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> Because Journalists are trained to be good communicators and summarize ideas (a worthwhile skill in most professions) and they are also taught to be ferocious

> Because Journalists are trained to be good communicators and summarize ideas (a worthwhile skill in most professions) and they are also taught to be ferocious in finding and corroborating information for its "truthiness". While that's certainly the ideal of journalism, the field routinely falls pretty short on this, IMHO. Sensationalism and clickbait isn't anything new. Just lookup Yellow journalism. Unfortunately nowadays it feels like the truthiness aspect is just conflated with corporate group think. But it's great to see instances like this where a journalist doggedly question those in power.

callalex 3y ago
The negative outcomes you describe are fairly independent from the training curriculum in school though. An equivalent would be saying that computer science degrees are worthless because sometimes people become parasites who work in adtech or fintech.
- unsui 3y ago
  Agreed. Those are all straw men, rather than the the natural consequence of a journalism education.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    I'd argue that the "evils" of modern journalism are more a consequence of economic failures in their employers than journalist themselves. As came out in the Dominion v Fox News discovery, even the most political journalists are still disgusted by the things they have financial and management pressure to peddle.
    - themitigating 3y ago
      Not disgusted enough to leave their job even though many are wealthy to extremely wealthy. Not disgusted enough to stop supporting Republicans. I can understand someone who works at a newspaper and makes 70k a year so they have to report on sensational stories but Tucker Carlons net worth is $380~ million. The key people at Foxnews were shocked and mad at the outrageous claims but for them the ends justify the means.
- rhapsodic 3y ago
  [dead]
alphabettsy 3y ago
People do what they must to live. Like many other professions, some people are paid to do things they probably would rather not.
- tappederrting 3y ago
  [dead]
uoaei 3y ago
There's even more insidious influences on how narratives are built and propagated than just lying or not. Saying things that are "not even wrong" but redirect the discourse so severely that good faith discussion breaks down on inflamed, sectarian lines due to the shaping of the zeitgeist around this or that topic.
wingspar 3y ago
Yes it's been bad for a long time. I recall the "George Bush encounters barcode scanners" story back in the day. YEARS later, working in data-capture technology, I learned the truth. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill supermarket barcode scanning system. But that wouldn't have made as 'good' of a story that matched the papers pre-conceived notions. https://apnews.com/article/61f29d10e27140b0b108d8e12b64b839 https://apnews.com/article/61f29d10e27140b0b108d8e12b64b839
- jkubicek 3y ago
  Here's a (free gift) link to the original NYTimes story https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/us/bush-encounters-the-supermarket-amazed.html?unlocked_article_code=lU7U9Vo1qEhj4m-c7CUHJEsE31z_4g8rAXu6vINK96ud4ppgUTx9JYMynf6zHUpivl4I9fFN4ykpgCXfJp5kSS_LN--ljHK7MSLC-EbFzZIHST6YXq0yZ5xe-XxoqEE2VzEV93BtOYDGrXjGFup294v1yhJKBdGnNIncM-JOv1Ol_nZQFeCOKZN6PM5l8mAQ6BDXKsGFPARpTmSW4kY1uG_xXIKyl3RYUrby1PPFoFVsBKm7w3pkUf48IxS-yewTUmn1USf_870zZmdID-7Dvk2i0o50Kt8J9zSseQTpQqz-NFs7IsDUS2XOGbUWi64ifv-uzKQ3kdcIEux8L2zlBEwgWefsiG8toN3c&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/us/bush-encounters-the-su... It's certainly one of the more misleading stories I've read in a national paper.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    A newspaper is not a single entity. In its life it will have hundreds or thousands of employees with a range from good to bad. You can claim that there's a management structure that should know what's going on but they put trust in their employees even if they are ultimately responsible. If a reporter claims a government source said X but doesn't want to be revealed they need to make a decision based on that reporters history. Basically it's difficult to prevent rogue employees from putting out garbage stories. ------------------------------ Here a more recent article from the NYT examining the original reporting about the Bush scanner story showing how it was mostly misleading and the paper's response to those claims at the time (that they were misleading) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/fact-check-president-bush-legacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/fact-check-pr... (See EDIT at bottom for pastebin link) For any single news organization over a period of time a certain amount of articles will be inaccurate, sometimes purposefully. The NYT has been around for 150+ years and what matters it is how they manage their reporters and sources. We also need to look at the positive accomplishments. Shouldn't that be weighed against the negative when making a judgement of trust? The NYT is probably responsible for more breaking news and investigations than any other paper in US history. Stories we might not have have known about without the resources they allocated and their contacts (i.e. government or business sources) I don't think trust is black and white and that people who claim it is may have an ulterior motive. If you dismiss news organizations based on having a few misleading stories without considering what they have accomplished you wouldn't trust any news organization. This of course would greatly benefit corrupt governments, businesses, and people. EDIT: Here's a pastebin link to the section of the 2018 article where they examine the original reporting https://pastebin.com/VKHyGARK https://pastebin.com/VKHyGARK
astrange 3y ago
A lot of "yellow journalism" these days comes from editors, who are actually a different profession than journalists, though I think people reasonably don't care about that. The NYT editors are the ones who write all the headlines like "The economy is great - here's how that's bad news for Biden".

callalex 3y ago

The negative outcomes you describe are fairly independent from the training curriculum in school though. An equivalent would be saying that computer science degrees are worthless because sometimes people become parasites who work in adtech or fintech.

unsui 3y ago
Agreed. Those are all straw men, rather than the the natural consequence of a journalism education.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  I'd argue that the "evils" of modern journalism are more a consequence of economic failures in their employers than journalist themselves. As came out in the Dominion v Fox News discovery, even the most political journalists are still disgusted by the things they have financial and management pressure to peddle.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    Not disgusted enough to leave their job even though many are wealthy to extremely wealthy. Not disgusted enough to stop supporting Republicans. I can understand someone who works at a newspaper and makes 70k a year so they have to report on sensational stories but Tucker Carlons net worth is $380~ million. The key people at Foxnews were shocked and mad at the outrageous claims but for them the ends justify the means.
rhapsodic 3y ago
[dead]

alphabettsy 3y ago

People do what they must to live. Like many other professions, some people are paid to do things they probably would rather not.

tappederrting 3y ago
[dead]

uoaei 3y ago

There's even more insidious influences on how narratives are built and propagated than just lying or not. Saying things that are "not even wrong" but redirect the discourse so severely that good faith discussion breaks down on inflamed, sectarian lines due to the shaping of the zeitgeist around this or that topic.

wingspar 3y ago

Yes it's been bad for a long time. I recall the "George Bush encounters barcode scanners" story back in the day. YEARS later, working in data-capture technology, I learned the truth. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill supermarket barcode scanning system. But that wouldn't have made as 'good' of a story that matched the papers pre-conceived notions. https://apnews.com/article/61f29d10e27140b0b108d8e12b64b839 https://apnews.com/article/61f29d10e27140b0b108d8e12b64b839

jkubicek 3y ago
Here's a (free gift) link to the original NYTimes story https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/us/bush-encounters-the-supermarket-amazed.html?unlocked_article_code=lU7U9Vo1qEhj4m-c7CUHJEsE31z_4g8rAXu6vINK96ud4ppgUTx9JYMynf6zHUpivl4I9fFN4ykpgCXfJp5kSS_LN--ljHK7MSLC-EbFzZIHST6YXq0yZ5xe-XxoqEE2VzEV93BtOYDGrXjGFup294v1yhJKBdGnNIncM-JOv1Ol_nZQFeCOKZN6PM5l8mAQ6BDXKsGFPARpTmSW4kY1uG_xXIKyl3RYUrby1PPFoFVsBKm7w3pkUf48IxS-yewTUmn1USf_870zZmdID-7Dvk2i0o50Kt8J9zSseQTpQqz-NFs7IsDUS2XOGbUWi64ifv-uzKQ3kdcIEux8L2zlBEwgWefsiG8toN3c&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/us/bush-encounters-the-su... It's certainly one of the more misleading stories I've read in a national paper.
- themitigating 3y ago
  A newspaper is not a single entity. In its life it will have hundreds or thousands of employees with a range from good to bad. You can claim that there's a management structure that should know what's going on but they put trust in their employees even if they are ultimately responsible. If a reporter claims a government source said X but doesn't want to be revealed they need to make a decision based on that reporters history. Basically it's difficult to prevent rogue employees from putting out garbage stories. ------------------------------ Here a more recent article from the NYT examining the original reporting about the Bush scanner story showing how it was mostly misleading and the paper's response to those claims at the time (that they were misleading) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/fact-check-president-bush-legacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/fact-check-pr... (See EDIT at bottom for pastebin link) For any single news organization over a period of time a certain amount of articles will be inaccurate, sometimes purposefully. The NYT has been around for 150+ years and what matters it is how they manage their reporters and sources. We also need to look at the positive accomplishments. Shouldn't that be weighed against the negative when making a judgement of trust? The NYT is probably responsible for more breaking news and investigations than any other paper in US history. Stories we might not have have known about without the resources they allocated and their contacts (i.e. government or business sources) I don't think trust is black and white and that people who claim it is may have an ulterior motive. If you dismiss news organizations based on having a few misleading stories without considering what they have accomplished you wouldn't trust any news organization. This of course would greatly benefit corrupt governments, businesses, and people. EDIT: Here's a pastebin link to the section of the 2018 article where they examine the original reporting https://pastebin.com/VKHyGARK https://pastebin.com/VKHyGARK

astrange 3y ago

A lot of "yellow journalism" these days comes from editors, who are actually a different profession than journalists, though I think people reasonably don't care about that. The NYT editors are the ones who write all the headlines like "The economy is great - here's how that's bad news for Biden".