7 ms·

I think that's debatable. As much as journalism has been democratized it's also nose-dived in quality. And I don't mean the MSM. The overwhelming majority of "c

by tootie 5y ago

I think that's debatable. As much as journalism has been democratized it's also nose-dived in quality. And I don't mean the MSM. The overwhelming majority of "citizen journalists" are producing very low quality or even downright detrimental work. At the same time, a lot of professional journalism has sacrificed quality for revenue. Public media like PBS and NPR affiliates are intended to promote professional journalism (or other edifying content) without the corruption of a profit motive.

WalterBright 5y ago
> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  The fact that they're beholden to different stakeholders is precisely why it's important to have robust publicly funded journalism and/or donor funded journalism in addition to traditional for-profit advertiser funded journalism. Just as traditional news outlets are reluctant to upset their advertisers. Donor-funded local newspapers are hesitant to upset big local donors. The BBC is awesome at covering non-clickbaity stories that would never get the time of day from a profit-oriented news outlet, but has always gone easy on whoever is currently in power in the U.K. At the end of the day, quality investigative journalism costs money, that money has to come from somewhere, and it's best if that money comes from many places rather than one. Allocating more money toward publicly funded and donor-funded news in the U.S. would help to counter to the monstrous infotainment media empires that advertisers have built. Also, have you read or listened to public news recently? It feels like reading a textbook or eating raw vegetables: refreshingly dull. We need more of it.
  - babesh 5y ago
    The news that is pushed to you nowadays is already increasingly donor funded. The last 10 years, the tech elite have purchased many sense making media. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs. The New Republic is owned by Chris Hughes. The Intercept is owned by Pierre Omidyar. The narrowing and shifting of the Overton window is precisely due to donor funded journalism. It is just a reflection of the underlying shift in power in the society and economy as a whole. Public news being dull is actually really bad. It means that there is no real debate. You are being fed what to think.
    - babesh 5y ago
      Also all 'sides' play this game. It is a reflection of the shift in power in the society as a whole. Oil has lost power. The Koch brother(s) have lost power. Tech has gained power and now exerts influence. Education has gained power. Healthcare has gained power.
- relaxing 5y ago
  Very true. I remember vividly growing up in the 1980s and watching Big Bird explain the moral hazard of government-subsidized school lunches. The segment where Super Grover delivered weapons to Iranian forces in Iraq in exchange for funds for CIA-backed rebel groups in Nicaragua seemed rather convoluted and, frankly, outlandish, but I accepted it with an open mind. These days I am more wise to the ways of the world, and it seems clear that had PBS’s intrusion into the free market not driven out private investment in educational television, I could have instead been exposed to superior, corporate-sponsored values. Alas.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > I could have instead been exposed to superior, corporate-sponsored values. Alas. I am indeed sorry you didn't get to enjoy Bugs Bunny, Wile E Coyote, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and other corporate sponsored values. You've been deprived.
- tootie 5y ago
  If the money comes from listeners (and most of it does) then they are beholden to listeners. It's quite different than being beholden to companies.
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure most of the money does not come from listeners, that's a myth they promulgate. The local stations are mostly rinkydink organizations that raise money from listeners (and say "listener support") and funnel it to the national organization to purchase the programming, but the national organization thrives on govt subsidies and keeps the budgets pretty much secret.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Do you have a more effective system in mind?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Nobody's ever come up with one, other than the free market. That's why the Constitution does not allow the government to limit free speech. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the belief that it's the profit motive that leads to corruption. Even a casual review of history will amply show that government funded news is not independent journalism nor unbiased journalism.
    - b3morales 5y ago
      The US has always had a distinction between state and public ownership. You can do things on public lands that are restricted on government lands, for example.* The same can hold, and has held in the past, for Public media -- it does not necessarily mean State media. It requires effort to maintain the separation, yes, but not an impossible amount of effort. *Not that the CPB is actually owned by the public, but the principle is closely related.
    - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
      Well maybe if we spend enough time pontificating about the theoretical corruption of imperfect solutions a better one will fall from the sky on a stone tablet.
kortilla 5y ago
Are you just looking at previous journalism with rose colored glasses?
- rpmisms 5y ago
  I recommend you read some newspaper articles from the 1920s and 1930s. Witty, well-written, and much less discernible spin than current news articles. Journalism has declined as a trade, there is no question. The real issue is whether journalism is net worse for society than it previously was.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Disclaimer: I've not specialised in media history, though I've been exploring it for a few years. You can find clear bias through sources such as I.F. Stone (active 1950s -- 1970s), or George Seldes (1930s -- 1960s, lived to 1995). Earlier muckrakers included Upton Sinclair (The Jungle and It Can't Happen Here, 1910s -- 1950s), Ida M. Tarbell (The History of Standard Oil, 1890s -- 1920s), and Lincoln Steffans and Ray Stannard Baker (both late 19th century / early 20th). There's a phenomenal interview with Stone from 1974 on ... Public Television's ... "Day at Night" programme: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://youtube.com/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g I've commented numerous times recommending Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism (1909), a short book highlighting the influence of advertising on media. It's short, readable, fact-filled, and available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922) largely established the model for the "impartial press" (so called, only partially successful as such) during the bulk of the 20th century. It was based in significant part on Lippmann's own experience with failures of the news media in reporting accurately on the Russian Revolution of 1917--23. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.126489/page/n1/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.126489/page/n1... Other authors I'd recommend would be Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (the title itself is a reference to Lippmann's work), Robert W. McChesney's many books on media, Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (cited in the famouse Google "Backrub" paper (http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html), Neil Postman's Amusing Ourself to Death, and Edward Jay Espstein, News from Nowhere (https://archive.org/details/newsfromnowheret00epst https://archive.org/details/newsfromnowheret00epst). The last looks at television news as of 1971, including the numerous biases built in to the medium through narrative focus, budget constraints, and technological limitations, as well as the pace and scale of operations. Not all of those still apply, though some do, but it does remain a persuasive argument of how even incidental characteristics can profoundly influence a medium. For contemporaneous criticisms of television, see Edward J. Murrow's "Lights and Wires in a Box" speech, and Newton Minnow's "Vast Wasteland" speech, from the late 1950s / early 1960s. https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_l... http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm I've compiled a few further references concerning media generally in a "light reading list": https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...
hcurtiss 5y ago
A profit motive is not necessarily bad. Likewise, there are other ulterior motives that may inform "public broadcasting." There's a fine line between publicly-funded journalism and state-sponsored propaganda.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  do you believe that PBS or NPR have crossed that line in ways that for-profit, privately-owned media has not?
  - Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
    No, but they haven't not, either. NPR is notoriously biased and niche in its politics. Ask anyone on the half of the country who doesn't vote blue, or necessarily get along with the latest developments in gender identity, of NPR gives their worldview any coverage whatsoever that isn't bashing and negative.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      As someone who votes blue, they do not. In addition, their coverage of Jeff Bezos on his space journey really drove home that they aren't without external influence.
      - stapedium 5y ago
        As someone who self-identifies as Hispanic, I find NPRs insistence on the term LatinX offensive. I’m a middle of the road New Yorker but NPR pushes their way out of journalism and into advocacy any time gender or sexual identity enter the conversation. And due to the risk of being labled anti-Semitic I’ll stay away from their coverage of anything Israel related.
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        And yet elsewhere in this comment thread we have people saying that "NPR is the Ikea of radio". So it seems that people's take on "what NPR is" is fairly varied, and it seems likely that it varies in part based on specific "touchstone" issues that are important to a particular group of people, but far from everyone.
sidlls 5y ago
That may be the intent, but the result is that PBS and NPR still tailor their news content to their supporters' desires (or what, perhaps, editors at these organizations believe are the desires). NPR especially is terrible at presenting real journalism. When it's not "both sides get equal time, even if there's only one fact-based side", it's vanity puff piece interviews and similar content, just like for-profit networks. There is also a very real bias in their political coverage toward mainstream, center-right politicians. These days that'd be "centrist" democrats, mainly, but they didn't get the monicker "Nice Polite Republicans" for no reason....
- adamc 5y ago
  Evidence rather than opinion would be helpful. This is all opinion.
  - stapedium 5y ago
    So is most of NPRs “analysis and context”
- coding123 5y ago
  I find that NPRs stations, at least on the left coast, are pretty damn left leaning.
ekianjo 5y ago
you can still be corrupted even if you are not corrupted by profit. Its not like journalists or organizationa have no bias.

by tootie 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
The fact that they're beholden to different stakeholders is precisely why it's important to have robust publicly funded journalism and/or donor funded journalism in addition to traditional for-profit advertiser funded journalism. Just as traditional news outlets are reluctant to upset their advertisers. Donor-funded local newspapers are hesitant to upset big local donors. The BBC is awesome at covering non-clickbaity stories that would never get the time of day from a profit-oriented news outlet, but has always gone easy on whoever is currently in power in the U.K. At the end of the day, quality investigative journalism costs money, that money has to come from somewhere, and it's best if that money comes from many places rather than one. Allocating more money toward publicly funded and donor-funded news in the U.S. would help to counter to the monstrous infotainment media empires that advertisers have built. Also, have you read or listened to public news recently? It feels like reading a textbook or eating raw vegetables: refreshingly dull. We need more of it.
- babesh 5y ago
  The news that is pushed to you nowadays is already increasingly donor funded. The last 10 years, the tech elite have purchased many sense making media. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs. The New Republic is owned by Chris Hughes. The Intercept is owned by Pierre Omidyar. The narrowing and shifting of the Overton window is precisely due to donor funded journalism. It is just a reflection of the underlying shift in power in the society and economy as a whole. Public news being dull is actually really bad. It means that there is no real debate. You are being fed what to think.
  - babesh 5y ago
    Also all 'sides' play this game. It is a reflection of the shift in power in the society as a whole. Oil has lost power. The Koch brother(s) have lost power. Tech has gained power and now exerts influence. Education has gained power. Healthcare has gained power.
relaxing 5y ago
Very true. I remember vividly growing up in the 1980s and watching Big Bird explain the moral hazard of government-subsidized school lunches. The segment where Super Grover delivered weapons to Iranian forces in Iraq in exchange for funds for CIA-backed rebel groups in Nicaragua seemed rather convoluted and, frankly, outlandish, but I accepted it with an open mind. These days I am more wise to the ways of the world, and it seems clear that had PBS’s intrusion into the free market not driven out private investment in educational television, I could have instead been exposed to superior, corporate-sponsored values. Alas.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > I could have instead been exposed to superior, corporate-sponsored values. Alas. I am indeed sorry you didn't get to enjoy Bugs Bunny, Wile E Coyote, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and other corporate sponsored values. You've been deprived.
tootie 5y ago
If the money comes from listeners (and most of it does) then they are beholden to listeners. It's quite different than being beholden to companies.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure most of the money does not come from listeners, that's a myth they promulgate. The local stations are mostly rinkydink organizations that raise money from listeners (and say "listener support") and funnel it to the national organization to purchase the programming, but the national organization thrives on govt subsidies and keeps the budgets pretty much secret.
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
Do you have a more effective system in mind?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Nobody's ever come up with one, other than the free market. That's why the Constitution does not allow the government to limit free speech. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the belief that it's the profit motive that leads to corruption. Even a casual review of history will amply show that government funded news is not independent journalism nor unbiased journalism.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    The US has always had a distinction between state and public ownership. You can do things on public lands that are restricted on government lands, for example.* The same can hold, and has held in the past, for Public media -- it does not necessarily mean State media. It requires effort to maintain the separation, yes, but not an impossible amount of effort. *Not that the CPB is actually owned by the public, but the principle is closely related.
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    Well maybe if we spend enough time pontificating about the theoretical corruption of imperfect solutions a better one will fall from the sky on a stone tablet.

kortilla 5y ago

Are you just looking at previous journalism with rose colored glasses?

rpmisms 5y ago
I recommend you read some newspaper articles from the 1920s and 1930s. Witty, well-written, and much less discernible spin than current news articles. Journalism has declined as a trade, there is no question. The real issue is whether journalism is net worse for society than it previously was.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I've not specialised in media history, though I've been exploring it for a few years. You can find clear bias through sources such as I.F. Stone (active 1950s -- 1970s), or George Seldes (1930s -- 1960s, lived to 1995). Earlier muckrakers included Upton Sinclair (The Jungle and It Can't Happen Here, 1910s -- 1950s), Ida M. Tarbell (The History of Standard Oil, 1890s -- 1920s), and Lincoln Steffans and Ray Stannard Baker (both late 19th century / early 20th). There's a phenomenal interview with Stone from 1974 on ... Public Television's ... "Day at Night" programme: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://youtube.com/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g I've commented numerous times recommending Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism (1909), a short book highlighting the influence of advertising on media. It's short, readable, fact-filled, and available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922) largely established the model for the "impartial press" (so called, only partially successful as such) during the bulk of the 20th century. It was based in significant part on Lippmann's own experience with failures of the news media in reporting accurately on the Russian Revolution of 1917--23. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.126489/page/n1/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.126489/page/n1... Other authors I'd recommend would be Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (the title itself is a reference to Lippmann's work), Robert W. McChesney's many books on media, Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (cited in the famouse Google "Backrub" paper (http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html), Neil Postman's Amusing Ourself to Death, and Edward Jay Espstein, News from Nowhere (https://archive.org/details/newsfromnowheret00epst https://archive.org/details/newsfromnowheret00epst). The last looks at television news as of 1971, including the numerous biases built in to the medium through narrative focus, budget constraints, and technological limitations, as well as the pace and scale of operations. Not all of those still apply, though some do, but it does remain a persuasive argument of how even incidental characteristics can profoundly influence a medium. For contemporaneous criticisms of television, see Edward J. Murrow's "Lights and Wires in a Box" speech, and Newton Minnow's "Vast Wasteland" speech, from the late 1950s / early 1960s. https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_l... http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm I've compiled a few further references concerning media generally in a "light reading list": https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...

hcurtiss 5y ago

A profit motive is not necessarily bad. Likewise, there are other ulterior motives that may inform "public broadcasting." There's a fine line between publicly-funded journalism and state-sponsored propaganda.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
do you believe that PBS or NPR have crossed that line in ways that for-profit, privately-owned media has not?
- Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  No, but they haven't not, either. NPR is notoriously biased and niche in its politics. Ask anyone on the half of the country who doesn't vote blue, or necessarily get along with the latest developments in gender identity, of NPR gives their worldview any coverage whatsoever that isn't bashing and negative.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    As someone who votes blue, they do not. In addition, their coverage of Jeff Bezos on his space journey really drove home that they aren't without external influence.
    - stapedium 5y ago
      As someone who self-identifies as Hispanic, I find NPRs insistence on the term LatinX offensive. I’m a middle of the road New Yorker but NPR pushes their way out of journalism and into advocacy any time gender or sexual identity enter the conversation. And due to the risk of being labled anti-Semitic I’ll stay away from their coverage of anything Israel related.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        And yet elsewhere in this comment thread we have people saying that "NPR is the Ikea of radio". So it seems that people's take on "what NPR is" is fairly varied, and it seems likely that it varies in part based on specific "touchstone" issues that are important to a particular group of people, but far from everyone.

sidlls 5y ago

That may be the intent, but the result is that PBS and NPR still tailor their news content to their supporters' desires (or what, perhaps, editors at these organizations believe are the desires). NPR especially is terrible at presenting real journalism. When it's not "both sides get equal time, even if there's only one fact-based side", it's vanity puff piece interviews and similar content, just like for-profit networks. There is also a very real bias in their political coverage toward mainstream, center-right politicians. These days that'd be "centrist" democrats, mainly, but they didn't get the monicker "Nice Polite Republicans" for no reason....

adamc 5y ago
Evidence rather than opinion would be helpful. This is all opinion.
- stapedium 5y ago
  So is most of NPRs “analysis and context”
coding123 5y ago
I find that NPRs stations, at least on the left coast, are pretty damn left leaning.

ekianjo 5y ago

you can still be corrupted even if you are not corrupted by profit. Its not like journalists or organizationa have no bias.