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I think the reason why Alex Jones became popular is because the mainstream news websites like CNN and even sections of the NYT became more Jones-like in their r
by j-c-hewitt 8y ago
I think the reason why Alex Jones became popular is because the mainstream news websites like CNN and even sections of the NYT became more Jones-like in their reporting. When people are just choosing between different sensationalist conspiracy theory websites it becomes much more challenging for ordinary people to pick a quality outlet.
The thing is that most of the web and the printed word is spam that will actively confuse you the more that you read it. Compare the newspaper to a cookbook. The cookbook, if it's good, can be tested for effectiveness quite readily even allowing for variations in things like your ingredients and how your oven functions as compared to the one in the author's test kitchen.
The news isn't all that different from Maury Pauvitch and it seems to get worse every year. You would probably at least learn a little about how small claims court works by watching daytime TV but you learn less than nothing from having poorly sourced propaganda piped into your brain at 1080p/60fps. People who watch Maury aren't under the impression that they're being elevated, but people addicted to the news are suffering from that delusion.
- torpfactory 8y agoOh please. What a load of hogwash. NYT and CNN aren’t perfect but making some kind of comparison to the rantings of a lunatic like Jones is absurd. Get a grip.
- malvosenior 8y agoThe NYT just hired a full blown racist to their editorial board so I think it's a very apt comparison.
- jimejim 8y agoNo, they didn't. The people that think Sarah Jeong is a racist are the kind of people that take Alex Jones seriously.
- malvosenior 8y agoI and many others think she's racist and in no way take Alex Jones seriously.
- ffgdgggg 8y agoIf Sarah Jeong is not a racist, which I will concede, than she is an immature idiot mouthing off in public. Which tarnishes the reputation of her employer. Alex Jones is also an immature idiot. But he owns his show.
- tptacek 8y agoEschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
- malvosenior 8y agoThis is directly related to the article. The NYT is literally doing a 180 of what they were saying two days ago. Also, you're not a mod so I don't see why you're trolling through a day old post to finger wag at people who don't agree with your politics.
- tptacek 8y agoEverybody feels their tangents are crucially related to the stories they add them to. On tech threads where we're all just riffing on stuff, that's fine. But all you had to say was that Sarah Jeong is "a full blown racist". Your comment is a textbook example of why we have the guideline. I'm sorry I don't keep up-to-the-minute with your comments.
- malvosenior 8y agoDo you realize we're in a thread (that I didn't start) discussing the NYT's credibility on reporting this issue? How about you reply to the content of my comment instead of trying to take it out of context and spamming the thread?
- _Tev 8y agoWell for you it might be clear it is much better than Jones, but from the distance the "us vs them" narrative and the obsession with whatever is the latest "scandal" (Clinton's emails, Weinstein, Trump & Russia) makes it seem like pure tabloid. So you can actually make good argument about NYT being similar to Jones (better crap is still crap).
- tptacek 8y agoIt's quite clear if you understand the distinction between journalism and infotainment. Journalism outlets spend millions of dollars to staff professional reporters and fact checkers; when they report a story, they've often got a whole team of trained professionals on multiple locations collecting details and interviewing primary sources. When the outlet we're talking about is the NYT or WSJ, those teams are in dozens of countries around the world operating out of large full-time bureaus. Infotainment outlets hire a couple dozen people to make shit up and put it on a web page and a Youtube video. Sometimes reality gets tabloidy. Sometimes editors make decisions that optimize engagement and viewership over clarity. CNN and Fox both run pundit shows along with hard news and blur the lines by hosting their hard-news pro's on the pundit shows. But no matter what happens to make CNN seem like infotainment, it simply isn't, because the process that generates it is journalism.
- ffgdgggg 8y agoEditorial staffs have been decimated for decades. There is far less fact checking than before, far fewer corespondents and almost all military reporting is through access-journalism: “our give us pretty footage, we’ll write nice things” At which point I prefer Jones: so trashy that I know it’s BS
- ffgdgggg 8y agoCNN??? The ones who invented ADHD news: “not necessarily correct, we never check our sources, but you’ll forget by tomorrow” NYT is a tool of political control. More sophisticated than Jones, but so what? Their readers want to feign being better than their cab driver. NYT will publish mostly truths to Jones’ mostly trash but in a way that is as manipulative. NYT’s Friedman will write a peon on MBS while the man commits a genicide in Yemen Read Chomsky, Seymour Hersh, or Robert Perry. There is no journalism in America.
- anigbrowl 8y agoThe thing is that most of the web and the printed word is spam that will actively confuse you the more that you read it. Compare the newspaper to a cookbook. The cookbook, if it's good, can be tested for effectiveness quite readily even allowing for variations in things like your ingredients and how your oven functions as compared to the one in the author's test kitchen. It's a good thing that I have a memory and can compare interpretations and predictions made by different outlets in the media with subsequent events to evaluate their reliability.
- lovehashbrowns 8y ago> because the mainstream news websites like CNN and even sections of the NYT became more Jones-like in their reporting What an amazing claim! Surely you have examples of this? I'd love to read conspiracy theories coming from CNN or NYT that are in line with something as absurd as "Michelle Obama is actually a man" or "Sandy Hook was fake" or the absolutely insane birther movement.
- malvosenior 8y agoNYT: "You can't be racist against white people". There you go.
- lovehashbrowns 8y agoCan you link some context?
- malvosenior 8y agoSure: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shouldnt-be-fired-for-her-tweets-that-doesnt-mean-liberals-have-to-defend-them.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shou...
- _Tev 8y agoWhat about "Trump is Russian puppet." I hate the guy and he does sorround himself with scumbags, but this implied narrative sounds like fairly generic conspiracy. "Scandals" like Cambridge Analytica "confirming" this just underline the conspiracy tone. Maybe it's just people reading NYT, maybe I'm misreading the implications, but imo the GP's claim is not that outlandish.