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The lapse of journalistic objectivity over the past ~10 years is a dead horse. I do think we've turned a corner for the better. I haven't listened to NPR in ye
by slibhb 3y ago
The lapse of journalistic objectivity over the past ~10 years is a dead horse.
I do think we've turned a corner for the better. I haven't listened to NPR in years but the Times has improved over the past few years.
One of the themes of Civil War, the new Alex Garland movie, concerns this dynamic. See his interview in the Times: https://archive.is/pzs1a https://archive.is/pzs1a. His theory is that the press is supposed to check polarization by disseminating objective facts (which never fit one faction's worldview perfectly) and this process' failure has led to increasing polarization.
- ametrau 3y agoThe guardian seems less polemic and agitation propagandising recently also.
- mannyv 3y agoJournalistic objectivity was basically invented by anti-Roosevelt media. Before that newspapers were explicitly partisan. Roosevelt was so dominant that Republicans felt the need to change the script. FYI, the Civil War was really started by the ridiculously stupid attack on Fort Sumter. If SC hadn't gone off and attacked the fort the US would have split into two or three countries...and everyone would have been OK with that.
- slibhb 3y ago"Telling the truth was invented in the 1930s" Hmm
- tootie 3y agoBias and accuracy are separate axes. Mother Jones is explicitly liberal media, but their reporting is highly factual. Fox News is right-wing and has settled multiple cases over defamation for spreading false stories.
- slibhb 3y agoI don't agree. I think lies by omission are lies.
- verall 3y agoAre you referring to something in particular?
- Wolfenstein98k 3y agoThe Biden laptop story is the best-known recent example. Many relatively "factual" outlets refused to cover it, whereas if it were beneficial to the liberal cause, you know they'd have done the 12-36 goes hours of work required to verify it
- tootie 3y agoThe laptop story was very sketchy and treated with suitable skepticism. And now that we have a clearer picture, it's not interesting at all. While the laptop itself may have turned out to be real, I'm not aware that the contents have ever been authenticated and the fact that the story was only trumpeted by Rudy Giuliani makes it campaign propaganda. We didn't learn anything about it, but we did see Hunter's penis entered into the Congressional record.
- Wolfenstein98k 3y agoIt was very interesting. It revealed a lot of influence-pedalling and strongly implied Joe Biden profits from it, or at least facilitates his son profiting from it. Not a shred of its contents were ever disproven, but much was corroborated. It's only "uninteresting" if you exclusively follow NPR, I think.
- akaru 3y agoGot any others?
- 3y ago
- mcmcmc 3y ago“Civil War, the new Alex Garland movie” is not actually about the US Civil War. FYI. And how exactly do you think everyone would have been ok with the US splitting into multiple countries?
- sanderjd 3y agoYeah I've read some stuff about this guy named Abraham Lincoln, and somehow I got the impression he had quite a bit of power and was none too pleased by the idea of any dissolution of the union.
- Supermancho 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity I think it's more like something that was formalized around the turn of the 19th century. Maybe wikipedia isn't accurate here.
- woopsn 3y agoJoseph Pulitzer's retirement letter from 1907 (referencing St. Louis's metro paper): I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty. It was he of course who had previously declared: Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself.
- eschaton 3y agoEveryone, are you sure? Seems like you’re forgetting someone in this statement: The enslaved people.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- shortsunblack 3y agoJournalistic objectivity is not real and has never existed. It is much better when a journalistic outlet acknowledges its plausible biases and lets the reader make up their own mind. This ideal gets further stretched with "citizens journalism" where normies do their own journalism. You expect to some system to emerge that allows for audiences to converge on the "truth". Anyone that espouses these idealistic ideals of "objectivism" has drank the koolaid. And of course, The Objectivity always somehow accidentally converges to the status quo. Is it because the status quo is? Unlikely.