6 ms·

The LDS church is interesting in that it simultaneously large enough and insular enough to make stark differences in journalistic angles sharp. Journalism ofte

The LDS church is interesting in that it simultaneously large enough and insular enough to make stark differences in journalistic angles sharp. Journalism often falls into a trap that puts the cart before the horse. It's preordained [no pun intended] what type of coverage many events are going to get. Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? A journo doesn't go into something to figure out "what's the deal with [foo]?" That won't sell (not to the public, nor their editors). But the reality is often worse. Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. edit: I'm editing out an already-vague story about being involved with something that receives media coverage. I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. And the worst thing is, once this is the game it doesn't matter how right or wrong they are because organizations are going to fight negative coverage either way.

closed 7y ago
> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? Their obit for the previous president, Gordan B Hinckley is quite positive... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html Edit: here are more if people are curious. One before, and one after the Mormon church allowed black people similar position as non-black people. They're still pretty upbeat. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mormon-leader-is-dead-at-96-david-mckay-mormon.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mo... https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon-chief-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon...
- simple_phrases 7y ago
  There's a certain irony in the OP accusing journalists of starting with a premise and working backwards, when the OP did it themself.
  - jrobn 7y ago
    This is true of almost everything human created.
  - mc32 7y ago
    presumably actual journalists would train against unconscious bias... maybe you're saying we can't expect they be any better than your average person on the street.
    - Ntrails 7y ago
      I would argue that defending against Bias is the editors job, they are not there to catch typos!
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    I don't really see that here though. He's over-generalizing, but you can't claim that some (many?) journalists don't do exactly what he mentioned. People expect what journalists write to be trustworthy, but too often what they write is not. Think back on the Covington kids saga. They were dragged through the mud and many journalists participated in it. If they get something like that so wrong, despite there being video evidence of the event online, then how are people supposed to trust what they write? Obviously not all organizations are as guilty of it. When I read something by Reuters I'm fairly confident of what I'm reading, but it's much less so with many others.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  I think the contrast is that the church has been heaped in controversies since Monson became President. The CES letter came out and 'A Letter to my Wife', which both have historical (from the source LDS.org) sources that basically do a lot to disprove and change the entire understanding of how the church came to be, of what really happened in the days of Joseph and Brigham, and what they were really like.. As an ex-mormon, we were taught deeply all about Joseph, and that he was not a polygamist that started w/ Brigham, the CES Letters (to which the church responded by being (more) transparent and created the Church Essays which back up the CES letters but try to spin it as 'it was the times they lived in'. A big split in the church for example was when Joseph was hitting it in the barn w/ Fanny Alger a 14 year old (he was 38). Even in that time it was NOT okay to have relations w/ a 14 year old.. the average wedded age was 19 and the average age difference was something like 23:19 a 38 year old marrying a 14 year old was very rare, and when he's already married very improper. His wife Emma rightly so was very against the practice. The kicker is that the reason Joseph was 'martyred/received justice' was because he'd burned a privately owned newspaper that was about to blow open the polygamy story and destroy his reputation. He couldn't have that so he burnt it down, which led the hidden opposition to turn against him and bring down the state law upon him (rightly so imho). He basically got what was coming to him, he wasn't a Saint, he was a conman. Just as the church has been conning people by saying that tithes goes towards building temple's and humanitarian aid, but has really been going to investment funds and business building. Back to the topic at hand, the fact that the church has all these controversies since 2012'ish is probably a HUGE reason that the Times decided not to be Mormon friendly. The church is hemmoraging members (exmormon sub on reddit has > 100k members now). It's excommunicating the 'good ones' left and right like Sam Young who's only sin against the church was calling for reforms regarding children being left alone in Bishop's office where they ask them about their masturbation practices and fantasies and if they act on those fantasies. Having taken DCFS foster care classes and learning about 'grooming', the Bishop's office is the perfect place for grooming to take place, and the fact that numerous Bishop's and ex-bishops are in prison for child abuse cases simply proves that. It's all just a matter of the 'times we live in now'... don't blame journalism for the slant, blame the times. Just like the church blames every negative historical thing they did on 'the times in which they lived'. Like Brigham who claimed a black person's highest celestial glory would be to be a servant to 'the rest of us' in Heaven. I'm pretty sure in the bible when a prophet 'believes' something that's wrong, doesn't God correct him and MAKE him change the narrative? Isn't it his job to CHANGE the times and belief of the TIMES? Not continue to be prejudicial because it's convenient? If any of them were prophets then they'd be on the right side of history not the wrong side. Edit adding: Also the November doctrine (November/2015) was a huge thing at the time as well. Basically it stated if you're a member of a family with same-sex parents you couldn't be baptized till you were 18 and partake in the blessings of the faith, unless you basically disown your parents. Many have left the faith over this one change in doctrine. Sources: https://cesletter.org/ https://cesletter.org/ https://www.letterformywife.com/ https://www.letterformywife.com/ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/essays?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... Sam Young has over 1000 stories of abuse of children by clergy in the church at: https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/ https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/
erikpukinskis 7y ago
> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? [sheepishly] raises hand
- justin66 7y ago
  I had the same thought. I'm a NYT subscriber and while I'm not always the most careful reader, it doesn't seem to me the paper covers Mormons who are not Mitt Romney nearly often enough for there to be a stereotypical take
  - invalidOrTaken 7y ago
    One can be extrapolated with eigenmorality though! https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820
    - justin66 7y ago
      I'm grimly curious as to whether or not you really think I'm going to read all that.
      - iron0013 7y ago
        This is the perfect and always perfectly accurate response whenever someone links to the Rational-sphere. On the other hand, why use few words when you could use—Jesus Christ—6,663 words instead?
    - knzhou 7y ago
      You mean this idea? > A moral person is someone who cooperates with other moral people, and who refuses to cooperate with immoral people. It's just so naive. A slightly cleaned up version of ordinary tribalism: "we are good and they are bad", with no further justification. Anybody can claim their own tribe is the moral one this way.
      - 7y ago
SahAssar 7y ago
I get the feeling that you have a very ingrained idea of what it means to practice journalism and what it means to be a journalist. All of what you wrote goes against the basic principles and ideals of journalism, so I wonder if you mean that current journalism is not living up to it's ideals (I.e. it's a temporary gully) or if you mean it's systematic within the profession? Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative? Or if there are outlets practicing journalism in the way that you'd approve of, which are those?
- ardy42 7y ago
  > Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative? That is a vitally important question whenever ideas like "Gell-Mann Amnesia" come up. Cataloguing journalists' mistakes and ethical lapses is easy, and I think that can sometimes evolve into a cheap cynicism that deprecates the vital job that journalists do, and that cynicism is toxic to democracy. Journalists are all kinds of imperfect, but despite that journalism still performs a vital function for democracy. There's no other practical way for the public to stay broadly informed with timely information, than to have generalist communicators try to summarize into digestible bites the fire hose of events and specialist knowledge for broad dissemination.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  >Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? I think there isn't one, but I also think that average citizens are already not getting the information needed to participate in a democracy from journalists. Almost any politically important issue is inundated with political advocacy that's masquerading as journalism. That isn't to say that there aren't journalists who don't do this, but rather that as an industry, journalism seems to push a lot of questionable content. There isn't an alternative to journalism, which is why we should be skeptical of it. Regulatory capture happens in the government. A similar problem can appear in journalism, where a journalism organizations can be "caught" by those looking to control the narrative. I like the way Reuters does things. They seem to be much less biased than almost any of the generally well-known publications. Even then, they might change in the future.
inopinatus 7y ago
> notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter This is a key takeaway that, I suspect, everyone who has ever been interviewed, covered, or quoted in the press feels. Every time you see a story in the general media that grossly misrepresents a subject you know well, remember that feeling. Because for every other topic covered, I guarantee there is a domain expert feeling as you did. I’m three for three in terms of regretting journo contact. Whether it was the local rag or a national broadsheet; misquotation, glib misrepresentation and sheer fabrication are inevitable results. Corollary: reserve your greatest mistrust for anyone that openly and actively courts the media. They are well aware of the outcomes and are manipulating the game. This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jancsika 7y ago
  > This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for. Important exception: leakers. (Keep in mind you wrote "mistrust" and not "skepticism.")
  - inopinatus 7y ago
    That’s fair. Too late to edit but skepticism would indeed target the intended sentiment more precisely. I’d hesitate to suggest that leakers aren’t playing the same game. Requiring leakers to be entirely pure in motive and innocent in expectation would be a false and unfair standard.
  - xabotage 7y ago
    Leakers are playing their part in the same game. In the case of companies I've worked for in the past, leakers were just grabbing cash in exchange for helping the media push the distorted narratives that were already being published, framing the leaker as a hero. This isn't to say all leakers are to be mistrusted; "skepticism" is indeed the right word, and I believe it still applies to leakers. Edit to add: there are obvious cases where whistleblowing is a necessary and welcome action for ethical reasons, but most often "leaks" that I've seen get blown up by the media over sensitive information that does no one any good, inside or outside of the affected company. I think "737 Max is unsafe"-style leaks are less common.
filmgirlcw 7y ago
> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. That’s unfairly broad and in my experience, untrue. And to the extent it is true, I would argue that is largely because we have moved to a model that rewards journalism for writing the things people or publicists want to read, making it harder for investigative work that ruffles feathers and makes it challenging to even do the work of learning. And although I won’t argue that many, many journalists aren’t subject-matter experts in their beats, the good ones are. More to the point, many more are willing to become experts and talk to experts. And for what it’s with, “what’s the deal with [foo]” was my go-to question when working on big stories when my full-time job was a journalist. I’m a naturally curious person. I want to learn as much as I can about as many things as I can. And maybe I was lucky, but my editors certainly didn’t have a problem with me pursuing those stories — even if I wasn’t able to do as many of them as I would have liked.
jancsika 7y ago
> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. Matt Taibbi didn't have a story before he began investigating the financial sector corruption leading up to and following the 2008 crash. Jeremy Scahill didn't know the details of the Gardez massacre until he got a contact to actually drive him to the scene. (An act so dangerous I believe he called "incredibly stupid" in his documentary "Dirty Wars.") I have no idea what David Barstow thought he had figured out when he wrote the Pulitzer-winning "Pentagon Pundits" story for NYT. But the evidence he uses in the story clearly backs up the meat of his claims, and a GAO report corroborates it. So why would it even matter in this case? For Seymour Hersh's Abu Graib abuse story his pre-conceived notions are similarly irrelevant due to the photographic evidence. Ronan Farrow's preconceived notions about the Harvey Weinstein case are similarly irrelevant. Hell, consider the leaker to Project Veritas who somehow got the footage of Amy Robach talking about ABC shelving her story on Epstein. What's the relevance of Project Veritas' goal or political bent given that was a genuine video of Robach passionately discussing the shelved story? > I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. But for the most impactful ones it's almost certainly not the same "dumb journo" from your area of expertise writing the story. Given that newspapers hire writers with as varied talents as Barstow and, say, Thomas Friedman, your shortcut seems quite likely to lead to a flurry of "dumb journo" false positives.
- mc32 7y ago
  It's not that sometimes coincidentally they don't ever get things right; it's rather that quite often their biases shine through when their job is to present a more or less unbiased take on newsworthy events --with exceptions for organs who by their nature are biased like "The Daily Republican" or "The Democrat-Constitution", etc. In essence journalists with bias are TV with laugh tracks. But instead of laughing for us, they make our minds up for us.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    There are certainly some who do this, notably News Corp[1]. And the huge presence of that organization gives the impression that all others are this way too. But it simply isn't true of respectable publications. People don't go to journalism school thinking "I'm going to devote my life to hiding facts". If they do, they don't graduate. And papers aren't interested in hiring people that are going to create an endless stream of retractions. Likewise, any outlet that doesn't issues retractions is highly suspect. So reporters at respectable paper really are trying to find the truth. Indeed, this whole thread is not about facts but about a person's opinion about the tone of an article. And, quite frankly, a blog post that is lying about the article when he says it only mentions negative aspects of Monson's life[2] Which is probably why the lead image is not actually linked to the NYT article. Papers often print things people don't want to be true, or say them in ways that offend certain groups. But to rely on a gut feeling or general annoyance or selected anecdotes to decide that a paper is lying would be an error. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
Ste_Evans 7y ago
"Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it?" A "religious leader" is a criminal fraudster who tells lies for money. It sounds like the Mormon guy got off lightly with the Times obituary, as it didn't point out he was a criminal. I imagine that was what the journalists, and any other sane person, would really think of this "religious leader". But the journalists would be too afraid of the backlash from the believers and of the power of the church built from their ongoing extremely successful and efficient criminal fraud. The obituary should have listed how much money this "religious leader" made, how big a house he lived in, and what car he drove; and also what crazy nonsense he told to gullible people to get this lifestyle. That is the true essence of the guy's life, so this is what should have been included in he obituary.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
krnsll 7y ago
> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. I wouldn't restrict this to journalists. Wasted a year during undergrad working for a political scientist who knowingly ignored evidence on a historically oriented project that would render their fashionable hypothesis void. Bringing said evidence up in meetings on multiple occasions didn't help my prospects of getting anything positive out of the professional association (besides perhaps that should get out of the racket?).
- krnsll 7y ago
  An afterthought: I suspect this is done subconsciously too quite often by people in such fields as part of their evidence seeking (hypothesis confirmation) procedures which are admittedly more adhoc than those sort of naturally built into many STEM fields (I'm sure someone could provide numerous counterexamples to this latter point though, especially with the replication crisis).
  - xkcd-sucks 7y ago
    Even in the "quantitative" fields, one must have random inspiration to make a novel idea; faith to go to the effort of the researching it, ego to believe it's worthwhile; and drive to get things done by force of will to survive re: job+funding. An interesting combination of qualities. On top of that, many concepts are only feasible to measure by using human-invented models+metrics, under very tightly controlled conditions. Oftentimes these metrics' equivalence to real-world circumstances is matter of faith or philosophy. So everything is untrustworthy. The people doing it can be totally incompetent even in making simple observations. They can be wilfully or negligently unaware of competing evidence or errors in analysis. They can be measuring the wrong thing entirely due to historical precedent or because it's good publicity or because it's impossible to measure the thing you really want to test. Ultimately this probably shouldn't be surprising to anyone that's experienced the real world practice of anything. But it is worth remembering that anecdotal evidence from your own eyes can be more predictive than statistical evidence from strangers.
elfexec 7y ago
> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. A perfect case study is the "Rape on Campus" by Rolling Stone's Sabrina Erdely. Rather than a rape happening on campus and then a journalist investigating or writing about it, Erdely imagined that there was rape on campus and then sought out the evidence. In other words, agenda came first and then the cherrypicking of sources and in some cases outrighting lying about and making up quotes and sources. Also, she ignored sources, facts and evidence that would counter her agenda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus Agenda usurping facts and truth is just one of the many problems facing journalism today. But this was a problem since the very beginning of journalism. For most of the 1800s and much of the early 1900s, newspapers and journalism was maligned. So much so that the news industry was in danger of collapsing in the first half of the 1900s. It was ww2, when the government back the news industry to spread news and war propaganda and the clever PR of the pulitzer prize that saved the news industry. If you want to appreciate how newspapers were viewed in the early 1900s, I recommend TS Eliot's (arguably the greatest english language poet of the 20th century) excellent "The Boston Evening Transcipt". A short compact poem with wonderful overt and covert zingers.

closed 7y ago

> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? Their obit for the previous president, Gordan B Hinckley is quite positive... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html Edit: here are more if people are curious. One before, and one after the Mormon church allowed black people similar position as non-black people. They're still pretty upbeat. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mormon-leader-is-dead-at-96-david-mckay-mormon.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mo... https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon-chief-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon...

simple_phrases 7y ago
There's a certain irony in the OP accusing journalists of starting with a premise and working backwards, when the OP did it themself.
- jrobn 7y ago
  This is true of almost everything human created.
- mc32 7y ago
  presumably actual journalists would train against unconscious bias... maybe you're saying we can't expect they be any better than your average person on the street.
  - Ntrails 7y ago
    I would argue that defending against Bias is the editors job, they are not there to catch typos!
- Mirioron 7y ago
  I don't really see that here though. He's over-generalizing, but you can't claim that some (many?) journalists don't do exactly what he mentioned. People expect what journalists write to be trustworthy, but too often what they write is not. Think back on the Covington kids saga. They were dragged through the mud and many journalists participated in it. If they get something like that so wrong, despite there being video evidence of the event online, then how are people supposed to trust what they write? Obviously not all organizations are as guilty of it. When I read something by Reuters I'm fairly confident of what I'm reading, but it's much less so with many others.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
I think the contrast is that the church has been heaped in controversies since Monson became President. The CES letter came out and 'A Letter to my Wife', which both have historical (from the source LDS.org) sources that basically do a lot to disprove and change the entire understanding of how the church came to be, of what really happened in the days of Joseph and Brigham, and what they were really like.. As an ex-mormon, we were taught deeply all about Joseph, and that he was not a polygamist that started w/ Brigham, the CES Letters (to which the church responded by being (more) transparent and created the Church Essays which back up the CES letters but try to spin it as 'it was the times they lived in'. A big split in the church for example was when Joseph was hitting it in the barn w/ Fanny Alger a 14 year old (he was 38). Even in that time it was NOT okay to have relations w/ a 14 year old.. the average wedded age was 19 and the average age difference was something like 23:19 a 38 year old marrying a 14 year old was very rare, and when he's already married very improper. His wife Emma rightly so was very against the practice. The kicker is that the reason Joseph was 'martyred/received justice' was because he'd burned a privately owned newspaper that was about to blow open the polygamy story and destroy his reputation. He couldn't have that so he burnt it down, which led the hidden opposition to turn against him and bring down the state law upon him (rightly so imho). He basically got what was coming to him, he wasn't a Saint, he was a conman. Just as the church has been conning people by saying that tithes goes towards building temple's and humanitarian aid, but has really been going to investment funds and business building. Back to the topic at hand, the fact that the church has all these controversies since 2012'ish is probably a HUGE reason that the Times decided not to be Mormon friendly. The church is hemmoraging members (exmormon sub on reddit has > 100k members now). It's excommunicating the 'good ones' left and right like Sam Young who's only sin against the church was calling for reforms regarding children being left alone in Bishop's office where they ask them about their masturbation practices and fantasies and if they act on those fantasies. Having taken DCFS foster care classes and learning about 'grooming', the Bishop's office is the perfect place for grooming to take place, and the fact that numerous Bishop's and ex-bishops are in prison for child abuse cases simply proves that. It's all just a matter of the 'times we live in now'... don't blame journalism for the slant, blame the times. Just like the church blames every negative historical thing they did on 'the times in which they lived'. Like Brigham who claimed a black person's highest celestial glory would be to be a servant to 'the rest of us' in Heaven. I'm pretty sure in the bible when a prophet 'believes' something that's wrong, doesn't God correct him and MAKE him change the narrative? Isn't it his job to CHANGE the times and belief of the TIMES? Not continue to be prejudicial because it's convenient? If any of them were prophets then they'd be on the right side of history not the wrong side. Edit adding: Also the November doctrine (November/2015) was a huge thing at the time as well. Basically it stated if you're a member of a family with same-sex parents you couldn't be baptized till you were 18 and partake in the blessings of the faith, unless you basically disown your parents. Many have left the faith over this one change in doctrine. Sources: https://cesletter.org/ https://cesletter.org/ https://www.letterformywife.com/ https://www.letterformywife.com/ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/essays?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... Sam Young has over 1000 stories of abuse of children by clergy in the church at: https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/ https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/

erikpukinskis 7y ago

> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? [sheepishly] raises hand

justin66 7y ago
I had the same thought. I'm a NYT subscriber and while I'm not always the most careful reader, it doesn't seem to me the paper covers Mormons who are not Mitt Romney nearly often enough for there to be a stereotypical take
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  One can be extrapolated with eigenmorality though! https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820
  - justin66 7y ago
    I'm grimly curious as to whether or not you really think I'm going to read all that.
    - iron0013 7y ago
      This is the perfect and always perfectly accurate response whenever someone links to the Rational-sphere. On the other hand, why use few words when you could use—Jesus Christ—6,663 words instead?
  - knzhou 7y ago
    You mean this idea? > A moral person is someone who cooperates with other moral people, and who refuses to cooperate with immoral people. It's just so naive. A slightly cleaned up version of ordinary tribalism: "we are good and they are bad", with no further justification. Anybody can claim their own tribe is the moral one this way.
    - 7y ago

SahAssar 7y ago

I get the feeling that you have a very ingrained idea of what it means to practice journalism and what it means to be a journalist. All of what you wrote goes against the basic principles and ideals of journalism, so I wonder if you mean that current journalism is not living up to it's ideals (I.e. it's a temporary gully) or if you mean it's systematic within the profession? Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative? Or if there are outlets practicing journalism in the way that you'd approve of, which are those?

ardy42 7y ago
> Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative? That is a vitally important question whenever ideas like "Gell-Mann Amnesia" come up. Cataloguing journalists' mistakes and ethical lapses is easy, and I think that can sometimes evolve into a cheap cynicism that deprecates the vital job that journalists do, and that cynicism is toxic to democracy. Journalists are all kinds of imperfect, but despite that journalism still performs a vital function for democracy. There's no other practical way for the public to stay broadly informed with timely information, than to have generalist communicators try to summarize into digestible bites the fire hose of events and specialist knowledge for broad dissemination.
Mirioron 7y ago
>Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? I think there isn't one, but I also think that average citizens are already not getting the information needed to participate in a democracy from journalists. Almost any politically important issue is inundated with political advocacy that's masquerading as journalism. That isn't to say that there aren't journalists who don't do this, but rather that as an industry, journalism seems to push a lot of questionable content. There isn't an alternative to journalism, which is why we should be skeptical of it. Regulatory capture happens in the government. A similar problem can appear in journalism, where a journalism organizations can be "caught" by those looking to control the narrative. I like the way Reuters does things. They seem to be much less biased than almost any of the generally well-known publications. Even then, they might change in the future.

inopinatus 7y ago

> notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter This is a key takeaway that, I suspect, everyone who has ever been interviewed, covered, or quoted in the press feels. Every time you see a story in the general media that grossly misrepresents a subject you know well, remember that feeling. Because for every other topic covered, I guarantee there is a domain expert feeling as you did. I’m three for three in terms of regretting journo contact. Whether it was the local rag or a national broadsheet; misquotation, glib misrepresentation and sheer fabrication are inevitable results. Corollary: reserve your greatest mistrust for anyone that openly and actively courts the media. They are well aware of the outcomes and are manipulating the game. This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jancsika 7y ago
> This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for. Important exception: leakers. (Keep in mind you wrote "mistrust" and not "skepticism.")
- inopinatus 7y ago
  That’s fair. Too late to edit but skepticism would indeed target the intended sentiment more precisely. I’d hesitate to suggest that leakers aren’t playing the same game. Requiring leakers to be entirely pure in motive and innocent in expectation would be a false and unfair standard.
- xabotage 7y ago
  Leakers are playing their part in the same game. In the case of companies I've worked for in the past, leakers were just grabbing cash in exchange for helping the media push the distorted narratives that were already being published, framing the leaker as a hero. This isn't to say all leakers are to be mistrusted; "skepticism" is indeed the right word, and I believe it still applies to leakers. Edit to add: there are obvious cases where whistleblowing is a necessary and welcome action for ethical reasons, but most often "leaks" that I've seen get blown up by the media over sensitive information that does no one any good, inside or outside of the affected company. I think "737 Max is unsafe"-style leaks are less common.

filmgirlcw 7y ago

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. That’s unfairly broad and in my experience, untrue. And to the extent it is true, I would argue that is largely because we have moved to a model that rewards journalism for writing the things people or publicists want to read, making it harder for investigative work that ruffles feathers and makes it challenging to even do the work of learning. And although I won’t argue that many, many journalists aren’t subject-matter experts in their beats, the good ones are. More to the point, many more are willing to become experts and talk to experts. And for what it’s with, “what’s the deal with [foo]” was my go-to question when working on big stories when my full-time job was a journalist. I’m a naturally curious person. I want to learn as much as I can about as many things as I can. And maybe I was lucky, but my editors certainly didn’t have a problem with me pursuing those stories — even if I wasn’t able to do as many of them as I would have liked.

jancsika 7y ago

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. Matt Taibbi didn't have a story before he began investigating the financial sector corruption leading up to and following the 2008 crash. Jeremy Scahill didn't know the details of the Gardez massacre until he got a contact to actually drive him to the scene. (An act so dangerous I believe he called "incredibly stupid" in his documentary "Dirty Wars.") I have no idea what David Barstow thought he had figured out when he wrote the Pulitzer-winning "Pentagon Pundits" story for NYT. But the evidence he uses in the story clearly backs up the meat of his claims, and a GAO report corroborates it. So why would it even matter in this case? For Seymour Hersh's Abu Graib abuse story his pre-conceived notions are similarly irrelevant due to the photographic evidence. Ronan Farrow's preconceived notions about the Harvey Weinstein case are similarly irrelevant. Hell, consider the leaker to Project Veritas who somehow got the footage of Amy Robach talking about ABC shelving her story on Epstein. What's the relevance of Project Veritas' goal or political bent given that was a genuine video of Robach passionately discussing the shelved story? > I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. But for the most impactful ones it's almost certainly not the same "dumb journo" from your area of expertise writing the story. Given that newspapers hire writers with as varied talents as Barstow and, say, Thomas Friedman, your shortcut seems quite likely to lead to a flurry of "dumb journo" false positives.

mc32 7y ago
It's not that sometimes coincidentally they don't ever get things right; it's rather that quite often their biases shine through when their job is to present a more or less unbiased take on newsworthy events --with exceptions for organs who by their nature are biased like "The Daily Republican" or "The Democrat-Constitution", etc. In essence journalists with bias are TV with laugh tracks. But instead of laughing for us, they make our minds up for us.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  There are certainly some who do this, notably News Corp[1]. And the huge presence of that organization gives the impression that all others are this way too. But it simply isn't true of respectable publications. People don't go to journalism school thinking "I'm going to devote my life to hiding facts". If they do, they don't graduate. And papers aren't interested in hiring people that are going to create an endless stream of retractions. Likewise, any outlet that doesn't issues retractions is highly suspect. So reporters at respectable paper really are trying to find the truth. Indeed, this whole thread is not about facts but about a person's opinion about the tone of an article. And, quite frankly, a blog post that is lying about the article when he says it only mentions negative aspects of Monson's life[2] Which is probably why the lead image is not actually linked to the NYT article. Papers often print things people don't want to be true, or say them in ways that offend certain groups. But to rely on a gut feeling or general annoyance or selected anecdotes to decide that a paper is lying would be an error. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

Ste_Evans 7y ago

"Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it?" A "religious leader" is a criminal fraudster who tells lies for money. It sounds like the Mormon guy got off lightly with the Times obituary, as it didn't point out he was a criminal. I imagine that was what the journalists, and any other sane person, would really think of this "religious leader". But the journalists would be too afraid of the backlash from the believers and of the power of the church built from their ongoing extremely successful and efficient criminal fraud. The obituary should have listed how much money this "religious leader" made, how big a house he lived in, and what car he drove; and also what crazy nonsense he told to gullible people to get this lifestyle. That is the true essence of the guy's life, so this is what should have been included in he obituary.

deleted 7y ago

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krnsll 7y ago

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. I wouldn't restrict this to journalists. Wasted a year during undergrad working for a political scientist who knowingly ignored evidence on a historically oriented project that would render their fashionable hypothesis void. Bringing said evidence up in meetings on multiple occasions didn't help my prospects of getting anything positive out of the professional association (besides perhaps that should get out of the racket?).

krnsll 7y ago
An afterthought: I suspect this is done subconsciously too quite often by people in such fields as part of their evidence seeking (hypothesis confirmation) procedures which are admittedly more adhoc than those sort of naturally built into many STEM fields (I'm sure someone could provide numerous counterexamples to this latter point though, especially with the replication crisis).
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  Even in the "quantitative" fields, one must have random inspiration to make a novel idea; faith to go to the effort of the researching it, ego to believe it's worthwhile; and drive to get things done by force of will to survive re: job+funding. An interesting combination of qualities. On top of that, many concepts are only feasible to measure by using human-invented models+metrics, under very tightly controlled conditions. Oftentimes these metrics' equivalence to real-world circumstances is matter of faith or philosophy. So everything is untrustworthy. The people doing it can be totally incompetent even in making simple observations. They can be wilfully or negligently unaware of competing evidence or errors in analysis. They can be measuring the wrong thing entirely due to historical precedent or because it's good publicity or because it's impossible to measure the thing you really want to test. Ultimately this probably shouldn't be surprising to anyone that's experienced the real world practice of anything. But it is worth remembering that anecdotal evidence from your own eyes can be more predictive than statistical evidence from strangers.

elfexec 7y ago

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. A perfect case study is the "Rape on Campus" by Rolling Stone's Sabrina Erdely. Rather than a rape happening on campus and then a journalist investigating or writing about it, Erdely imagined that there was rape on campus and then sought out the evidence. In other words, agenda came first and then the cherrypicking of sources and in some cases outrighting lying about and making up quotes and sources. Also, she ignored sources, facts and evidence that would counter her agenda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus Agenda usurping facts and truth is just one of the many problems facing journalism today. But this was a problem since the very beginning of journalism. For most of the 1800s and much of the early 1900s, newspapers and journalism was maligned. So much so that the news industry was in danger of collapsing in the first half of the 1900s. It was ww2, when the government back the news industry to spread news and war propaganda and the clever PR of the pulitzer prize that saved the news industry. If you want to appreciate how newspapers were viewed in the early 1900s, I recommend TS Eliot's (arguably the greatest english language poet of the 20th century) excellent "The Boston Evening Transcipt". A short compact poem with wonderful overt and covert zingers.