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I agree with you to the extent that so-called ‘photo-journalism’ is far more editorial and subjective than widely thought. However, journalists absolutely beli

I agree with you to the extent that so-called ‘photo-journalism’ is far more editorial and subjective than widely thought. However, journalists absolutely believe in a number of values and, as a whole, hold themselves to them. There exist a number of articles which stand as culturally important works of nonfiction. We are going to have significantly less of those, and a lot more blunders like the Bloomberg chip thing because the structures are gone. Fundamentally, I sense you just have something against the idea of expertise and ordained authority. I get that. It’s ridiculous that the Academy Awards are seen as an authoritative measurement of how good films are. But that doesn’t eliminate the wide spectrum of sophistication and depth that is much more than a TED Talk dopamine hit. The incentives and security required for in-depth, long-term reporting are gone. That’s bad.

hardbig 6y ago
> However, journalists absolutely believe in a number of values and, as a whole, hold themselves to them. The last couple of years has really hammered home how false this is Journalists are more interested in propaganda for their political parties as well as doxxing & harassing people.
- antiterra 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is, but I do think the reason it’s gotten worse is because the industry’s profit model collapsed. Now an article often has to be sensational or trigger a righteous rage in its reader, or you won’t get paid for it.
renewiltord 6y ago
The difference between the culturally significant works of non-fiction and Bloomberg News and the NYT¹ is that we can't verify the lies of the former because they are temporally distant. Haha, I think you're right about the idea of ordained authority. The difference between the academy awards and news is that you don't want sophistication in the latter. Sophistication is where truth goes to die. You want a sort of dullness to the guy: he shouldn't be too smart or too powerful so he doesn't get one over you. I've obviously got no problem with the Academy Awards or the Pulitzer or whatever. But truth and artistic quality are different things. The J.D.Power thing is just a reference to the fact that sometimes you see an award for a product and you know it is a shit product. It's sort of like a five star review on Amazon that says "In exchange for my honest and unbiased review I received this product for free". Yup, that means the product is crap. You know it, I know it. That's how you know that Chevys are shit: JD Power award. It's like if you have an MSCE: probably a shit engineer. ¹ Amusingly, the reason I knew they were bullshitters is I verified a completely unrelated news article years ago where I was a relative authority, sent them the correction, and waited. I've done this for a couple of newspapers - so I have a personal reckoning of who is a bullshitter on what. And if you haven't done that, how do you know? It's so easy to do!
- antiterra 6y ago
  No, I want this https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25677/ak-47-history-1110/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25677/ak-47-history-1... Particularly over some QAnon believer’s tweet roll. If you’re an expert or in a position of particular insight, a great deal of articles are going to have annoying errors or miss context. It’s like Neil Degrasse Tyson getting angry that we say the sun sets when it’s actually the earth rotating. This hasn’t gotten any better with amateur journalism and less sophistication. Having left at least one environment where I considered my insider information to give me a superior perspective, I realized my insider position itself created bias. We’re all subject to Rashomon, and should be in conversation with each other to hone working models. NB I know people with A+ or MCSE certs that obtained them as part of the non-collegiate path into tech and who are genuinely great engineers.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Sure, but they literally read the wrong numbers. They read operating cost as net revenue or growth as total revenue or some such nonsense. Haha! Some dumbass out there reading Bloomberg probably believed it too. Sucker. Not only did I have insider info, I also knew the public source from where they got it and how they misread it. And yeah, I'm also sure there's at least one car out there with a J D Power award that isn't crap. Maybe not two, but maybe one. I actually enjoyed the linked article - though I don't know how true it is. Just finished it. To butcher a famous quotation: "God made America a superpower and Vietnam a small jungle state. Sam Colt made them equal".

hardbig 6y ago

> However, journalists absolutely believe in a number of values and, as a whole, hold themselves to them. The last couple of years has really hammered home how false this is Journalists are more interested in propaganda for their political parties as well as doxxing & harassing people.

antiterra 6y ago
I don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is, but I do think the reason it’s gotten worse is because the industry’s profit model collapsed. Now an article often has to be sensational or trigger a righteous rage in its reader, or you won’t get paid for it.

renewiltord 6y ago

The difference between the culturally significant works of non-fiction and Bloomberg News and the NYT¹ is that we can't verify the lies of the former because they are temporally distant. Haha, I think you're right about the idea of ordained authority. The difference between the academy awards and news is that you don't want sophistication in the latter. Sophistication is where truth goes to die. You want a sort of dullness to the guy: he shouldn't be too smart or too powerful so he doesn't get one over you. I've obviously got no problem with the Academy Awards or the Pulitzer or whatever. But truth and artistic quality are different things. The J.D.Power thing is just a reference to the fact that sometimes you see an award for a product and you know it is a shit product. It's sort of like a five star review on Amazon that says "In exchange for my honest and unbiased review I received this product for free". Yup, that means the product is crap. You know it, I know it. That's how you know that Chevys are shit: JD Power award. It's like if you have an MSCE: probably a shit engineer. ¹ Amusingly, the reason I knew they were bullshitters is I verified a completely unrelated news article years ago where I was a relative authority, sent them the correction, and waited. I've done this for a couple of newspapers - so I have a personal reckoning of who is a bullshitter on what. And if you haven't done that, how do you know? It's so easy to do!

antiterra 6y ago
No, I want this https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25677/ak-47-history-1110/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25677/ak-47-history-1... Particularly over some QAnon believer’s tweet roll. If you’re an expert or in a position of particular insight, a great deal of articles are going to have annoying errors or miss context. It’s like Neil Degrasse Tyson getting angry that we say the sun sets when it’s actually the earth rotating. This hasn’t gotten any better with amateur journalism and less sophistication. Having left at least one environment where I considered my insider information to give me a superior perspective, I realized my insider position itself created bias. We’re all subject to Rashomon, and should be in conversation with each other to hone working models. NB I know people with A+ or MCSE certs that obtained them as part of the non-collegiate path into tech and who are genuinely great engineers.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Sure, but they literally read the wrong numbers. They read operating cost as net revenue or growth as total revenue or some such nonsense. Haha! Some dumbass out there reading Bloomberg probably believed it too. Sucker. Not only did I have insider info, I also knew the public source from where they got it and how they misread it. And yeah, I'm also sure there's at least one car out there with a J D Power award that isn't crap. Maybe not two, but maybe one. I actually enjoyed the linked article - though I don't know how true it is. Just finished it. To butcher a famous quotation: "God made America a superpower and Vietnam a small jungle state. Sam Colt made them equal".