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> He proposed that the approaches to truth and accountability offered by GitHub, venture capital funding, and cryptocurrency all offer better models for journal

by MiroF 6y ago

> He proposed that the approaches to truth and accountability offered by GitHub, venture capital funding, and cryptocurrency all offer better models for journalism than "the East Coast model of 'Respect my authori-tay.'" When people talk about tech/engineer hubris, this is it. The idea that a "Github" model for journalism could offer the same level of a. resistance to external pressure and b. in-depth investigation as more institutional models is entirely without basis.

manigandham 6y ago
It’s not hubris to think about better models. Questioning the status quo is how many revolutionary things got started. The institutional model clearly has major issues and there are countless examples of journalists afflicted with bad incentives and a clear narrative. Also the rise of social media has eroded the whole point of institutional organization since they just spend all day dueling on Twitter and writing about whatever unsourced hot take is found there.
- MiroF 6y ago
  Journalists do in-depth investigative reporting, they submit FOIA requests, they cultivate connections with other institutions in order to get stories of public interest to the public. I have never seen a "Github" non-professional style of journalism approach doing the same thing. > they just spend all day dueling on Twitter and writing about whatever unsourced hot take is found there. This is the hubris. Thinking that everyone else's job is way easier than what an engineer does - and journalists just spend all day on twitter without doing anything else. > Questioning the status quo is how many revolutionary things got started You can question the status quo and it's not hubris. You can also have instances where you question the status quo and it is hubris. I would say this is an instance of the latter.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > Journalists do in-depth investigative reporting, they submit FOIA requests, they cultivate connections with other institutions in order to get stories of public interest to the public. Some do. Others maliciously crop social media comments and provoke twitter flamewars to create content. I think the biggest problem with the tech industry is that it's insufficiently self-critical. But I think journalism has the same problem; I rarely see journalists writing articles about other journalists behaving badly. They have a tendency to protect their own, which mirrors my observations of how people in the tech industry generally respond to criticism of the tech industry.
    - MiroF 6y ago
      Do you think the fact that some journalists maliciously crop social media posts means that we should replace the institutional model with a "Github" model of professional journalists? I'm sorry, but I fail to see this as a crisis of the profession in the same way that the GP does.
      - catalogia 6y ago
        > Do you think the fact that some journalists maliciously crop social media posts means that we should replace the institutional model with a "Github" model of professional journalists? No, I definitely don't. I think techies who think they've got all the answers for how to fix journalism are hubristic, but I also think journalists who think all is well with their industry need to get off their high horse and do some introspection too. I think both industries are in a crisis, and it happens that the two crises have nontrivial overlap; the tools the tech industry has been creating over the past 15 or so years have been exacerbating the problems in journalism. So no, I definitely don't think the tech industry is situated to solve the problems with journalism; judging by past performance the tech industry has a deleterious effect on journalism and I don't foresee this changing soon. I don't know how to fix journalism, nor do I know how to fix the tech industry.
        6510 6y ago
        I don't know either but I do know it starts with figuring out what journalism is or is suppose to be. You know it when you see it is not a good position to progress from. I'm not thinking of a single answer or a definition of what it is not.(or not suppose to be) I also have no idea who should make the decisions here :-) Perhaps we should all make up our mind indevidually.
      - manigandham 6y ago
        No, we're not all saying we need to replace journalism with some wacky new system. What we are saying is that journalism has major problems with accountability and criticism.
      - 6y ago
  - manigandham 6y ago
    The people in question literally do that. One of their assignments is to watch Snapchat and TikTok and write about the popular events. And yes, most people today are in agreement that modern "internet journalist" is not a hard job when you don't actually investigate much, don't source anything, and write whatever narrative you want with no accountability.

by MiroF 6y ago

manigandham 6y ago

It’s not hubris to think about better models. Questioning the status quo is how many revolutionary things got started. The institutional model clearly has major issues and there are countless examples of journalists afflicted with bad incentives and a clear narrative. Also the rise of social media has eroded the whole point of institutional organization since they just spend all day dueling on Twitter and writing about whatever unsourced hot take is found there.

MiroF 6y ago
Journalists do in-depth investigative reporting, they submit FOIA requests, they cultivate connections with other institutions in order to get stories of public interest to the public. I have never seen a "Github" non-professional style of journalism approach doing the same thing. > they just spend all day dueling on Twitter and writing about whatever unsourced hot take is found there. This is the hubris. Thinking that everyone else's job is way easier than what an engineer does - and journalists just spend all day on twitter without doing anything else. > Questioning the status quo is how many revolutionary things got started You can question the status quo and it's not hubris. You can also have instances where you question the status quo and it is hubris. I would say this is an instance of the latter.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > Journalists do in-depth investigative reporting, they submit FOIA requests, they cultivate connections with other institutions in order to get stories of public interest to the public. Some do. Others maliciously crop social media comments and provoke twitter flamewars to create content. I think the biggest problem with the tech industry is that it's insufficiently self-critical. But I think journalism has the same problem; I rarely see journalists writing articles about other journalists behaving badly. They have a tendency to protect their own, which mirrors my observations of how people in the tech industry generally respond to criticism of the tech industry.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    Do you think the fact that some journalists maliciously crop social media posts means that we should replace the institutional model with a "Github" model of professional journalists? I'm sorry, but I fail to see this as a crisis of the profession in the same way that the GP does.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      > Do you think the fact that some journalists maliciously crop social media posts means that we should replace the institutional model with a "Github" model of professional journalists? No, I definitely don't. I think techies who think they've got all the answers for how to fix journalism are hubristic, but I also think journalists who think all is well with their industry need to get off their high horse and do some introspection too. I think both industries are in a crisis, and it happens that the two crises have nontrivial overlap; the tools the tech industry has been creating over the past 15 or so years have been exacerbating the problems in journalism. So no, I definitely don't think the tech industry is situated to solve the problems with journalism; judging by past performance the tech industry has a deleterious effect on journalism and I don't foresee this changing soon. I don't know how to fix journalism, nor do I know how to fix the tech industry.
      - 6510 6y ago
        I don't know either but I do know it starts with figuring out what journalism is or is suppose to be. You know it when you see it is not a good position to progress from. I'm not thinking of a single answer or a definition of what it is not.(or not suppose to be) I also have no idea who should make the decisions here :-) Perhaps we should all make up our mind indevidually.
    - manigandham 6y ago
      No, we're not all saying we need to replace journalism with some wacky new system. What we are saying is that journalism has major problems with accountability and criticism.
    - 6y ago
- manigandham 6y ago
  The people in question literally do that. One of their assignments is to watch Snapchat and TikTok and write about the popular events. And yes, most people today are in agreement that modern "internet journalist" is not a hard job when you don't actually investigate much, don't source anything, and write whatever narrative you want with no accountability.