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We should redesign the news. What would it ideally be like?
by dr_dshiv 6y ago
We should redesign the news. What would it ideally be like?
- gurleen_s 6y agoI think Axios is on the right path in keeping news reports as short as possible without too much fluff.
- zarkov99 6y agoIt would reward reporters who are honest and courageous. The incentives right now punish objectivity and reward conformity.
- verroq 6y agoI won’t call some of these reporters journalists, they are more like activists. They aren’t interested in keeping society informed, they just want to push their agenda.
- goldenManatee 6y agoBa dam bum.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoThey're like that because that's what the current system rewards. I think that's why the user you replied to said what they did.
- pjc50 6y agoThe only worthwhile journalism is activism. Discomfort the powerful. Unfortunately it's dangerous to be too good at this, see Daphne Caruana Galizia.
- verroq 6y agoThe truth doesn’t have an agenda
- aww_dang 6y agoUnfortunately, truth hasn't published any articles. So far, only subjective views have been published by fallible humans.
- zarkov99 6y agoThe fact that something cannot be done perfectly is not a valid excuse to do it poolry.
- aww_dang 6y agoAgreed. However, it would be a good reason to hedge expectations accordingly. Everyone has a bias. Much of the current political acrimony could be avoided if both speakers and listeners acknowledged this. Instead we have appeals to 'truthiness' and 'fact-check' that defy the basic premises of human nature.
- zarkov99 6y agoI am not sure admiting that there is a bias would make any difference. Its plain to see. I think the fundamental problem is that the bias is the main thing now. It trumps everything, including decency, respect for your fellow citizen or the profession. Activism has become the mission. The people who think this is OK seem to lack the imagination to realize how quickly the BS firehose can turn towards when unencumbered by the facts.
- aww_dang 6y agoI'm not sure they are aware of what they are doing. It isn't hard to imagine them claiming they're only reporting 'the truth'. Deep convictions have a way of shaping perceptions. Partisan 'fact-check' outlets are a good example of this. An admission of bias would serve as a disclaimer and a reminder for the consumer of news. Integrating the disclaimer into the writing could actively influence how the article is written.
- zarkov99 6y agoSorry, that is exactly the attitude that got us into the mess we are in. I for one care very little for activists doing journalism. Just tell people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as best as you can ascertain it and let them make their own choices.
- maxerickson 6y agoIf you have 1 hour a week or even 1 hour a day, the truths you choose to tell will look just like activism.
- zarkov99 6y agoThen you should not be in journalism. It can't be done that way and what can be done that way is worse than useless.
- maxerickson 6y agoYou aren't really addressing what I am getting at. There's too much happening for the simple editorial decisions that go into choosing what to talk about for an hour to not end up looking like bias.
- zarkov99 6y agoMaybe that makes a little sense for live media. Maybe. But you cannot tell me the nyt or wpost do not have the resources for thoughtful editorialization.
- baggy_trough 6y agoWhat a destructive point of view. There is an enormous difference between activism and journalism.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoThis opinion is quite new. Unfortunately journalism has been coopted by such folks. We do need activists, but they don’t have to be journalists. Maybe these groups on youtube that are just filming things without interrupting with questions are the journalists of the future ... https://youtu.be/pW_jsS_JnMY https://youtu.be/pW_jsS_JnMY
- watwut 6y agoIt is not new, it is more of return back to where journalism started.
- pessimizer 6y agoI wouldn't call them journalists either, more like royal scribes speaking to a class of courtiers. Real journalists have agendas other than uncritically repeating what some unnamed intelligence source told them.
- ars 6y agoIf the news could: 1. Stop publishing minority opinions as if they were representative. 2. Stop publishing minor stupidities because they are "exciting". 3. Stop trying to be entertaining or interesting. Stick with informative, and if you get less views, so be it. 4. ???? Open to suggestions. Maybe we could write up a set of voluntary rules for journalists with ethics.
- tijuco2 6y agoHere, the best definition by Denzel. The need to be first, not the need to be true. They don't care who they hurt. https://youtu.be/GXYzjYBTlpA https://youtu.be/GXYzjYBTlpA
- ravenstine 6y agoWe can't just redesign the news because the incentive structure isn't there to do so. You have to Foster a culture where people don't treat politics like religion. When the culture doesn't give undue attention to self important people who wear suits and ties, then the incentive structure changes how news is produced to fit that environment. But if we just treat issues like these as engineering problems, tweaking variables to fit a broken environment without considering the human aspect, the system simply won't support whatever improvements we try to make.
- dr_dshiv 6y agoI hear you — but I can also see the opposite perspective, at least in the case of TV journalism. Once we lost the almost religious reverence for the nightly news anchor, it devolved into pure spin. I also think that in a case like the news, there is a real need to step outside of the current cultural phenomena and engineer it — what are the known requirements for the news and how do we move from here to there.
- trilinearnz 6y agoMy idea: Wiki-style collaborative contributions, ranked by a fact-checking algorithm.