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The old ways of making sense of the world consisted, for the most part, of listening to institutions and people whose integrity, though not perfect, was far gre

The old ways of making sense of the world consisted, for the most part, of listening to institutions and people whose integrity, though not perfect, was far greater than it is today. CNN wasn't always the hyper-partisan POS it is today. The NYT used be a real newspaper. Same for the Post. There has not been a Walter Cronkite for decades. I think its self-evident that journalism has changed, dramatically and for the worst as the Internet became widespread, and we have nothing to replace it with. This is happening at a time when information has been weaponized to an exquisite level with most of us not even aware we are under attack. So, no, I do not think this is business as usual, and while I agree good Journalism is not sufficient to solve our problems I do believe it is a necessary first step. I think the funding problem is real, but solvable. There is a great hunger out there for honest reporting and there are plenty of people with both the resources and the integrity to help bootstrap a credible effort.

BeetleB 6y ago
> CNN wasn't always the hyper-partisan POS it is today. The NYT used be a real newspaper. Same for the Post. There has not been a Walter Cronkite for decades. If you can come up with a way/study that has a good way of measuring the quality of an outlet, and showing the changes across time, I'll be willing to accept it. At the moment, I do not recall any of these to have been credible. I cannot speak for the Post, but NYT was definitely worthy of distrust in the 90's, as was CNN. I think you and I are measuring things via a different metric/scale. Mine is simply "Do they lie/mislead often enough for me not to trust them?", which is different from "How often do they mislead?" You would be correct in pointing out that my stance is more binary, but it's because past a certain point, it doesn't matter how much more distrustful an outlet is! If the lies/manipulation were rare, it makes sense to look at the frequency. But I do not see a point in differentiating "lies once a day" and "lies twice a day". While the latter seems 2x worse, the former is bad enough to disregard it. In that sense, the NYT was untrustworthy in the 90's, as was CNN. Whether they are worse now is kind of irrelevant. > There has not been a Walter Cronkite for decades. There are, and always have been, fantastic journalists. They definitely exist today. The question to ask is: If Walter Cronkite started out today, and was as good as he used to be, would people trust him? > I think its self-evident that journalism has changed, dramatically and for the worst as the Internet became widespread, and we have nothing to replace it with. This is happening at a time when information has been weaponized to an exquisite level with most of us not even aware we are under attack. The loss in revenue has definitely impacted news outlets because of the Internet. However, information being weaponized really is not that different today. The only thing that has changed is that there are more actors involved. Much of the thrash today is simply because more people have the power to counter the misinformation of the past. Things are bad now, but I really do not want to return to the days where people trusted Time and Newsweek. I am happy people do not trust them. Those were not good days, and the misinformation then was probably as costly (globally) as it is now. > There is a great hunger out there for honest reporting and there are plenty of people with both the resources and the integrity to help bootstrap a credible effort. The people have spoken with their dollars, and it is clear they are not willing to pay for it. Gifts from rich people does well for the "narrow" journalism I spoke of, but is simply not enough for the wider scale that is needed.
- glitcher 6y ago
  >> There is a great hunger out there for honest reporting > The people have spoken with their dollars, and it is clear they are not willing to pay for it People can and do change. Now seems like an opportune time to take risks by challenging those norms.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  Would you accept "trust in the media" as one such measure of decline? If so here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/243665/media-trust-continues-recover-2016-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/243665/media-trust-continues-re... Maybe we can get past that issue though. I understand your point to be that Journalism was never credible and that therefore we are not really any worse off than we have ever been. I disagree, but maybe it does not matter all that much, my main point is that more than ever we desperately need something like good Journalism, whether good Journalism ever existed or not. Information has been weaponized before, sure, but the volume, sophistication, low cost and precision of the manipulation is unprecedented. The difference in degree is so great that it has become a difference of kind and the only defense we have at the moment is cynicism. As to people paying for proper Journalism, we also used to say no one would pay for electric cars or for music. Maybe we just need better products.
  - ativzzz 6y ago
    Interesting article, and of course we don't know the reason for decrease in trust. Is it because the media is lying more, or because the people have better access to information and thus are realizing the lies of the media? That's probably impossible to measure. And interesting that > Democrats' Trust in Media Highest in Past 20 Years While Republican has gone down. I wonder how much effect Donald Trump saying "Fake news" on Twitter all the time has on people's perception, versus what they would think if he wasn't saying that.
    - zarkov99 6y ago
      > Democrats' Trust in Media Highest in Past 20 Years Confirmation bias is a real thing.

BeetleB 6y ago

> CNN wasn't always the hyper-partisan POS it is today. The NYT used be a real newspaper. Same for the Post. There has not been a Walter Cronkite for decades. If you can come up with a way/study that has a good way of measuring the quality of an outlet, and showing the changes across time, I'll be willing to accept it. At the moment, I do not recall any of these to have been credible. I cannot speak for the Post, but NYT was definitely worthy of distrust in the 90's, as was CNN. I think you and I are measuring things via a different metric/scale. Mine is simply "Do they lie/mislead often enough for me not to trust them?", which is different from "How often do they mislead?" You would be correct in pointing out that my stance is more binary, but it's because past a certain point, it doesn't matter how much more distrustful an outlet is! If the lies/manipulation were rare, it makes sense to look at the frequency. But I do not see a point in differentiating "lies once a day" and "lies twice a day". While the latter seems 2x worse, the former is bad enough to disregard it. In that sense, the NYT was untrustworthy in the 90's, as was CNN. Whether they are worse now is kind of irrelevant. > There has not been a Walter Cronkite for decades. There are, and always have been, fantastic journalists. They definitely exist today. The question to ask is: If Walter Cronkite started out today, and was as good as he used to be, would people trust him? > I think its self-evident that journalism has changed, dramatically and for the worst as the Internet became widespread, and we have nothing to replace it with. This is happening at a time when information has been weaponized to an exquisite level with most of us not even aware we are under attack. The loss in revenue has definitely impacted news outlets because of the Internet. However, information being weaponized really is not that different today. The only thing that has changed is that there are more actors involved. Much of the thrash today is simply because more people have the power to counter the misinformation of the past. Things are bad now, but I really do not want to return to the days where people trusted Time and Newsweek. I am happy people do not trust them. Those were not good days, and the misinformation then was probably as costly (globally) as it is now. > There is a great hunger out there for honest reporting and there are plenty of people with both the resources and the integrity to help bootstrap a credible effort. The people have spoken with their dollars, and it is clear they are not willing to pay for it. Gifts from rich people does well for the "narrow" journalism I spoke of, but is simply not enough for the wider scale that is needed.

glitcher 6y ago
>> There is a great hunger out there for honest reporting > The people have spoken with their dollars, and it is clear they are not willing to pay for it People can and do change. Now seems like an opportune time to take risks by challenging those norms.
zarkov99 6y ago
Would you accept "trust in the media" as one such measure of decline? If so here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/243665/media-trust-continues-recover-2016-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/243665/media-trust-continues-re... Maybe we can get past that issue though. I understand your point to be that Journalism was never credible and that therefore we are not really any worse off than we have ever been. I disagree, but maybe it does not matter all that much, my main point is that more than ever we desperately need something like good Journalism, whether good Journalism ever existed or not. Information has been weaponized before, sure, but the volume, sophistication, low cost and precision of the manipulation is unprecedented. The difference in degree is so great that it has become a difference of kind and the only defense we have at the moment is cynicism. As to people paying for proper Journalism, we also used to say no one would pay for electric cars or for music. Maybe we just need better products.
- ativzzz 6y ago
  Interesting article, and of course we don't know the reason for decrease in trust. Is it because the media is lying more, or because the people have better access to information and thus are realizing the lies of the media? That's probably impossible to measure. And interesting that > Democrats' Trust in Media Highest in Past 20 Years While Republican has gone down. I wonder how much effect Donald Trump saying "Fake news" on Twitter all the time has on people's perception, versus what they would think if he wasn't saying that.
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    > Democrats' Trust in Media Highest in Past 20 Years Confirmation bias is a real thing.