8 ms·

It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen o

It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news. https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress-of-information/ https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress...

SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
Kinda like how the threat of revoking the press's access to the White House keeps them toeing the establishment line https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes.php https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes...
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  That worked well. /s
guerrilla 4y ago
This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off (especially police departments.) It's one of the ways we get all this propaganda even though we have a nominally "free" press.
- nverno 4y ago
  It's not "the same" at all. It's a matter of degrees, which make a huge difference.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    It's no different at all. You'll be excluded from press clubs and conferences just the same. Identical situation.
    - nverno 4y ago
      You can piss people/agencies off anywhere, true. But, the bar for what is expected to be tolerable behavior/reporting is vastly different.
    - Barrin92 4y ago
      not really. Japan runs under a unitary government that has almost exclusively been controlled by a single party since the post-war era. The US is a federalized country with quite big cultural differences between states, and at least alternates between two major parties, and frequently shifting administrations. You can at most get canceled by one side. Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country.
      - SenHeng 4y ago
        > Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country Singapore? The press doesn’t just toe the official line, they actively attack opposite viewpoints.
        thematrixturtle 4y ago
        The previous poster did say "democratic". Despite the fig leaf of elections, Singapore has been ruled by the same party since independence, which straight up owns all licensed newspapers, TV and radio stations. Bonus points: the TV/radio wing has the delightfully Orwellian name of MediaCorp, and MediaCorp Radio at one point had the amazing slogan "MediaCorp Radio: Your choice!".
        pas 4y ago
        so what makes Japan more democratic? (is there some power consolidation index that can distinguish between Singapore and Japan effectively?)
        aikinai 4y ago
  - vt85 4y ago
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    With police departments, it might be worse. Imagine any local news outlet frozen out of police communications. The choice is to cease to exist, or to fire or demote the person that the cops want fired or demoted. If you live in the US, the reason you've seen 900 videos of cops dancing with children, opening fire hydrants, and handing out toys (on every network news show on the same day) is because they're press released by the cops, and there will be retaliation if the videos don't get on the air.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  "This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off" They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially. Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter. This used to be called investigative journalism.
  - dmurray 4y ago
    Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive. Rephrased press releases from corporations, government bodies and celebrities sell just as well and the PR firms take full advantage of that.
    - Clubber 4y ago
      >Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive. I would just say it's not as profitable. Many independent journalists seem to do investigative journalism on the cheap. Wikileaks comes to mind. Saying it' too expensive, to me, denotes that they are unable to do it and be a sustainable enterprise, which is probably not accurate.
  - watwut 4y ago
    It is not that frequent and it is difficult/expensive to verify those stories. Plus, anonymous/unofficial source is not much. To large extend, it amounts to gossip and a lot of it is basically unuseable.
  - trs8080 4y ago
    Beat reporting and investigative journalism are very different "genres" of journalism. > They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially. You cannot sustain beat reporting by relying on leakers and disgruntled employees. Furthermore, anonymous sources are not credible (ie, the news-consuming public largely does not trust them). Most of the time, simple facts need to be reported and the only way to do that is by talking to credible sources that have been developed over time. Not all journalism is investigative - what happens when you want to report on a new housing development but you've burned all your sources because you only talk to leakers and disgruntled employees? Or you're reporting on a crime and need to talk to some cops? > Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter. City officials are pretty well trained to know when the person on the other end of the line is a reporter. Not to mention how incredibly unethical this is (won't even start on the legal issues here).
- germanier 4y ago
  Even they often try to cross the line, all German public agencies including police are required (by law in the states, by constitution for the federal level) to answer journalists' questions.
- csdreamer7 4y ago
  Yes and no. Trump actually had a reporter's white house press credentials revoked and a court reversed it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-appeals-court-blocks-white-house-from-suspending-reporters-press-pass-idUSKBN23C2P https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-ap... The court does recognize the government has a right to prevent unruly behavior. But once it creates a forum with rules on who attends; it simply can not target those who disagree with it's speech. Yes, American agencies have stonewalled in the past but the 1st and 14th amendments do place restrictions and practices the governments must follow or their acts can be blocked and that American courts do uphold. As far as I know most countries do not have these practices.
evilsetg 4y ago
I like the model of ths German Bundespressekonferenz where an organization made up of journalists invites the German goverment for press conferences instead of the other way around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespressekonferenz#Organisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespressekonferenz#Organisa...
- duckmysick 4y ago
  Can the journalist organization exclude its members if they break ranks, so to speak?
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    No. https://www.bundespressekonferenz.de/verein/satzung https://www.bundespressekonferenz.de/verein/satzung
  - cheshire_cat 4y ago
    Tilo Jung[0] has bee annoying the government spokes persons with uncomfortable questions for years. I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore (everybody is aware that the Bundespressekonferenz is a quite unique arrangement) but they still let him show up and ask questions. He does really valuable work imo and publishes all Bundespressekonferenzen on his youtube channel[1]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilo_Jung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilo_Jung [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1WDP5EiipMQ__C4Cg6aow https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1WDP5EiipMQ__C4Cg6aow
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      > I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore The thing in his early days was that he asked and "demanded" a proper answer. But often times the politicians don't want to answer to the question stated. Now you can waste everybody's time and ask again and again, without getting an answer (which is useful if you stream the event) or accept that there won't be an answer and move to the next topic (which is good if you want to write an article) But meanwhile Jung doesn't play that game that much anymore, but asks good and precise questions and more often then leaves it there.
traceroute66 4y ago
> It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs) Its the same in the UK. UK "political editors" working for the larger media outlets are granted lobby passes, which they guard like some precious gem stone. Lobby passes grant the journalists free access to certain parts of the Parliament buildings, in particular the lobby (hence the name of the pass !). It also grants them access to the Downing Street media briefings, which due to some obscure tradition, are always held behind closed doors. That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders. Its because they run scared of having their sacred lobby pass taken away from them.
- petesergeant 4y ago
  > That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders To be fair, politicians still feel the need to get on TV and face Paxman and Andrew Netflix and so on, who are happy to take them to pieces whatever their personal political leanings. That plus PMQs and constituency duties, and I think UK politicians get grilled sufficiently…
- skripp 4y ago
  I lived in London a couple of years in the early 2000s and me and my roommates used to watch Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed them when they tried their usual non-answers. Now, we were quite young and didn’t really know that much about British politics to get that much out of it but it was so refreshing to see a interviewer that didn’t just back down like they do back in my home country.
  - traceroute66 4y ago
    > Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed Yes, Paxman was good at pushing politicians. But he was not a lobby pass holder either, AFAIK. So he had nothing to loose. Politicians with a grilling fetish came to see him on Newsnight knowing exactly what they would be facing. But he equally represented a generation of political journalists that seems to have been lost with the newer generation. The new generation of political journalists seems to have lost that "dog with a bone" sprit, even those who are free of the self-imposed restrictions of the lobby pass. The Johnson partygate, for example, came out of leaks rather than tough questioning of politicians. There are rumours around that some of the more high-profile lobby journalists were at said parties....
pmoriarty 4y ago
"if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news" What happened to independent investigative reporting?
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  They don’t get invited and do their own investigation and reporting instead of paraphrasing government announcements. I think it’s the same pattern in many countries, where there will be two different rythme: almost immediate news with official communication coming in near real-time, and a second wave of news from journalists who took more time to form an opinion/check what they want to publish. Both waves happen in big newspapers, independent ones only bet on the second wave.
muyuu 4y ago
are we pretending that access to govt info and its subsequent quid-pro-quo is not a MSM dynamic basically everywhere?

SturgeonsLaw 4y ago

Kinda like how the threat of revoking the press's access to the White House keeps them toeing the establishment line https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes.php https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes...

WillPostForFood 4y ago
That worked well. /s

guerrilla 4y ago

This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off (especially police departments.) It's one of the ways we get all this propaganda even though we have a nominally "free" press.

nverno 4y ago
It's not "the same" at all. It's a matter of degrees, which make a huge difference.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  It's no different at all. You'll be excluded from press clubs and conferences just the same. Identical situation.
  - nverno 4y ago
    You can piss people/agencies off anywhere, true. But, the bar for what is expected to be tolerable behavior/reporting is vastly different.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    not really. Japan runs under a unitary government that has almost exclusively been controlled by a single party since the post-war era. The US is a federalized country with quite big cultural differences between states, and at least alternates between two major parties, and frequently shifting administrations. You can at most get canceled by one side. Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country.
    - SenHeng 4y ago
      > Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country Singapore? The press doesn’t just toe the official line, they actively attack opposite viewpoints.
      - thematrixturtle 4y ago
        The previous poster did say "democratic". Despite the fig leaf of elections, Singapore has been ruled by the same party since independence, which straight up owns all licensed newspapers, TV and radio stations. Bonus points: the TV/radio wing has the delightfully Orwellian name of MediaCorp, and MediaCorp Radio at one point had the amazing slogan "MediaCorp Radio: Your choice!".
        pas 4y ago
        so what makes Japan more democratic? (is there some power consolidation index that can distinguish between Singapore and Japan effectively?)
        aikinai 4y ago
- vt85 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y ago
  With police departments, it might be worse. Imagine any local news outlet frozen out of police communications. The choice is to cease to exist, or to fire or demote the person that the cops want fired or demoted. If you live in the US, the reason you've seen 900 videos of cops dancing with children, opening fire hydrants, and handing out toys (on every network news show on the same day) is because they're press released by the cops, and there will be retaliation if the videos don't get on the air.
pmoriarty 4y ago
"This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off" They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially. Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter. This used to be called investigative journalism.
- dmurray 4y ago
  Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive. Rephrased press releases from corporations, government bodies and celebrities sell just as well and the PR firms take full advantage of that.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    >Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive. I would just say it's not as profitable. Many independent journalists seem to do investigative journalism on the cheap. Wikileaks comes to mind. Saying it' too expensive, to me, denotes that they are unable to do it and be a sustainable enterprise, which is probably not accurate.
- watwut 4y ago
  It is not that frequent and it is difficult/expensive to verify those stories. Plus, anonymous/unofficial source is not much. To large extend, it amounts to gossip and a lot of it is basically unuseable.
- trs8080 4y ago
  Beat reporting and investigative journalism are very different "genres" of journalism. > They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially. You cannot sustain beat reporting by relying on leakers and disgruntled employees. Furthermore, anonymous sources are not credible (ie, the news-consuming public largely does not trust them). Most of the time, simple facts need to be reported and the only way to do that is by talking to credible sources that have been developed over time. Not all journalism is investigative - what happens when you want to report on a new housing development but you've burned all your sources because you only talk to leakers and disgruntled employees? Or you're reporting on a crime and need to talk to some cops? > Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter. City officials are pretty well trained to know when the person on the other end of the line is a reporter. Not to mention how incredibly unethical this is (won't even start on the legal issues here).
germanier 4y ago
Even they often try to cross the line, all German public agencies including police are required (by law in the states, by constitution for the federal level) to answer journalists' questions.
csdreamer7 4y ago
Yes and no. Trump actually had a reporter's white house press credentials revoked and a court reversed it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-appeals-court-blocks-white-house-from-suspending-reporters-press-pass-idUSKBN23C2P https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-ap... The court does recognize the government has a right to prevent unruly behavior. But once it creates a forum with rules on who attends; it simply can not target those who disagree with it's speech. Yes, American agencies have stonewalled in the past but the 1st and 14th amendments do place restrictions and practices the governments must follow or their acts can be blocked and that American courts do uphold. As far as I know most countries do not have these practices.

evilsetg 4y ago

I like the model of ths German Bundespressekonferenz where an organization made up of journalists invites the German goverment for press conferences instead of the other way around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespressekonferenz#Organisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespressekonferenz#Organisa...

duckmysick 4y ago
Can the journalist organization exclude its members if they break ranks, so to speak?
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  No. https://www.bundespressekonferenz.de/verein/satzung https://www.bundespressekonferenz.de/verein/satzung
- cheshire_cat 4y ago
  Tilo Jung[0] has bee annoying the government spokes persons with uncomfortable questions for years. I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore (everybody is aware that the Bundespressekonferenz is a quite unique arrangement) but they still let him show up and ask questions. He does really valuable work imo and publishes all Bundespressekonferenzen on his youtube channel[1]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilo_Jung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilo_Jung [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1WDP5EiipMQ__C4Cg6aow https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1WDP5EiipMQ__C4Cg6aow
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    > I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore The thing in his early days was that he asked and "demanded" a proper answer. But often times the politicians don't want to answer to the question stated. Now you can waste everybody's time and ask again and again, without getting an answer (which is useful if you stream the event) or accept that there won't be an answer and move to the next topic (which is good if you want to write an article) But meanwhile Jung doesn't play that game that much anymore, but asks good and precise questions and more often then leaves it there.

traceroute66 4y ago

> It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs) Its the same in the UK. UK "political editors" working for the larger media outlets are granted lobby passes, which they guard like some precious gem stone. Lobby passes grant the journalists free access to certain parts of the Parliament buildings, in particular the lobby (hence the name of the pass !). It also grants them access to the Downing Street media briefings, which due to some obscure tradition, are always held behind closed doors. That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders. Its because they run scared of having their sacred lobby pass taken away from them.

petesergeant 4y ago
> That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders To be fair, politicians still feel the need to get on TV and face Paxman and Andrew Netflix and so on, who are happy to take them to pieces whatever their personal political leanings. That plus PMQs and constituency duties, and I think UK politicians get grilled sufficiently…
skripp 4y ago
I lived in London a couple of years in the early 2000s and me and my roommates used to watch Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed them when they tried their usual non-answers. Now, we were quite young and didn’t really know that much about British politics to get that much out of it but it was so refreshing to see a interviewer that didn’t just back down like they do back in my home country.
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed Yes, Paxman was good at pushing politicians. But he was not a lobby pass holder either, AFAIK. So he had nothing to loose. Politicians with a grilling fetish came to see him on Newsnight knowing exactly what they would be facing. But he equally represented a generation of political journalists that seems to have been lost with the newer generation. The new generation of political journalists seems to have lost that "dog with a bone" sprit, even those who are free of the self-imposed restrictions of the lobby pass. The Johnson partygate, for example, came out of leaks rather than tough questioning of politicians. There are rumours around that some of the more high-profile lobby journalists were at said parties....

pmoriarty 4y ago

"if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news" What happened to independent investigative reporting?

makeitdouble 4y ago
They don’t get invited and do their own investigation and reporting instead of paraphrasing government announcements. I think it’s the same pattern in many countries, where there will be two different rythme: almost immediate news with official communication coming in near real-time, and a second wave of news from journalists who took more time to form an opinion/check what they want to publish. Both waves happen in big newspapers, independent ones only bet on the second wave.

muyuu 4y ago

are we pretending that access to govt info and its subsequent quid-pro-quo is not a MSM dynamic basically everywhere?