5 ms·

"what kind of news people want to see" discussions takes place in news rooms, editing rooms, and journalism schools around the world. There isn't some all-encom

"what kind of news people want to see" discussions takes place in news rooms, editing rooms, and journalism schools around the world. There isn't some all-encompassing "journalism" cabal who are only dedicated to reporting all the news that ever happens without bias. This only exists in the minds of people who've never seen news and reporting get made. These decisions are made every day by the editors-in-chief and publishers of large multinational news conglomerates, and this ultimately makes these positions very powerful. It's why Rupert Murdoch owns so many news/media properties and why people say the Fox news network is biased.

monkeynotes 8y ago
I think we all know the discussions going on at FB HQ about 'what people want to see' are far, far removed from the journalistic decisions that get made in a quality news room. Throwing in Murdoch and Fox News isn't helping your argument either. I'd put Murdoch up there as one of the key people who have actively sought to abuse journalism for political favour and personal gain. I just don't see how that is right.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
sandworm101 8y ago
Proper news sources don't sell the news. They sell trust, my trust in them. BBC.co.uk/news isn't my first bookmark on every device because they entertain me. It is there because I trust that anything appearing on that website has been deemed important by a group of professionals. I don't want to read popular news. I certainly do not trust Facebook/Google/Apple to curate anything beyond funny cat vids. BBC does include the occasional fun story of little real news value (ie the pet raccoon who got into the pot brownies) but this liberty is taken seriously. It never detracts from the real news articles.
- RGamma 8y ago
  Well, proper news sources should be something like regulated public "utilities" (assuming sane democratic/journalistic standards). It's the same for me with tagesschau.de and Deutschlandfunk.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Bartweiss 8y ago
This happens consistently even well-respected independent news orgs. The editors at the NYT are famous for being more 'active' than at smaller newspapers - instead of assigning beats and checking submissions they request specific pieces and plan narratives that encompass multiple pieces. It doesn't mean their output is dishonest or even necessarily misleading, but it certainly affects what stories get covered and how. For that matter, one of the things I value about ProPublica is that their narrative-building is unusually open - they organize by topic instead of newspaper-style sections and publish meta pieces on how they choose and research their stories. When the topic is something like 'algorithmic bias', it's far more forthright to say "we went looking fo examples and here are some we found" than to run pieces in isolation and imply whatever company is under discussion is uniquely villainous. There are things to object to about Facebook's move here, but I'm deeply frustrated by this idea that objective journalism is some relic of the pre-internet days. News of all sorts gets made for people, by people. Without recognizing that, we just get these bland calls for 'real journalism' that don't help us look at specifics like the dangers of conglomerates or the negative incentives of monetizing on views or clickouts.

monkeynotes 8y ago

I think we all know the discussions going on at FB HQ about 'what people want to see' are far, far removed from the journalistic decisions that get made in a quality news room. Throwing in Murdoch and Fox News isn't helping your argument either. I'd put Murdoch up there as one of the key people who have actively sought to abuse journalism for political favour and personal gain. I just don't see how that is right.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

sandworm101 8y ago

Proper news sources don't sell the news. They sell trust, my trust in them. BBC.co.uk/news isn't my first bookmark on every device because they entertain me. It is there because I trust that anything appearing on that website has been deemed important by a group of professionals. I don't want to read popular news. I certainly do not trust Facebook/Google/Apple to curate anything beyond funny cat vids. BBC does include the occasional fun story of little real news value (ie the pet raccoon who got into the pot brownies) but this liberty is taken seriously. It never detracts from the real news articles.

RGamma 8y ago
Well, proper news sources should be something like regulated public "utilities" (assuming sane democratic/journalistic standards). It's the same for me with tagesschau.de and Deutschlandfunk.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Bartweiss 8y ago

This happens consistently even well-respected independent news orgs. The editors at the NYT are famous for being more 'active' than at smaller newspapers - instead of assigning beats and checking submissions they request specific pieces and plan narratives that encompass multiple pieces. It doesn't mean their output is dishonest or even necessarily misleading, but it certainly affects what stories get covered and how. For that matter, one of the things I value about ProPublica is that their narrative-building is unusually open - they organize by topic instead of newspaper-style sections and publish meta pieces on how they choose and research their stories. When the topic is something like 'algorithmic bias', it's far more forthright to say "we went looking fo examples and here are some we found" than to run pieces in isolation and imply whatever company is under discussion is uniquely villainous. There are things to object to about Facebook's move here, but I'm deeply frustrated by this idea that objective journalism is some relic of the pre-internet days. News of all sorts gets made for people, by people. Without recognizing that, we just get these bland calls for 'real journalism' that don't help us look at specifics like the dangers of conglomerates or the negative incentives of monetizing on views or clickouts.