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Reading the blog it often comes across as a terrifying tale of Orwellian aggressive state power. Kudos to Craig and all those committed and brave enough to stic

Reading the blog it often comes across as a terrifying tale of Orwellian aggressive state power. Kudos to Craig and all those committed and brave enough to stick with it. It is an internationally important trial for news journalists everywhere. Shame on the so-called mainstream media for completely, wilfully, ignoring the proceedings.

dalbasal 6y ago
>>"Shame on the so-called mainstream media" While I think a lot of media bashing is trite, this really does need to be said in this case. "The media" is probably even wrong term. That calls to mind a corporate industry mostly about entertainment. Here, what is wrong is "journalism." Mainstream "journalism" isn't doing its job, even though this story relates directly to stuff of interest to journalism. Confidentiality of sources. Freedom of the press. What happens when journalism upsets powerful people and institutions. etc. Whatever your opinions of Assange himself, the Assange case is setting precedents that will play out over the next generation. Part of the irony here is that I am sure journalists are all following the case. They're just not reporting on it very much.
- IndySun 6y ago
  Thanks. I chose "so-called" for that very reason. And I agree to adding "journalism" or "news content provider" to more accurately reflect what's going on.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    I think it might be time to make this distinction again. Journalism, at least in principle, can be held to a journalistic standard, and ethical code even.
- milesvp 6y ago
  Much of the fourth estate has eroded in the last 15 years as revenues declined for local newspapers. As the fastest shrinking industry for many of those years, they have lost considerable economic leverage to be able to do what we, for the last 70 years, consider journalism. Add to that massive consolidation of the industry that was made possible by changes in legislation in the last 30 years, and you're left with a shadow of what previously existed. News staff have been in sharp decline along with these drops in revenue as well so there's just fewer people to write the stories that might be important, but less popular. And that's not even getting into television journalism. I don't have much first hand about it, but my suspicion there is that the proliferation of cable news led to a similar fall in revenue for the journalism that network news used to be able to support. Worse, is I think the proliferation of cable news started to change news consumption, making it more and more a form of entertainment, and less and less a form of information and contemplation. Then there's the internet... I once believed that the internet would set the world free, by making it easier and easier to gain knowledge. And while, I personally find it easier to gain specific knowledge than ever (even while the average quality drops precipitously), there's just so much information (for lack of a better word) being pushed to us daily that things like long term issues related to whistle blower extradition, just has too much to compete with, even if it may have very serious repercussions. So yeah. Mainstream journalism isn't what it used to be. There's some hope, in that it's easier for an individual to publish content, so more random important topics have a chance to surface. But the noise, there's so much of it that these voices are just drowned out. And, I am really grateful for HN, because the quality of content that bubbles up is quite high (especially in the comments), but I don't ever see the golden age of news journalism coming back.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    I don't think it's purely economic. There was a cultural shift. Also, I'm not sure when the golden age of journalism was. There was never really an age where people att though journalism was great. Anyway, I think the cultural shift has more to do with journalists competing with everyone else (politicians, moms, whoever) directly. When a journalist tweets, it's just a tweet. I think that has eroded their sense of the professional responsibility. I don't really want to point the finger too sharply though. As I said at the start, I think a lot of media bashing is trite. Still... there is a lack of something exposing itself in this instance.
deleted 6y ago
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dalbasal 6y ago

>>"Shame on the so-called mainstream media" While I think a lot of media bashing is trite, this really does need to be said in this case. "The media" is probably even wrong term. That calls to mind a corporate industry mostly about entertainment. Here, what is wrong is "journalism." Mainstream "journalism" isn't doing its job, even though this story relates directly to stuff of interest to journalism. Confidentiality of sources. Freedom of the press. What happens when journalism upsets powerful people and institutions. etc. Whatever your opinions of Assange himself, the Assange case is setting precedents that will play out over the next generation. Part of the irony here is that I am sure journalists are all following the case. They're just not reporting on it very much.

IndySun 6y ago
Thanks. I chose "so-called" for that very reason. And I agree to adding "journalism" or "news content provider" to more accurately reflect what's going on.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  I think it might be time to make this distinction again. Journalism, at least in principle, can be held to a journalistic standard, and ethical code even.
milesvp 6y ago
Much of the fourth estate has eroded in the last 15 years as revenues declined for local newspapers. As the fastest shrinking industry for many of those years, they have lost considerable economic leverage to be able to do what we, for the last 70 years, consider journalism. Add to that massive consolidation of the industry that was made possible by changes in legislation in the last 30 years, and you're left with a shadow of what previously existed. News staff have been in sharp decline along with these drops in revenue as well so there's just fewer people to write the stories that might be important, but less popular. And that's not even getting into television journalism. I don't have much first hand about it, but my suspicion there is that the proliferation of cable news led to a similar fall in revenue for the journalism that network news used to be able to support. Worse, is I think the proliferation of cable news started to change news consumption, making it more and more a form of entertainment, and less and less a form of information and contemplation. Then there's the internet... I once believed that the internet would set the world free, by making it easier and easier to gain knowledge. And while, I personally find it easier to gain specific knowledge than ever (even while the average quality drops precipitously), there's just so much information (for lack of a better word) being pushed to us daily that things like long term issues related to whistle blower extradition, just has too much to compete with, even if it may have very serious repercussions. So yeah. Mainstream journalism isn't what it used to be. There's some hope, in that it's easier for an individual to publish content, so more random important topics have a chance to surface. But the noise, there's so much of it that these voices are just drowned out. And, I am really grateful for HN, because the quality of content that bubbles up is quite high (especially in the comments), but I don't ever see the golden age of news journalism coming back.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  I don't think it's purely economic. There was a cultural shift. Also, I'm not sure when the golden age of journalism was. There was never really an age where people att though journalism was great. Anyway, I think the cultural shift has more to do with journalists competing with everyone else (politicians, moms, whoever) directly. When a journalist tweets, it's just a tweet. I think that has eroded their sense of the professional responsibility. I don't really want to point the finger too sharply though. As I said at the start, I think a lot of media bashing is trite. Still... there is a lack of something exposing itself in this instance.

deleted 6y ago

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