5 ms·

Can you provide an example?

resters 8y ago
There are many. I should really document my findings in some sort of analysis. I've pointed this out to some friends who have payed closer attention and now agree with me after observing it for the last year or so themselves and comparing articles on the same topic between the WaPo and other sources. I personally am strongly anti-Trump but also broadly dislike both major parties, so citing a WaPo article that is unfair to Trump sounds to many people like I must be a rabid Trump supporter. But in reality I'm just someone who wants journalism to be journalism and focus on facts and strives to do analysis that would be respected by people on all sides of an issue politically. The decline in quality and shift to partisan and sloppy reporting is the most dire consequence of the Trump era. It's impacted the big newspapers the most. I think part of it is that they feel responsible for getting him elected, but part of it is that their new way of thinking about their KPIs rewards them for writing anti-Trump clickbait. So they are at once reinforcing Trump's ability to control the news cycle and make whatever story he wants front page news, while writing coverage in a way that loses the trust and respect of anyone whose goal of reading news is non-partisan or even partisan from the other major party perspective. Sadly this allows Trump and orgs like Fox to be viewed by some as the only form of true news. It's really horrible. No political party or news org benefits from any common ground or shared truth, they all benefit from loyal fans who pay them a monthly subscription fee for content that is mostly entertainment. This is the Fox News model, but it's now been adopted by the WaPo and NYT in their own way. They still do produce some very solid journalism, but it took the NYT several years to write the story on Trump's inherited wealth (which was excellent) while in the meantime it published a LOT of garbage stories every day that fanned the partisan flames and generated revenue while providing zero journalistic value.
- iamnothere 8y ago
  Objective journalism died with the subscription-based business model. Instead of optimizing for long-term reader trust, media has to get maximum eyeballs. This has always been a problem (TV news was making the shift long before print media) but it's only gotten worse. It became impossible to ignore in 2016, but it was building before that. I hear that the WSJ is still fairly reliable (if you ignore the opinion columns), and FT as well. But I can't confirm, because I'm part of the problem and I don't pay for news either.
  - resters 8y ago
    What's so strange is the way that humans want their news to be less true for some emotional reason. I really love Eliezer Yudkowsky's concept of least convenient possible worlds as a heuristic for evaluating the sorts of truth claims made or implied by politicians (and often echoed by journalists). We are drawn to belief systems that make hard decisions easy, but what if some of the assumptions we take for granted are less clear cut. So the exercise is to imagine the least convenient world, one in which a key idea or conviction we lean on for other aspects of our belief system is completely incorrect. In my view we should not expect journalistic work to strengthen existing convictions but to challenge them and add empathy and nuance to our views of the world.
    - iamnothere 8y ago
      > What's so strange is the way that humans want their news to be less true for some emotional reason. Likely for the same reason that they don't actually care about the cost-effectiveness (or even statistical effectiveness) of their medical treatments. Their stated goal, learning about what's going on in the world, is not the same as their actual hidden goal. Hypothesizing here, but a few possible reasons why people might not care that much about finding the truth in the news: * They are more interested in having the news support their preconceptions about the world -- which are in turn based on whatever benefits them most -- so they can then use the media as "evidence" in persuasion, arguments, and other political conversations * They believe that having "their" news channels dominate the public sphere will lead others to passively accept their tribe's opinions, which then has benefits for them * They are eager to reinforce their own beliefs, choices, and biases so they can avoid the painful and expensive process of reassessing their beliefs and reconfiguring their life around those new beliefs Again, this is all conjecture, but it is moderately supported by the anger that people hold toward news outlets that cater to the opposition. > In my view we should not expect journalistic work to strengthen existing convictions but to challenge them and add empathy and nuance to our views of the world. We should, and those of us who think about these things will. But sadly most of us won't. The incentives aren't there, and they likely won't be there until it's too late. Thus the endless cycles of conflict throughout history.

There are many. I should really document my findings in some sort of analysis. I've pointed this out to some friends who have payed closer attention and now agree with me after observing it for the last year or so themselves and comparing articles on the same topic between the WaPo and other sources. I personally am strongly anti-Trump but also broadly dislike both major parties, so citing a WaPo article that is unfair to Trump sounds to many people like I must be a rabid Trump supporter. But in reality I'm just someone who wants journalism to be journalism and focus on facts and strives to do analysis that would be respected by people on all sides of an issue politically. The decline in quality and shift to partisan and sloppy reporting is the most dire consequence of the Trump era. It's impacted the big newspapers the most. I think part of it is that they feel responsible for getting him elected, but part of it is that their new way of thinking about their KPIs rewards them for writing anti-Trump clickbait. So they are at once reinforcing Trump's ability to control the news cycle and make whatever story he wants front page news, while writing coverage in a way that loses the trust and respect of anyone whose goal of reading news is non-partisan or even partisan from the other major party perspective. Sadly this allows Trump and orgs like Fox to be viewed by some as the only form of true news. It's really horrible. No political party or news org benefits from any common ground or shared truth, they all benefit from loyal fans who pay them a monthly subscription fee for content that is mostly entertainment. This is the Fox News model, but it's now been adopted by the WaPo and NYT in their own way. They still do produce some very solid journalism, but it took the NYT several years to write the story on Trump's inherited wealth (which was excellent) while in the meantime it published a LOT of garbage stories every day that fanned the partisan flames and generated revenue while providing zero journalistic value.

iamnothere 8y ago
Objective journalism died with the subscription-based business model. Instead of optimizing for long-term reader trust, media has to get maximum eyeballs. This has always been a problem (TV news was making the shift long before print media) but it's only gotten worse. It became impossible to ignore in 2016, but it was building before that. I hear that the WSJ is still fairly reliable (if you ignore the opinion columns), and FT as well. But I can't confirm, because I'm part of the problem and I don't pay for news either.
- resters 8y ago
  What's so strange is the way that humans want their news to be less true for some emotional reason. I really love Eliezer Yudkowsky's concept of least convenient possible worlds as a heuristic for evaluating the sorts of truth claims made or implied by politicians (and often echoed by journalists). We are drawn to belief systems that make hard decisions easy, but what if some of the assumptions we take for granted are less clear cut. So the exercise is to imagine the least convenient world, one in which a key idea or conviction we lean on for other aspects of our belief system is completely incorrect. In my view we should not expect journalistic work to strengthen existing convictions but to challenge them and add empathy and nuance to our views of the world.
  - iamnothere 8y ago
    > What's so strange is the way that humans want their news to be less true for some emotional reason. Likely for the same reason that they don't actually care about the cost-effectiveness (or even statistical effectiveness) of their medical treatments. Their stated goal, learning about what's going on in the world, is not the same as their actual hidden goal. Hypothesizing here, but a few possible reasons why people might not care that much about finding the truth in the news: * They are more interested in having the news support their preconceptions about the world -- which are in turn based on whatever benefits them most -- so they can then use the media as "evidence" in persuasion, arguments, and other political conversations * They believe that having "their" news channels dominate the public sphere will lead others to passively accept their tribe's opinions, which then has benefits for them * They are eager to reinforce their own beliefs, choices, and biases so they can avoid the painful and expensive process of reassessing their beliefs and reconfiguring their life around those new beliefs Again, this is all conjecture, but it is moderately supported by the anger that people hold toward news outlets that cater to the opposition. > In my view we should not expect journalistic work to strengthen existing convictions but to challenge them and add empathy and nuance to our views of the world. We should, and those of us who think about these things will. But sadly most of us won't. The incentives aren't there, and they likely won't be there until it's too late. Thus the endless cycles of conflict throughout history.