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To understand journalism and journalists please read Nissim Nicholas Taleb's book Skin in the Game. There was a time when people who had passion to bring knowl

To understand journalism and journalists please read Nissim Nicholas Taleb's book Skin in the Game. There was a time when people who had passion to bring knowledge before the world worked to achieve that and invented "journalism". That rare breed of people exists today and actually flourishes because of Youtube, Google and Facebook. There is another lot who called themselves "journalists" and worked hard to get the privileges associated with it without actually having passion for bringing knowledge to people. Privileges => access to corridors of power, swinging political opinion, pimping for political patrons or simply making money. Gawker is a good example. They tried to bully someone and got bullied into extinction themselves. When I speak to journalists at NYT or Time, I realise that they have developed this sense of entitlement where they think they are doing great job where as independent bloggers and youtubers are shit because they dont have journalistic credentials. It is actually opposite. Big media houses have failed us but the independent bloggers are the ones leading the torch helped by Google, Facebook etc.

justin66 8y ago
Those are some nice prejudices you've got there, but this statement: There is another lot who called themselves "journalists" and worked hard to get the privileges associated with it without actually having passion for bringing knowledge to people. Privileges => access to corridors of power, swinging political opinion, pimping for political patrons or simply making money. is silly and poorly thought out. The number of journalists who have any proximity to "corridors of power" or political patrons or any sort of power is so obviously, vanishingly small that it's not representative of the profession as a whole. And you might not think journalists are good enough at bringing knowledge to people, but if you think they don't have a passion for it, you just haven't known a lot of journalists. Skin in the Game will be the first Taleb book I haven't read, but he's turned into such a tedious, self-important bore.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > have any proximity to "corridors of power" or political patrons or any sort of power This is a picky comment, but I think it's important to distinguish "proximity to power" from "holding power". There are a lot of journalists with proximity to power, some of them doing a serious disservice to the public because of that proximity. A false story like Iraqi yellowcake uranium was peddled by high-profile, respectable journalists because they had and relied on proximity to power. But it didn't give them power, it just made them a mouthpiece. Which doesn't make the preceding commenter right, that's still wildly off-base. I just wanted to note that the journalists close to power rarely have it, and the journalists with real power are rarer and tend to lack proximity to political power. They do exist - Murrow and Woodward for good, Hearst for ill - but most of them only have it for a moment. (And yes, Skin in the Game is unbearable. Reading the pre-release excerpts felt like hiking through egomaniacal mud, and I'm not likely to try the whole book.)
  - justin66 8y ago
    Those are all good points. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that even today, the vast majority of journalists are not working for a nationally prominent paper or on national TV. A lot of journalism is just local reporting, and those people can have their issues, but being corrupt or drunk on power isn't normally one of them. One thing that's ironic is that Nassim Taleb doesn't appear to understand that the kind of reporters who seek out Nassim Taleb aren't representative of the entire profession.
- Karishma1234 8y ago
  I do not deny being prejudiced as it my opinion. Prejudice is merely incomplete information that people rely on to make decisions when cost of more information exceeds the benefit. Yes, you are right that may be top 1% of journalists actually get to speak to an elected Senator on regular basis but these top 1% have an army of junior folks who would bend over backwards for a minor favour from their bosses. An political patrons are not always the politicians but also the lobbyists such as Planned Parenthood, NRA, Monsanto, NAACP, Teachers Union, Climate Change Supporters, Climate Change Skeptics and so on. > you just haven't known a lot of journalists. Are you saying the vast majority of journalists currently employed have more soul in the game than the independent bloggers and youtube channel owners who take one niche issue focus just on that ? Are you telling me that working with some big name in media actually makes you better than people are just committed out of their passion ?
  - justin66 8y ago
    One doesn't need to attempt to delegitimatize professional journalists in order to stick up for independent or new media, or bloggers. I don't think the distinctions you're making in the questions you asked there are even useful (plenty of professionals focus on a niche, plenty of bloggers are affiliated with a "big name" in media today, etc.). I guess the answer to your questions is "no, I'm not saying those things." I think maybe Taleb's critique is perhaps meant to be aimed at the sort of elite tier of celebrity journalists, who are pretty easy to dislike. I tend to think the critique is way too heavy-handed, though. There's a great deal of crap being produced today but, if we're candid about it, in terms of pure volume there's more high-quality reporting today than there has ever been. People are fatigued by the effort of filtering out the garbage but it's intellectually lazy to dismiss the whole thing.
    - Karishma1234 8y ago
      I am not attempting. Mainstream journalism has indeed become mostly irrelevant and self serving betraying the very principles they are supposed to uphold. That is my point. There are some wonderful journalist as well but they are mostly the exceptions.

justin66 8y ago

Those are some nice prejudices you've got there, but this statement: There is another lot who called themselves "journalists" and worked hard to get the privileges associated with it without actually having passion for bringing knowledge to people. Privileges => access to corridors of power, swinging political opinion, pimping for political patrons or simply making money. is silly and poorly thought out. The number of journalists who have any proximity to "corridors of power" or political patrons or any sort of power is so obviously, vanishingly small that it's not representative of the profession as a whole. And you might not think journalists are good enough at bringing knowledge to people, but if you think they don't have a passion for it, you just haven't known a lot of journalists. Skin in the Game will be the first Taleb book I haven't read, but he's turned into such a tedious, self-important bore.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> have any proximity to "corridors of power" or political patrons or any sort of power This is a picky comment, but I think it's important to distinguish "proximity to power" from "holding power". There are a lot of journalists with proximity to power, some of them doing a serious disservice to the public because of that proximity. A false story like Iraqi yellowcake uranium was peddled by high-profile, respectable journalists because they had and relied on proximity to power. But it didn't give them power, it just made them a mouthpiece. Which doesn't make the preceding commenter right, that's still wildly off-base. I just wanted to note that the journalists close to power rarely have it, and the journalists with real power are rarer and tend to lack proximity to political power. They do exist - Murrow and Woodward for good, Hearst for ill - but most of them only have it for a moment. (And yes, Skin in the Game is unbearable. Reading the pre-release excerpts felt like hiking through egomaniacal mud, and I'm not likely to try the whole book.)
- justin66 8y ago
  Those are all good points. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that even today, the vast majority of journalists are not working for a nationally prominent paper or on national TV. A lot of journalism is just local reporting, and those people can have their issues, but being corrupt or drunk on power isn't normally one of them. One thing that's ironic is that Nassim Taleb doesn't appear to understand that the kind of reporters who seek out Nassim Taleb aren't representative of the entire profession.
Karishma1234 8y ago
I do not deny being prejudiced as it my opinion. Prejudice is merely incomplete information that people rely on to make decisions when cost of more information exceeds the benefit. Yes, you are right that may be top 1% of journalists actually get to speak to an elected Senator on regular basis but these top 1% have an army of junior folks who would bend over backwards for a minor favour from their bosses. An political patrons are not always the politicians but also the lobbyists such as Planned Parenthood, NRA, Monsanto, NAACP, Teachers Union, Climate Change Supporters, Climate Change Skeptics and so on. > you just haven't known a lot of journalists. Are you saying the vast majority of journalists currently employed have more soul in the game than the independent bloggers and youtube channel owners who take one niche issue focus just on that ? Are you telling me that working with some big name in media actually makes you better than people are just committed out of their passion ?
- justin66 8y ago
  One doesn't need to attempt to delegitimatize professional journalists in order to stick up for independent or new media, or bloggers. I don't think the distinctions you're making in the questions you asked there are even useful (plenty of professionals focus on a niche, plenty of bloggers are affiliated with a "big name" in media today, etc.). I guess the answer to your questions is "no, I'm not saying those things." I think maybe Taleb's critique is perhaps meant to be aimed at the sort of elite tier of celebrity journalists, who are pretty easy to dislike. I tend to think the critique is way too heavy-handed, though. There's a great deal of crap being produced today but, if we're candid about it, in terms of pure volume there's more high-quality reporting today than there has ever been. People are fatigued by the effort of filtering out the garbage but it's intellectually lazy to dismiss the whole thing.
  - Karishma1234 8y ago
    I am not attempting. Mainstream journalism has indeed become mostly irrelevant and self serving betraying the very principles they are supposed to uphold. That is my point. There are some wonderful journalist as well but they are mostly the exceptions.