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We love to scapegoat the media. If you could capture the public's attention and make tons of money focusing on class, someone would do it and dominate discours

We love to scapegoat the media. If you could capture the public's attention and make tons of money focusing on class, someone would do it and dominate discourse. Maybe not existing institutions, but certainly there's nothing preventing someone else from taking to the field. Indeed, there is no shortage of media that do focus on class issues, but they are invariably small & marginalized. Media will literally eat poop in exchange for attention and the wealth and influence that comes with it. Pretending that the reason they're not talking about class is because of some misguided focus of those in the industry is absurd. It's just... if you don't pretend, then you have to place the blame elsewhere, and nobody wants to.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
> If you could capture the public's attention and make tons of money focusing on class, someone would do it and dominate discourse Well...Both Bobby Kennedy and MLK tried to shift the narrative and...the only thing they dominated was the graveyard. Point made. Lesson taught. And learned. re: Misguided focus?? Lol. You missed the point. They are lazer focused on...exactly what they're told and paid to stay focused on. Else it's negligence and incompetence and that just doesn't make sense.
chiefalchemist 4y ago
Suggested reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 Conclusion: We're not being harsh enough. We've been lowering the bar, not raising it. And it shows.
- cbsmith 4y ago
  To clarify, I wouldn't deny that the bar is lowering (as you said, it shows). The narrative scapegoating of the media invariably implies that the media is detached from the public and is following its own agenda on this matter. There's lots of ways that the "media elite" are detached from the public and consequently are disconnected from the marketplace; this is NOT one of them. The unacknowledged truth behind "Actual news outlets covering actual news have an enormous incentive to cut corners on this stuff", and "that all sells better than Lehrer’s guidelines do" is that it's consumers of media who are firmly driving this trend. If the audience valued Lehrer's guidelines more, there'd not be an enormous incentive to cut corners. If anything, the folks who work in media overvalue Lehrer's guidelines as compared to the market. It's not them who is doing it.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

> If you could capture the public's attention and make tons of money focusing on class, someone would do it and dominate discourse Well...Both Bobby Kennedy and MLK tried to shift the narrative and...the only thing they dominated was the graveyard. Point made. Lesson taught. And learned. re: Misguided focus?? Lol. You missed the point. They are lazer focused on...exactly what they're told and paid to stay focused on. Else it's negligence and incompetence and that just doesn't make sense.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

Suggested reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 Conclusion: We're not being harsh enough. We've been lowering the bar, not raising it. And it shows.

cbsmith 4y ago
To clarify, I wouldn't deny that the bar is lowering (as you said, it shows). The narrative scapegoating of the media invariably implies that the media is detached from the public and is following its own agenda on this matter. There's lots of ways that the "media elite" are detached from the public and consequently are disconnected from the marketplace; this is NOT one of them. The unacknowledged truth behind "Actual news outlets covering actual news have an enormous incentive to cut corners on this stuff", and "that all sells better than Lehrer’s guidelines do" is that it's consumers of media who are firmly driving this trend. If the audience valued Lehrer's guidelines more, there'd not be an enormous incentive to cut corners. If anything, the folks who work in media overvalue Lehrer's guidelines as compared to the market. It's not them who is doing it.