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> They would chase a story not because it was profitable, but because it was important They operated the same way they do now, and worked on whatever their bos
by tomnipotent 5y ago
> They would chase a story not because it was profitable, but because it was important
They operated the same way they do now, and worked on whatever their bosses told them to work on. It's just romantic to think they were unburdened by our mortal contrivances and somehow had the wherewithal to pick out "important" stories.
- brundolf 5y agoDo you push for good engineering practices at your job, even when they go beyond the quarterly business goals? I know I do. It doesn't have to be just one or the other. You can have principles and push for what you believe to be good, even if your boss is ultimately profit-driven (even if you have some profit-incentive of your own!). Multiple factors come together. It's incredibly cynical of you to paint that sort of basic integrity as nothing but a romantic fantasy. What I feel like I'm seeing today is that people are either less willing or less able to enact higher principles in their work. It could very possibly be a power-dynamic thing, or it could just be the spread of general cynicism like yours.
- tomnipotent 5y agoAll professions have a distribution of competence, whether you're looking at programmers or journalists. There's no evidence that the distribution of good journalists has fundamentally changed over time other than the effects of just a larger pool of eligible candidates. A quick glance through Peabody and Pulitzer winners over time can quickly confirm this. If anything, I'd argue people are far more principled today than any other point in recorded history. Maybe they're just not your principles.