7 ms·

Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

43 points by bradj 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Simulacra 6y ago
Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. Sure there were plenty of newspapers and outlets that leaned one way or the other, but it was never so blatantly partisan, to the point of suspect. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, but the media of today certainly doesn't act like it.
- liability 6y ago
  > 2004 A year or two before that you had Judith Miller at the New York Times uncritically helping the American government start a war on false pretexts. And more than a century before then, American newspapers were hard at work starting the Spanish-American War for bullshit reasons.
- jweir 6y ago
  This has always been the case. Thomas Jefferson called newspapers a “polluted vehicle.” Hearst and yellow journalism. Mcarthy is was not a high point in journalistic integrity - the press propelled him before Murrow took him down.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  You're off by a century or two, but otherwise... In all seriousness, the press has always been the friend of the powerful - whether moneyed interests, politicians, academics and so on. You don't write for the NYT or WP or Fox News or whatever you want unless your beliefs align with the interests of their owners, their advertisers, their lobby groups etc. And even if you may write for them, you'll absolutely not be editing for them unless your beliefs align with all of the above. It's not some massive conspiracy or anything like that - it's just the way people and organizations work. No manager will hire or promote (or continue paying) someone whose opinions significantly disagree with their own, and the same is true of the manager's manager and so on. Much of this is also highly related to the owners of the media outlet. There have been historical examples of moguls buying newspapers and requiring gushing reviews of any of their businesses, and vitriolic attacks of their competitors - political partisanship is a step down from that as freedom of the press goes.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. It's literally always been that way. For a while in the late 20th Century US, the alignment of the propaganda interests of the major US media was such that it spoke with almost a single voice, but the homogeneity wasn't some kind of virtuous objectivity.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  Thank you for many pointing out that I'm off by a century or two, please allow me to clarify: The growth of the internet and corporate controlled media may have made the problem significantly worse, and more encompassing of the nation. I had completely forgotten about Judith Millar, thank you for point that out. I guess I remember a time when there were newspapers, and journalists were above the fray of politics. Something dragged the entire profession of journalism into the dregs and I'm at a loss to pinpoint exactly what that is.
specialist 6y ago
Ah. The journalists and reporters. Of course. Much concern. Never a mention of the owners, publishers, editors, boards, and personages of influence. Never a mention of the quid pro quo of coverage for access. We should focus all our concern on the journalists. Those dastardly story tellers using their immense power to boss around the mail clerks.
- Luechkt 6y ago
  Former journalist here. Spot. On.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Can you recommend primers, explainers, autobiographies, collection of war stories? Something accessible to laypersons like me? After my own unsuccessful efforts, I started collecting books and articles about lawmaking (legislation). It'd be really great to have similar resources for investigative journalism.
    - MacsHeadroom 6y ago
      Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky Various works by many of these individuals: https://freedom.press/about/board/ https://freedom.press/about/board/
      - specialist 6y ago
        Hmmm. I guess what I'm hoping to find is a playbook for how to get stories published. Proven effective methods. I accept everything I've read from Chomsky and others. But I am still no smarter on what to do about it. For an analogy, Camp Wellstone teaches how to strategize policy work using tools like Power Maps.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  Trump mentions Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, all the time. But of course journalists themselves also have power. The power to decide what information reaches their readers, how it is presented - that is power. Not bossing around mail clerks.
heartbeats 6y ago
I think it's unavoidable. With social media, the incentives simply aren't there to have a media that gives a balanced view of the story anymore. That doesn't sell. Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any stance. Now, people are starting to conflate neutrality with centrism. Even a 'neutral' news outlet is expected to take some sort of stance, and not to platform extremists. If you want for something to spread, it's better for 100 people to really like it than for 1000 people to find it OK. That's the pattern we're seeing in the media right now. Mr. Smith has a quaint notion of journalism, and one which is not shared by his publisher, who indeed see it as a reasonable endeavour to 'combat Donald Trump'. I think that the future of media is to completely abandon the pretense of neutrality and to become blind cheerleaders for 'their side'; if you want the Republican coverage, you'll go to Fox or OAN, and hear the latest theories about how the President is morally infallible and how the libtards ought to be rounded up and shot. If you want the Democratic coverage, you'll go to CNN or the NY Times, and hear the latest theories about how the President is an evil man and how the fascists ought to be rounded up and thrown in prison. I don't think this will be too bad. Before, you'd trust your neutral newspaper to give you both sides of the story. Now, you'll have to read two news outlets. But this isn't the end of the world, as long as people can adapt to the change.
- mgkimsal 6y ago
  > Now, you'll have to read two news outlets You already can read multiple outlets for different perspectives. Most people don't. Why would that change?
  - heartbeats 6y ago
    With the increasing polarization, there will have to be some point. For example, right now, Fox News at least mention negative news relating to the president, and the NY Times at least acknowledge Trump's existence. In the future, I predict the newspapers will be naked propagandists. If they judge that some thing someone says or does is going to be bad for their party, they will just ignore it outright or lie about it. In 2016, Fox News had people criticizing Trump, and CNN were (unintentionally) signal-boosting him by letting him dominate the news coverage. In say 2024, I think that Fox News will fire anyone who says anything bad about the Republican nominee, and CNN will not mention them by name on air.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs <g>
sky_rw 6y ago
This from the people who created the standard of "According to an anonymous source familiar with his thinking". If you want to convince me that journalists are NOT the enemy of the people, then stop donating money to political causes and then publishing damning reports to opponents of those causes sourced only from unverifiable anonymous sources.
sremani 6y ago
Now is a wonderful time to read these words of Wisdom of PG https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202 "Journalists used to have a monopoly on the news. This power bred restraint; whatever their private feelings, they avoided overt personal attacks. Now this power and the consequent restraint are both evaporating. Now they're just Twitter users."
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  Power doesn't breed restraint.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    yeah, that seems like such an odd comment to make. power corrupts. absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It can. As anyone who's been in a leadership position can tell you, having formal power imposes informal but very real constraints on what you can say and do.
  - twic 6y ago
    Yeah, these words of, well, whatever they are, are both illogical and ahistorical - journalists have been making personal attacks since the dawn of the field.
  - RandoHolmes 6y ago
    It doesn't seem odd to me. Whether you agree with it or not, the idea that an industry recognizes their power and respects it doesn't seem that outlandish. Maybe you're the part of the problem?
shrubble 6y ago
27 years ago this appeared in Wired magazine, from a speech given by Michael Crichton...I think it applies https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/
blhack 6y ago
When was the last time you read a news article about a topic where you are an expert, and walked away from it thinking that it would help laymen better understand the topic? Journalism is a bit of a personal frustration of mine. It's so important to the function of our society to have an informed population, but we don't, and it's because of the consistent lying that is done by journalists that we don't. Maybe not solely, but the news is one of our primary sense organs, and it's currently broken, or perhaps worse: it's currently on psychadelic drugs and is telling us things that aren't real. If it goes on long enough, we're going to end up schitzophrenic as a society. I think that at the very least we are in the middle of a metaphorical psychotic break. I hope we recover from it, and I really wish that the journalists would at least try to help us, instead of blatantly trying fuel it. And while we're at it: shut down twitter. It's the drug dealer give our sensemaking organs the drugs.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  Journalists are stuck to doing the whims of owners and advertisers. We don't have a funding model purely for journalism as a mainstream practice. We do have federal funding grants for certain journalistic practices, and that journalism tends to be excellent and also completely ignored, such as focused reporting on the intersection of indigenous nationhood and the USA court system. (If that reporting were more widely known, for example, we wouldn't have had the supreme court of the united states questioning whether or not native people are capable of managing cities or what happens to criminals when discussing whether or not half of Oklahoma is native land. These are well-trod reporting subjects by specialist journalists who are highly knowledgeable in the field.) Investigative journalism still provides excellent explanations- The New York Times reporting on Clearview AI helped explain effects of the algorithm to a layperson accurately.
  - dhruval 6y ago
    I have been following some News stories in depth recently and honestly you can find more neutral coverage and better analysis on some random YouTube video or reddit thread then you do on professional print / tv journalism (which given the sort of biased and selective reporting I see on both sides is either deliberately misleading or completely incompetent) At this point I think the problem to solve isn’t “journalism“. The problem is the level of respect we as a society give to traditional journalism. I think traditional journalism had 3 functions: 1. Spread Information 2. Curate Information 3. Conduct investigation/ long form analysis. ———— 1. Has been made obsolete by the internet 2. Has been hijacked by algorithms that seek to maximize attention to ads, and therefore inadvertently outrage. I think there is some opportunity for a tech enabled disruption here. 3. Is tremendously valuable. I am not sure what the funding model looks like. But I think we will figure out a solution at some point. I see no value in trying to save legacy journalism. The only reason we accord it so much prestige is due to social inertia from a bygone era. Why I should give CNN or Fox any more credibility than I would give a TiKTok video at this point? Or value a New York Times article on covid more than listening to a couple podcasts with subject matter experts and looking at the data online ? I think we need to embrace the internet. There are issues with curation, but possibly solutions as well. For eg. Maybe we can empower users to choose their own social media curation algorithms and control their feed. Rather than trying to sell their attention to the highest bidder. We would need to find a different monetization model etc.
martythemaniak 6y ago
At the end of the day, they're just another competitor in the Attention Economy. Their coverage of Big Tech for example makes a ton more sense if you view it as going after your competitors, rather than some high-minded Truth Seeking. I mean, it's not all bullshit, every participant has some differentiating angle they believe in, like Googles Organizing the World's Information, Facebook's Connecting People, NY Times' Paper of Record etc.
acruns 6y ago
I think they are the enemy of the people and our nation. Neither side can be trusted to deliver unbiased information and instead do their best to invoke feelings of fear, hostility, anger, hatred, but most of all fear in an effort to sell more commercial time/clicks/papers. And a large part of both sides look to their news outlet to confirm their bias and at the same time grow their bias based on the latest injustice/tragedy/incomprehensible outrage, further driving the (two) sides further apart, growing their hatred for the other side, fear that the other side is going to end their way of life, so on. People still mostly believe what they watch and read, blindly. Especially when it coincides with their own views. And by making up more lies, more exaggerations, or making it seem like we are all going to die if Trump/Biden gets elected as the next God, they are perpetually making things worse with each story. How hard is it to be honest and unbiased? Isn't that your job anyway?
atlgator 6y ago
It journalists were capable of objective reasoning they would’ve gone into tech instead.
- dylan604 6y ago
  unscrupulous people will do unscrupulous things regardless of where they work.
angel_j 6y ago
Journalism is not as important as journalist want us to think. Reporting is important. Clear, unbaised reporting gives us what we need to be informed. Nobody asks for story driven reporting, that is a fabrication. A journalist is a reporter who wants to be Real Writer. Which is to say that they want to do more than give us the facts, they want us to know it via the filter of their experience and analysis. It is a self important profession, all the moereso because universities degree it. Who gets a degree in mere reporting?
babesh 6y ago
We need better sources of news. It is somewhat happening already with the rise of individual 'reporters' on YouTube and other social media who amass followers and support themselves with patronage, advertising, merchandise, etc...
goatinaboat 6y ago
Journalism is dying because the quality the average journalist produces is no better than what can be had for free from amateurs writing blogs and tweets. They are 100% responsible for their own downfall and the compromises it has forced on them.
tohmeiphun 6y ago
The movement away from objective journalism is probably not a good thing.
bradj 6y ago
I think the prima facie case for journalists is incredibly strong, even for some of the more questionable types of journalism mentioned in the comments like explanatory journalism, narrative reporting and opinion. I think a lot of the problem today has to do with media literacy: a lack of knowledge among casual readers/viewers about the purpose of journalism, and the difference between the various kinds (and what those kinds allow in an ethical/professional sense). However, I don’t think the conversation ends there. Given that environment, institutions need to do a better job supporting journalism in a way that reflects that knowledge. I don’t know if it’s possible for a paper that calls itself “the paper of record” to include an opinion section, or even lifestyle reporting, and maintain its “objective” journalistic reputation. Opinion, interpretative, and explanatory journalism is probably best life to the magazines, or websites that explicitly share a particular editorial viewpoint. The Economist is a great example of this type of institution.
RickJWagner 6y ago
Journalism is dead. Completely dead. Just look at the Covington High School fiasco. Or look at YouTube for 'The Walls are closing in'. Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the headlines, only to dissolve in a day. Yes, true journalism is dead.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  > Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the headlines, only to dissolve in a day. I've heard that the word "impeachment" was not mentioned once during the Democratic convention. Six months after the trial that we were told over and over again the evidence was so, so, so convincing toward a guilty verdict!

43 points by bradj 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. Sure there were plenty of newspapers and outlets that leaned one way or the other, but it was never so blatantly partisan, to the point of suspect. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, but the media of today certainly doesn't act like it.

liability 6y ago
> 2004 A year or two before that you had Judith Miller at the New York Times uncritically helping the American government start a war on false pretexts. And more than a century before then, American newspapers were hard at work starting the Spanish-American War for bullshit reasons.
jweir 6y ago
This has always been the case. Thomas Jefferson called newspapers a “polluted vehicle.” Hearst and yellow journalism. Mcarthy is was not a high point in journalistic integrity - the press propelled him before Murrow took him down.
tsimionescu 6y ago
You're off by a century or two, but otherwise... In all seriousness, the press has always been the friend of the powerful - whether moneyed interests, politicians, academics and so on. You don't write for the NYT or WP or Fox News or whatever you want unless your beliefs align with the interests of their owners, their advertisers, their lobby groups etc. And even if you may write for them, you'll absolutely not be editing for them unless your beliefs align with all of the above. It's not some massive conspiracy or anything like that - it's just the way people and organizations work. No manager will hire or promote (or continue paying) someone whose opinions significantly disagree with their own, and the same is true of the manager's manager and so on. Much of this is also highly related to the owners of the media outlet. There have been historical examples of moguls buying newspapers and requiring gushing reviews of any of their businesses, and vitriolic attacks of their competitors - political partisanship is a step down from that as freedom of the press goes.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. It's literally always been that way. For a while in the late 20th Century US, the alignment of the propaganda interests of the major US media was such that it spoke with almost a single voice, but the homogeneity wasn't some kind of virtuous objectivity.
Simulacra 6y ago
Thank you for many pointing out that I'm off by a century or two, please allow me to clarify: The growth of the internet and corporate controlled media may have made the problem significantly worse, and more encompassing of the nation. I had completely forgotten about Judith Millar, thank you for point that out. I guess I remember a time when there were newspapers, and journalists were above the fray of politics. Something dragged the entire profession of journalism into the dregs and I'm at a loss to pinpoint exactly what that is.

specialist 6y ago

Ah. The journalists and reporters. Of course. Much concern. Never a mention of the owners, publishers, editors, boards, and personages of influence. Never a mention of the quid pro quo of coverage for access. We should focus all our concern on the journalists. Those dastardly story tellers using their immense power to boss around the mail clerks.

Luechkt 6y ago
Former journalist here. Spot. On.
- specialist 6y ago
  Can you recommend primers, explainers, autobiographies, collection of war stories? Something accessible to laypersons like me? After my own unsuccessful efforts, I started collecting books and articles about lawmaking (legislation). It'd be really great to have similar resources for investigative journalism.
  - MacsHeadroom 6y ago
    Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky Various works by many of these individuals: https://freedom.press/about/board/ https://freedom.press/about/board/
    - specialist 6y ago
      Hmmm. I guess what I'm hoping to find is a playbook for how to get stories published. Proven effective methods. I accept everything I've read from Chomsky and others. But I am still no smarter on what to do about it. For an analogy, Camp Wellstone teaches how to strategize policy work using tools like Power Maps.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
Trump mentions Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, all the time. But of course journalists themselves also have power. The power to decide what information reaches their readers, how it is presented - that is power. Not bossing around mail clerks.

heartbeats 6y ago

I think it's unavoidable. With social media, the incentives simply aren't there to have a media that gives a balanced view of the story anymore. That doesn't sell. Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any stance. Now, people are starting to conflate neutrality with centrism. Even a 'neutral' news outlet is expected to take some sort of stance, and not to platform extremists. If you want for something to spread, it's better for 100 people to really like it than for 1000 people to find it OK. That's the pattern we're seeing in the media right now. Mr. Smith has a quaint notion of journalism, and one which is not shared by his publisher, who indeed see it as a reasonable endeavour to 'combat Donald Trump'. I think that the future of media is to completely abandon the pretense of neutrality and to become blind cheerleaders for 'their side'; if you want the Republican coverage, you'll go to Fox or OAN, and hear the latest theories about how the President is morally infallible and how the libtards ought to be rounded up and shot. If you want the Democratic coverage, you'll go to CNN or the NY Times, and hear the latest theories about how the President is an evil man and how the fascists ought to be rounded up and thrown in prison. I don't think this will be too bad. Before, you'd trust your neutral newspaper to give you both sides of the story. Now, you'll have to read two news outlets. But this isn't the end of the world, as long as people can adapt to the change.

mgkimsal 6y ago
> Now, you'll have to read two news outlets You already can read multiple outlets for different perspectives. Most people don't. Why would that change?
- heartbeats 6y ago
  With the increasing polarization, there will have to be some point. For example, right now, Fox News at least mention negative news relating to the president, and the NY Times at least acknowledge Trump's existence. In the future, I predict the newspapers will be naked propagandists. If they judge that some thing someone says or does is going to be bad for their party, they will just ignore it outright or lie about it. In 2016, Fox News had people criticizing Trump, and CNN were (unintentionally) signal-boosting him by letting him dominate the news coverage. In say 2024, I think that Fox News will fire anyone who says anything bad about the Republican nominee, and CNN will not mention them by name on air.

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs <g>

sky_rw 6y ago

This from the people who created the standard of "According to an anonymous source familiar with his thinking". If you want to convince me that journalists are NOT the enemy of the people, then stop donating money to political causes and then publishing damning reports to opponents of those causes sourced only from unverifiable anonymous sources.

sremani 6y ago

Now is a wonderful time to read these words of Wisdom of PG https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202 "Journalists used to have a monopoly on the news. This power bred restraint; whatever their private feelings, they avoided overt personal attacks. Now this power and the consequent restraint are both evaporating. Now they're just Twitter users."

amadeuspagel 6y ago
Power doesn't breed restraint.
- dylan604 6y ago
  yeah, that seems like such an odd comment to make. power corrupts. absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It can. As anyone who's been in a leadership position can tell you, having formal power imposes informal but very real constraints on what you can say and do.
- twic 6y ago
  Yeah, these words of, well, whatever they are, are both illogical and ahistorical - journalists have been making personal attacks since the dawn of the field.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  It doesn't seem odd to me. Whether you agree with it or not, the idea that an industry recognizes their power and respects it doesn't seem that outlandish. Maybe you're the part of the problem?

shrubble 6y ago

27 years ago this appeared in Wired magazine, from a speech given by Michael Crichton...I think it applies https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/

blhack 6y ago

When was the last time you read a news article about a topic where you are an expert, and walked away from it thinking that it would help laymen better understand the topic? Journalism is a bit of a personal frustration of mine. It's so important to the function of our society to have an informed population, but we don't, and it's because of the consistent lying that is done by journalists that we don't. Maybe not solely, but the news is one of our primary sense organs, and it's currently broken, or perhaps worse: it's currently on psychadelic drugs and is telling us things that aren't real. If it goes on long enough, we're going to end up schitzophrenic as a society. I think that at the very least we are in the middle of a metaphorical psychotic break. I hope we recover from it, and I really wish that the journalists would at least try to help us, instead of blatantly trying fuel it. And while we're at it: shut down twitter. It's the drug dealer give our sensemaking organs the drugs.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
Journalists are stuck to doing the whims of owners and advertisers. We don't have a funding model purely for journalism as a mainstream practice. We do have federal funding grants for certain journalistic practices, and that journalism tends to be excellent and also completely ignored, such as focused reporting on the intersection of indigenous nationhood and the USA court system. (If that reporting were more widely known, for example, we wouldn't have had the supreme court of the united states questioning whether or not native people are capable of managing cities or what happens to criminals when discussing whether or not half of Oklahoma is native land. These are well-trod reporting subjects by specialist journalists who are highly knowledgeable in the field.) Investigative journalism still provides excellent explanations- The New York Times reporting on Clearview AI helped explain effects of the algorithm to a layperson accurately.
- dhruval 6y ago
  I have been following some News stories in depth recently and honestly you can find more neutral coverage and better analysis on some random YouTube video or reddit thread then you do on professional print / tv journalism (which given the sort of biased and selective reporting I see on both sides is either deliberately misleading or completely incompetent) At this point I think the problem to solve isn’t “journalism“. The problem is the level of respect we as a society give to traditional journalism. I think traditional journalism had 3 functions: 1. Spread Information 2. Curate Information 3. Conduct investigation/ long form analysis. ———— 1. Has been made obsolete by the internet 2. Has been hijacked by algorithms that seek to maximize attention to ads, and therefore inadvertently outrage. I think there is some opportunity for a tech enabled disruption here. 3. Is tremendously valuable. I am not sure what the funding model looks like. But I think we will figure out a solution at some point. I see no value in trying to save legacy journalism. The only reason we accord it so much prestige is due to social inertia from a bygone era. Why I should give CNN or Fox any more credibility than I would give a TiKTok video at this point? Or value a New York Times article on covid more than listening to a couple podcasts with subject matter experts and looking at the data online ? I think we need to embrace the internet. There are issues with curation, but possibly solutions as well. For eg. Maybe we can empower users to choose their own social media curation algorithms and control their feed. Rather than trying to sell their attention to the highest bidder. We would need to find a different monetization model etc.

martythemaniak 6y ago

At the end of the day, they're just another competitor in the Attention Economy. Their coverage of Big Tech for example makes a ton more sense if you view it as going after your competitors, rather than some high-minded Truth Seeking. I mean, it's not all bullshit, every participant has some differentiating angle they believe in, like Googles Organizing the World's Information, Facebook's Connecting People, NY Times' Paper of Record etc.

acruns 6y ago

I think they are the enemy of the people and our nation. Neither side can be trusted to deliver unbiased information and instead do their best to invoke feelings of fear, hostility, anger, hatred, but most of all fear in an effort to sell more commercial time/clicks/papers. And a large part of both sides look to their news outlet to confirm their bias and at the same time grow their bias based on the latest injustice/tragedy/incomprehensible outrage, further driving the (two) sides further apart, growing their hatred for the other side, fear that the other side is going to end their way of life, so on. People still mostly believe what they watch and read, blindly. Especially when it coincides with their own views. And by making up more lies, more exaggerations, or making it seem like we are all going to die if Trump/Biden gets elected as the next God, they are perpetually making things worse with each story. How hard is it to be honest and unbiased? Isn't that your job anyway?

atlgator 6y ago

It journalists were capable of objective reasoning they would’ve gone into tech instead.

dylan604 6y ago
unscrupulous people will do unscrupulous things regardless of where they work.

angel_j 6y ago

Journalism is not as important as journalist want us to think. Reporting is important. Clear, unbaised reporting gives us what we need to be informed. Nobody asks for story driven reporting, that is a fabrication. A journalist is a reporter who wants to be Real Writer. Which is to say that they want to do more than give us the facts, they want us to know it via the filter of their experience and analysis. It is a self important profession, all the moereso because universities degree it. Who gets a degree in mere reporting?

babesh 6y ago

We need better sources of news. It is somewhat happening already with the rise of individual 'reporters' on YouTube and other social media who amass followers and support themselves with patronage, advertising, merchandise, etc...

goatinaboat 6y ago

Journalism is dying because the quality the average journalist produces is no better than what can be had for free from amateurs writing blogs and tweets. They are 100% responsible for their own downfall and the compromises it has forced on them.

tohmeiphun 6y ago

The movement away from objective journalism is probably not a good thing.

bradj 6y ago

I think the prima facie case for journalists is incredibly strong, even for some of the more questionable types of journalism mentioned in the comments like explanatory journalism, narrative reporting and opinion. I think a lot of the problem today has to do with media literacy: a lack of knowledge among casual readers/viewers about the purpose of journalism, and the difference between the various kinds (and what those kinds allow in an ethical/professional sense). However, I don’t think the conversation ends there. Given that environment, institutions need to do a better job supporting journalism in a way that reflects that knowledge. I don’t know if it’s possible for a paper that calls itself “the paper of record” to include an opinion section, or even lifestyle reporting, and maintain its “objective” journalistic reputation. Opinion, interpretative, and explanatory journalism is probably best life to the magazines, or websites that explicitly share a particular editorial viewpoint. The Economist is a great example of this type of institution.

RickJWagner 6y ago

Journalism is dead. Completely dead. Just look at the Covington High School fiasco. Or look at YouTube for 'The Walls are closing in'. Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the headlines, only to dissolve in a day. Yes, true journalism is dead.

TMWNN 6y ago
> Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the headlines, only to dissolve in a day. I've heard that the word "impeachment" was not mentioned once during the Democratic convention. Six months after the trial that we were told over and over again the evidence was so, so, so convincing toward a guilty verdict!