5 ms·

The public's trust in journalism has cratered because they became activists instead of journalists. It's fascinating and telling that the article avoids this is

The public's trust in journalism has cratered because they became activists instead of journalists. It's fascinating and telling that the article avoids this issue completely, not mentioning trust once.

underseacables 2y ago
I think the statement you just made has become so political that it's almost impossible to criticize the media.
techostritch 2y ago
Do people en masse really want this trad unbiased intellectual version of journalism though? It seems like all of the new successful outlets are explicitly biased/activist. I can’t imagine in our emotional polarized world what people are really clamoring for is the days of Walter Murrow.
pif 2y ago
I'm not sure which was caused by which. Did customers lose trust because of activism? Or did customers just switch to untrustable (but free) online papers, leaving activism as the only way to earn a living for former upright journalists?
- caustic-view 2y ago
  I want to challenge the lazy acceptance that an “activist media” is even a thing, or is it just a way saying “things are happening that I don’t like”? What are the signs and effects of this activist media? Who are its players? Are there sides? What are they?
  - smokefoot 2y ago
    It’s pretty hard to quantify. Reading the tone of NYT headlines over the last 20 years, I observe a steady increase in side-taking on both sides of the newsroom. Those headlines and stories are empirically more engaging and the market values engagement above all else.
    - techostritch 2y ago
      I’m starting to wonder if post war America was this unique time in history, because I’m not saying your wrong but it also seems like historically the idea of an unbiased news media is not the norm. In general I have trouble believing it’s the medias fault though, not that they’re without sin, I just think the forces that make something like this are bigger than the media.
      - drewcoo 2y ago
        > I’m starting to wonder if post war America was this unique time in history It certainly was re: journalism. When we only had the big three TV networks vying for our eyeballs, they each used news as a way to attract the broadest set of Americans. The nightly news was a loss leader, in the hopes that we'd watch the rest of the evening's programming/ads on that network. The "unbiased" business didn't really exist until someone could be in all of our homes building rapport with our families every night. And cable, then more so the web, completely disrupted that. There used to be many, many more newspapers, with room for distinction as the paper of record for any given demographic. Radio, then more so TV, put an end to most of those.
kalsnary 2y ago
I see a bit of a reversal in the U.S. press. Peak craziness was 2020. It was always a mystery if the activism was top-down mandated, i.e., journalists were forced to be activists by their management or not. So it would be interesting to see who was fired. Mainstream has gotten saner in the U.S., with many heretical articles in the NYT and WaPo at least on the war topics. This is not the case in the U.K. or Germany, where only one public opinion is allowed.
- caustic-view 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    Can you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? It will eventually get your main account banned as well.
    - caustic-view 2y ago
      [dead]
skhunted 2y ago
It is a wise propaganda tactic to label the exposing of inconvenient truths as “activist”, “mainstream media”, etc. All media can be labeled using such terms. The brilliance of Fox News was to preempt this fact by using the slogan “fair and balanced”. As if it is such and yet its listeners largely believe this and that they are receiving untarnished information and spin.
- megaman821 2y ago
  Why the comparison to Fox News? Fox News is terrible, if the mainstream media is only aiming to be slightly better than Fox News, we have problems. It is mistaken to think that the choices are only Fox News or CNN(or equivalent), the other (seemingly growing) choice is no news at all.
  - analognoise 2y ago
    TikTok of random people talking as a primary news source.
  - skhunted 2y ago
    You have it backwards. Fox News compared itself to the “mainstream media” and labeled themselves “fair and balanced”. Conservatives ate that up and actually believe that Fox News is fair and balanced and that the “mainstream media” isn’t. I go the no news at all route these days. We live in an age of cheap, effective, easy to create misinformation.
- worksonmine 2y ago
  I remember when the NYT claimed they couldn't touch the lab leak theory because of Trump. It's more about what they're not exposing than what they are.
caustic-view 2y ago
[flagged]
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Well, for one example, just yesterday I was reading that the mainstream press didn't run with the "Biden is becoming decrepit" story because it might be viewed as helping Trump. So that was either "we can't run this story because it would help a political enemy" or "we can't run this story because it would be viewed as helping a political enemy". That story was out there for months in non-mainstream press. (And probably on Fox, but they also are a fairly clear example of 'activism'.)
  - techostritch 2y ago
    Is this a joke? Biden becoming decrepit has been running non stop in mainstream press his whole election, in fact it’s so common there’s almost an equal number of “why is the mainstream media obsessed with Biden’s mental state” articles.
piva00 2y ago
That's such a thought-terminating cliché. Journalists were always activists in some sense. You need to have a strong moral sense to uncover truths that power wants to keep under wraps, you need to have a strong inner motivation to seek out information that can get you or loved ones harassed or even harmed. Trust has eroded because the business model for journalism has eroded, with a lack of money the news had to look into tapping other sources of income like pay-per-click ads, to increase that you need to have clickbait, ragebait, all kinds of manipulation to make someone choose to visit your news site instead of the 100s of others that popped up on the internet. With that you start losing trust. Also I believe your view of journalism is very likely an American one, with your 24/7 "News" channels that are more a drama-generating machine than actual reporting, or investigative journalism. There's still a lot of good journalism being done, and nowadays a lot outside of the usual institutions of news where investigations could be done before but got eroded because they got poorer. Journalism necessarily requires some level of engagement and activism, I just don't think what you mean by "activist" is the actual meaning of the word but a catch-all umbrella for stuff you don't like. Would love to be proved wrong though.
- techostritch 2y ago
  I think my favorite journalists are ones who have “strong opinions loosely held”. Like it’s interesting to go in with a hypothesis and maybe even a desired outcome as long as you are willing to take the data as it comes. The worst is the opposite people with an agenda who extract the one counterpoint to a 500 page research paper and write an article about how the whole papaer validate their assumptions But somewhere in the middle is the boring boilerplate overview that takes no real stance at all.
  - piva00 2y ago
    Absolutely in agreement, and I would expand that those are my favourite people in general. Having a strong opinion based on a good foundation but that can be changed if new facts emerge is one of the best traits people can have, it is a signal to me of genuinely curious people, filtering out the ones filled with the void of dogma.

underseacables 2y ago

I think the statement you just made has become so political that it's almost impossible to criticize the media.

techostritch 2y ago

Do people en masse really want this trad unbiased intellectual version of journalism though? It seems like all of the new successful outlets are explicitly biased/activist. I can’t imagine in our emotional polarized world what people are really clamoring for is the days of Walter Murrow.

pif 2y ago

I'm not sure which was caused by which. Did customers lose trust because of activism? Or did customers just switch to untrustable (but free) online papers, leaving activism as the only way to earn a living for former upright journalists?

caustic-view 2y ago
I want to challenge the lazy acceptance that an “activist media” is even a thing, or is it just a way saying “things are happening that I don’t like”? What are the signs and effects of this activist media? Who are its players? Are there sides? What are they?
- smokefoot 2y ago
  It’s pretty hard to quantify. Reading the tone of NYT headlines over the last 20 years, I observe a steady increase in side-taking on both sides of the newsroom. Those headlines and stories are empirically more engaging and the market values engagement above all else.
  - techostritch 2y ago
    I’m starting to wonder if post war America was this unique time in history, because I’m not saying your wrong but it also seems like historically the idea of an unbiased news media is not the norm. In general I have trouble believing it’s the medias fault though, not that they’re without sin, I just think the forces that make something like this are bigger than the media.
    - drewcoo 2y ago
      > I’m starting to wonder if post war America was this unique time in history It certainly was re: journalism. When we only had the big three TV networks vying for our eyeballs, they each used news as a way to attract the broadest set of Americans. The nightly news was a loss leader, in the hopes that we'd watch the rest of the evening's programming/ads on that network. The "unbiased" business didn't really exist until someone could be in all of our homes building rapport with our families every night. And cable, then more so the web, completely disrupted that. There used to be many, many more newspapers, with room for distinction as the paper of record for any given demographic. Radio, then more so TV, put an end to most of those.

kalsnary 2y ago

I see a bit of a reversal in the U.S. press. Peak craziness was 2020. It was always a mystery if the activism was top-down mandated, i.e., journalists were forced to be activists by their management or not. So it would be interesting to see who was fired. Mainstream has gotten saner in the U.S., with many heretical articles in the NYT and WaPo at least on the war topics. This is not the case in the U.K. or Germany, where only one public opinion is allowed.

caustic-view 2y ago
[flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  Can you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? It will eventually get your main account banned as well.
  - caustic-view 2y ago
    [dead]

skhunted 2y ago

It is a wise propaganda tactic to label the exposing of inconvenient truths as “activist”, “mainstream media”, etc. All media can be labeled using such terms. The brilliance of Fox News was to preempt this fact by using the slogan “fair and balanced”. As if it is such and yet its listeners largely believe this and that they are receiving untarnished information and spin.

megaman821 2y ago
Why the comparison to Fox News? Fox News is terrible, if the mainstream media is only aiming to be slightly better than Fox News, we have problems. It is mistaken to think that the choices are only Fox News or CNN(or equivalent), the other (seemingly growing) choice is no news at all.
- analognoise 2y ago
  TikTok of random people talking as a primary news source.
- skhunted 2y ago
  You have it backwards. Fox News compared itself to the “mainstream media” and labeled themselves “fair and balanced”. Conservatives ate that up and actually believe that Fox News is fair and balanced and that the “mainstream media” isn’t. I go the no news at all route these days. We live in an age of cheap, effective, easy to create misinformation.
worksonmine 2y ago
I remember when the NYT claimed they couldn't touch the lab leak theory because of Trump. It's more about what they're not exposing than what they are.

caustic-view 2y ago

[flagged]

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Well, for one example, just yesterday I was reading that the mainstream press didn't run with the "Biden is becoming decrepit" story because it might be viewed as helping Trump. So that was either "we can't run this story because it would help a political enemy" or "we can't run this story because it would be viewed as helping a political enemy". That story was out there for months in non-mainstream press. (And probably on Fox, but they also are a fairly clear example of 'activism'.)
- techostritch 2y ago
  Is this a joke? Biden becoming decrepit has been running non stop in mainstream press his whole election, in fact it’s so common there’s almost an equal number of “why is the mainstream media obsessed with Biden’s mental state” articles.

piva00 2y ago

That's such a thought-terminating cliché. Journalists were always activists in some sense. You need to have a strong moral sense to uncover truths that power wants to keep under wraps, you need to have a strong inner motivation to seek out information that can get you or loved ones harassed or even harmed. Trust has eroded because the business model for journalism has eroded, with a lack of money the news had to look into tapping other sources of income like pay-per-click ads, to increase that you need to have clickbait, ragebait, all kinds of manipulation to make someone choose to visit your news site instead of the 100s of others that popped up on the internet. With that you start losing trust. Also I believe your view of journalism is very likely an American one, with your 24/7 "News" channels that are more a drama-generating machine than actual reporting, or investigative journalism. There's still a lot of good journalism being done, and nowadays a lot outside of the usual institutions of news where investigations could be done before but got eroded because they got poorer. Journalism necessarily requires some level of engagement and activism, I just don't think what you mean by "activist" is the actual meaning of the word but a catch-all umbrella for stuff you don't like. Would love to be proved wrong though.

techostritch 2y ago
I think my favorite journalists are ones who have “strong opinions loosely held”. Like it’s interesting to go in with a hypothesis and maybe even a desired outcome as long as you are willing to take the data as it comes. The worst is the opposite people with an agenda who extract the one counterpoint to a 500 page research paper and write an article about how the whole papaer validate their assumptions But somewhere in the middle is the boring boilerplate overview that takes no real stance at all.
- piva00 2y ago
  Absolutely in agreement, and I would expand that those are my favourite people in general. Having a strong opinion based on a good foundation but that can be changed if new facts emerge is one of the best traits people can have, it is a signal to me of genuinely curious people, filtering out the ones filled with the void of dogma.