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I love that obit because it's so funny. But to take it seriously? To look for guidance there, from Hunter S. Thompson? Bad idea. > Facts you can find on Wik
by slibhb 6y ago
I love that obit because it's so funny. But to take it seriously? To look for guidance there, from Hunter S. Thompson? Bad idea.
> Facts you can find on Wikipedia or in the phone book
This is the problem. For the most part, journalists are using the same facts everyone has access to (from wikipedia, google searches, or...twitter). So why do we need journalists? To tell us what to think about the facts?
To the extent that journalists are doing that, we no longer need them. There's a place for journalism, but it involves uncovering new facts, not telling us what to think about publicly available information.
Also, badgers don't actually fight best on their backs.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago"Uncovering new facts": yes, that's reporting. We need that. But there are actually too many facts. People can't read all the facts. We also need "analysis" - putting the facts in perspective, deciding which ones are important, and why. But, and here's where the press has failed spectacularly, we need that analysis to be unbiased, not pushing an agenda, but actually letting the data drive the narrative.
- Thlom 6y agoAh, the holy grail, unbiased journalistic analysis! Which unfortunately is impossible.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI think it actually is impossible, in any absolute sense. But it's possible to do better than they're doing...