5 ms·

> The truth is, journalism has cratered. There's an old quote addressing exactly that: "When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a cons

by maratc 3y ago

> The truth is, journalism has cratered. There's an old quote addressing exactly that: "When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth." It's not that journalism has cratered, it only reached a level of what people are willing to consume.

lynx23 3y ago
Ahh, the good old "it is only for your good" argument. I don't buy it. There wouldn't be any unhappy media consumers if that statement were universally true. Everytime I read something which has been badly researched or which is blatantly trying to manipulate me and I feel like this is bad journalism, is the media givng me what I want right now? Nope.
- maratc 3y ago
  You might be mixing between "giving people what they want" and "giving you what you want". The media is in the former, not latter, business.
  - lynx23 3y ago
    The average person is to dumb to deserve quality reporting is another way to put what you just said. Even if that might be true, it doesn't change anything about my perception of modern journalism.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      It's not about deserving. You're looking at this from a slightly odd angle. It's just saying there's no conspiracy; just market forces.
      - lynx23 3y ago
        I dont remember claiming there is any sort of conspiracy. All I am saying is that you can't expect people to pay for low quality output. The other side seems to pretend that in capitalism, the consumer is supposed to pay to improve the product quality. I seriously doublt it works that way. What do media companies expect, a sort of loan from consumers for future quality articles?
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        You don't have to claim it for the precious commenter to be saying that. They could be replying to someone else.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      "Deserve"? No. "Seek"? Probably yes.
    - plemer 3y ago
      *too dumb
b3lvedere 3y ago
Willing to consume? That sounds like it is the consumers fault that the population is not getting acceptable trustworthy news, because they are not willing to consume it on some level. Very strange business model. Personally i am not willing to consume anything that is even remotely forced upon to me. I will not watch the news when companies think i should watch it. I will watch it whenever and however i want. I will not be forced into some weird guilt trip that news companies cannot publish acceptable trustworthy news because of my lack of interest and spending on it. But hey, if for another big part of the population that business model works, good for them. I don't care.
- ngvrnd 3y ago
  there is no fault; there is no guilt trip. There is no "cannot publish acceptable trustworthy etc.". These are observations and a proposed explanation that the causes described are resulting in the observed phenomena. You are not an island, or else the rest of society is your sea. You may be uninterested in your milieu, but your milieu is in[terested in] you.
ehvatum 3y ago
Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. Their viewership grew rapidly. Fast-forward. All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated. Comparatively few people care to watch. Relative to their previous work, this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue. There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line.
- Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
  > Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. One of the founders founded the proud boys. >They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. > All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated. Same as ever, nepo babies think they know everything. If you go back you see plenty of it in their early stuff too. You were just younger and noticed it less. > this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue. By 2012 they had already completely sold out when they sold the mag to i-D and still where making massive numbers. They are being sold now for 225 million despite their bankruptcy. > There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line. Fox News is the most overt political entertainment network in the planet and also the most profitable. Seems like your theory is entirely at odds with reality and your rose tinted glasses of gonzo Vice is mostly ignoring the actual content of the magazine.
  - golergka 3y ago
    > One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
johnnymorgan 3y ago
It's an interesting point but one that is flaw as the market isn't open. The problem is reverse, we thought they were giving the network what it wanted but it's clear now it's a narrative to push a world view that may or may not reflect reality. We started with trust and moved to conspiracy:)
makeitdouble 3y ago
> It's not that journalism has cratered, it only reached a level of what people are willing to consume. I've seen this in writing from journalists and writers, and feel like this is too easy of an out. It's as if readers were in a vacuum and journalism didn't affect them in any way shape or form. I don't buy that the press and media had no hand in creating the current public's lowered expectations. So perhaps it's what people are willing to consume now, but it's after decades and decades of market shaping and journalistic exposure. We can't just ignore that.
- beowulfey 3y ago
  When journalism decided to make a deal with the Devil, and ads became the main source of revenue, it was inevitable for writing to shift towards maximizing clicks. The dopamine pulses of this style cannot be ignored and so to compete all news eventually reached equilibrium in this same vein.
  - dmreedy 3y ago
    While I agree with your conclusion, for what it's worth I'm not sure journalism "decided" anything. The economic system it is embedded in did. I say that because it's not like the pattern is unique to journalism.
account42 3y ago
There doesn't need to be a conspiracy when so much of the media is consolidated that the people on top can simply make decisions that affect all of them, or just give all of them the same script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYj11qWb-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYj11qWb-M
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
Maybe superficially (as the market molds tastes as much as it caters to them), but there's a third option between conspiracy and a bad market, and it comes straight out of Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent"[0]. According to Chomsky, there are five filters "that determine what information and ideas tend to be conveyed through mass media and how they are presented": 1. "the ownership of the media"; 2. "advertising as the primary source of the income of media companies"; 3. "the sources of the information and opinions that are propagated by mass media, which are primarily government officials, business interests, and the experts who are approved of and often funded by government and business"; 4. "the negative feedback that mass media companies get when their content conflicts with these common interests"; 5. fear, i.e., "mass media have an interest in selecting and conveying information, and in molding what counts as a respectable range of opinion, in a manner that is conducive to generating fear and hostility toward anyone who would challenge the shared basic ideological presuppositions of the overall government-corporate-media complex". In other words, the media is a propaganda machine that reflects and reinforces the narrative of the regime. It involves no conspiracy, only dependence and coincidence of interest. As Chomsky would say, the media is to democracy what the police baton is to more overtly aggressive regimes. [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/03/chomskys-propaganda-model-of-mass-media.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/03/chomskys-propaganda...
- ngvrnd 3y ago
  If Chomsky is right(), then what is to be done? () I am inclined to think he is fwiw
- maratc 3y ago
  You might look into a completely a-political media outlets, like Discovery Channel on TV, or Tom's Hardware on the net. Is it a complete and utter crap compared to what it was 10-20 years ago? Absolutely. Was there any "government-corporate-media complex" involved in running them to the ground? Absolutely not. It's just that the "aliens at Nazis' service"/"best LED mice for gaming" — respectively — somehow generate more revenue (in TV/Google Ads sales) than the content these outlets ran in the past.
foxyv 3y ago
In a capitalistic economy, journalism is expensive and has to be paid for by one or two of the following: 1. Appealing to vast audiences and then selling them to someone else for a very low price per view or a subscription. (Populist) 2. Appealing to a small group that contributes handsomely to your cause. (Funded Propaganda/Self Funded) Even publicly funded media has to do something along those lines and appeal to the people who fund their organization. When consuming journalism, you always have to look at who is paying for that journalism. That will determine what they DO NOT report on. This is why it's so important to view information from competing organizations.

by maratc 3y ago

lynx23 3y ago

Ahh, the good old "it is only for your good" argument. I don't buy it. There wouldn't be any unhappy media consumers if that statement were universally true. Everytime I read something which has been badly researched or which is blatantly trying to manipulate me and I feel like this is bad journalism, is the media givng me what I want right now? Nope.

maratc 3y ago
You might be mixing between "giving people what they want" and "giving you what you want". The media is in the former, not latter, business.
- lynx23 3y ago
  The average person is to dumb to deserve quality reporting is another way to put what you just said. Even if that might be true, it doesn't change anything about my perception of modern journalism.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    It's not about deserving. You're looking at this from a slightly odd angle. It's just saying there's no conspiracy; just market forces.
    - lynx23 3y ago
      I dont remember claiming there is any sort of conspiracy. All I am saying is that you can't expect people to pay for low quality output. The other side seems to pretend that in capitalism, the consumer is supposed to pay to improve the product quality. I seriously doublt it works that way. What do media companies expect, a sort of loan from consumers for future quality articles?
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        You don't have to claim it for the precious commenter to be saying that. They could be replying to someone else.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    "Deserve"? No. "Seek"? Probably yes.
  - plemer 3y ago
    *too dumb

b3lvedere 3y ago

Willing to consume? That sounds like it is the consumers fault that the population is not getting acceptable trustworthy news, because they are not willing to consume it on some level. Very strange business model. Personally i am not willing to consume anything that is even remotely forced upon to me. I will not watch the news when companies think i should watch it. I will watch it whenever and however i want. I will not be forced into some weird guilt trip that news companies cannot publish acceptable trustworthy news because of my lack of interest and spending on it. But hey, if for another big part of the population that business model works, good for them. I don't care.

ngvrnd 3y ago
there is no fault; there is no guilt trip. There is no "cannot publish acceptable trustworthy etc.". These are observations and a proposed explanation that the causes described are resulting in the observed phenomena. You are not an island, or else the rest of society is your sea. You may be uninterested in your milieu, but your milieu is in[terested in] you.

ehvatum 3y ago

Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. Their viewership grew rapidly. Fast-forward. All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated. Comparatively few people care to watch. Relative to their previous work, this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue. There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line.

Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
> Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. One of the founders founded the proud boys. >They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. > All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated. Same as ever, nepo babies think they know everything. If you go back you see plenty of it in their early stuff too. You were just younger and noticed it less. > this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue. By 2012 they had already completely sold out when they sold the mag to i-D and still where making massive numbers. They are being sold now for 225 million despite their bankruptcy. > There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line. Fox News is the most overt political entertainment network in the planet and also the most profitable. Seems like your theory is entirely at odds with reality and your rose tinted glasses of gonzo Vice is mostly ignoring the actual content of the magazine.
- golergka 3y ago
  > One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.

johnnymorgan 3y ago

It's an interesting point but one that is flaw as the market isn't open. The problem is reverse, we thought they were giving the network what it wanted but it's clear now it's a narrative to push a world view that may or may not reflect reality. We started with trust and moved to conspiracy:)

makeitdouble 3y ago

> It's not that journalism has cratered, it only reached a level of what people are willing to consume. I've seen this in writing from journalists and writers, and feel like this is too easy of an out. It's as if readers were in a vacuum and journalism didn't affect them in any way shape or form. I don't buy that the press and media had no hand in creating the current public's lowered expectations. So perhaps it's what people are willing to consume now, but it's after decades and decades of market shaping and journalistic exposure. We can't just ignore that.

beowulfey 3y ago
When journalism decided to make a deal with the Devil, and ads became the main source of revenue, it was inevitable for writing to shift towards maximizing clicks. The dopamine pulses of this style cannot be ignored and so to compete all news eventually reached equilibrium in this same vein.
- dmreedy 3y ago
  While I agree with your conclusion, for what it's worth I'm not sure journalism "decided" anything. The economic system it is embedded in did. I say that because it's not like the pattern is unique to journalism.

account42 3y ago

There doesn't need to be a conspiracy when so much of the media is consolidated that the people on top can simply make decisions that affect all of them, or just give all of them the same script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYj11qWb-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYj11qWb-M

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

Maybe superficially (as the market molds tastes as much as it caters to them), but there's a third option between conspiracy and a bad market, and it comes straight out of Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent"[0]. According to Chomsky, there are five filters "that determine what information and ideas tend to be conveyed through mass media and how they are presented": 1. "the ownership of the media"; 2. "advertising as the primary source of the income of media companies"; 3. "the sources of the information and opinions that are propagated by mass media, which are primarily government officials, business interests, and the experts who are approved of and often funded by government and business"; 4. "the negative feedback that mass media companies get when their content conflicts with these common interests"; 5. fear, i.e., "mass media have an interest in selecting and conveying information, and in molding what counts as a respectable range of opinion, in a manner that is conducive to generating fear and hostility toward anyone who would challenge the shared basic ideological presuppositions of the overall government-corporate-media complex". In other words, the media is a propaganda machine that reflects and reinforces the narrative of the regime. It involves no conspiracy, only dependence and coincidence of interest. As Chomsky would say, the media is to democracy what the police baton is to more overtly aggressive regimes. [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/03/chomskys-propaganda-model-of-mass-media.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/03/chomskys-propaganda...

ngvrnd 3y ago
If Chomsky is right(), then what is to be done? () I am inclined to think he is fwiw
maratc 3y ago
You might look into a completely a-political media outlets, like Discovery Channel on TV, or Tom's Hardware on the net. Is it a complete and utter crap compared to what it was 10-20 years ago? Absolutely. Was there any "government-corporate-media complex" involved in running them to the ground? Absolutely not. It's just that the "aliens at Nazis' service"/"best LED mice for gaming" — respectively — somehow generate more revenue (in TV/Google Ads sales) than the content these outlets ran in the past.

foxyv 3y ago

In a capitalistic economy, journalism is expensive and has to be paid for by one or two of the following: 1. Appealing to vast audiences and then selling them to someone else for a very low price per view or a subscription. (Populist) 2. Appealing to a small group that contributes handsomely to your cause. (Funded Propaganda/Self Funded) Even publicly funded media has to do something along those lines and appeal to the people who fund their organization. When consuming journalism, you always have to look at who is paying for that journalism. That will determine what they DO NOT report on. This is why it's so important to view information from competing organizations.