endeavors have been borne out by historical factors, although perhaps in your model of the world all journalists and social change occur only at the will of powerful forces which manipulate things from behind the scene. But not you, of course.

ameister14 9y ago
If you're trying to say that journalistic endeavors occurred because of multiple historical factors and not just a shadowy cabal, which is what I think you were trying to say, you may mean borne out of, not borne out by. 'Borne out by' essentially means 'proven by,' whereas 'borne out of' means 'came about because of.'
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I mean by. I typed factors when I meant events because I was half-listening to someone talking at the time :-/ To be clear, my point is that journalism can be evaluated by how well it predicts outcomes, or how reliably it documents things that are subsequently judged to matter.

egwynn 9y ago

Just because we’ve removed a perverse incentive from the past (the oversight of the wealthy) doesn’t mean we haven’t replaced it with an even worse incentive (engagement-first monetization).

awkwarddaturtle 9y ago

> >Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda Wow. Then they need a lesson in the history of journalism. They might want to read up on hearst and pulitzer and the founding of modern american journalism. > "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists who are "free to write anything" as long as it serves their masters. Agreed. It's a credit to the media how well they do their job to brainwash that they fool us into thinking they are objective and truthful. At the end of the day, foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other. But somehow, we have been told over and over that our guys tell the "truth" and the enemy spreads propaganda.

thebokehwokeh2 9y ago
> foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other This is a textbook example of the lazy, uneducated thinking that causes fear and outrage. Lazy lazy lazy false equivalence. To say that "they're all the same" is absolutely not the case and nor will it ever be. The sooner people become more discerning of the information that they consume, the better off we all will be. There is an extremely large gulf in the baseline quality of reporting between those two outlets. If you cannot discern that, then you are too far gone.
- chroem- 9y ago
  Just because you find one source more politically palatable than the other does not make your preferred news outlet less susceptible to being propaganda. It was the NYT after all which convinced the public that Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth with WMD's, and the only solution was to give him (and his oil fields) a little taste of Freedom.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Those two things are not mutually exclusive. All other things being equal, I'd rather cite the NYT than Fox News. That doesn't mean the scale of bias isn't the same between NYT and Fox News. With regard to quality of reporting I think the gulfs really lie in the outlet/format. TV/cable news is worse than traditional/print news. Daily news is worse than weekly/monthly, etc. When you're reporting 24 hours a day you've gotta sensationalize a lot of shit to keep people watching. If you only print once a day, not so much. Once a week, even less so. I've gotten to the point now that I usually try to avoid the TV and daily print news altogether. If it's not important enough to make it in a weekly newspaper, it's probably not worth knowing about.