> Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism. To offer a bit more nuance: consumers care about enough integrity; and powerful institutions (public or pr

> Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism. To offer a bit more nuance: consumers care about enough integrity; and powerful institutions (public or private), who stand to win or lose based on press narratives, care about enough "fairness" to their own perspectives (and interests). Looking purely at realpolitik incentives, journalistic institutions can straddle that line and hit well over 50% on both fronts. Not to pick on the guy, but my poster child for this phenomenon is Daring Fireball's John Gruber: he's built a longstanding personal brand of integrity, covering Apple-centric tech for 20 years, and is frequently critical of the company and its products. And yet, he's frequently given preferential treatment by the company and its executives, because that same history has also signaled a (heartfelt) bias to being sympathetic to Apple's values and motives, meaning execs have a high confidence that reviews will be fair, interviews will be free of the scariest "gotcha" questions, etc.