8 ms·

I feel like the current political situation in the US is going to accelerate the demise of traditional media. They have not been able to adapt to a changing inf

by davidw 2y ago

I feel like the current political situation in the US is going to accelerate the demise of traditional media. They have not been able to adapt to a changing information landscape and were stuck on models that worked in the past, like "both sides"ing issues sort of reflexively. That works great with a lot of things like "how much should we tax companies?", but not so much for some more fundamental questions like whether someone supports democracy. I'm not sure what will emerge in its place. It's a big problem, and has hit hardest and first among local newspapers which are increasingly hollowed out husks of their former selves. This has a real cost to society that's actually quantifiable in dollars and cents: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-closures-of-local-newspaper-increase-local-government-borrowing-costs/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-closures-of-local-new... Things like social media don't really take the place of people paid to do the hard work of, say, sitting through local city council meetings and making sense of what's happening there. A friend of mine tried doing that for fun and it lasted a few years, but he got burned out because of the tremendous amount of work.

nothercastle 2y ago
There is nothing to accelerate. Traditional news media is dead. The only thing that’s left is a tabloid shell.
- ClownsAbound 2y ago
  [dead]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  BS, if anything it's complicated. Local news is in decline but publications like The Atlantic are growing.
- davidw 2y ago
  There are a number of really good reporters at places like the Washington Post and the New York Times. As much as those institutions do have problems, and are declining, they still have the money and resources to do good work. So, no, they are not dead, but certainly not headed in a good direction.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    the nytimes at least is a gaming company that still retains a legacy print side hustle
  - nothercastle 2y ago
    I don’t agree those institutions no longer exist to report news they are mostly giant pr washing departments for the rich and influential.
    - davidw 2y ago
      I don't think it's black and white. I've seen good stories from both even recently. But they're sliding in the wrong direction, as this resignation highlights.
  - Maxious 2y ago
    The New York Times is a gaming company with an interest in journalism https://x.com/ballmatthew/status/1774413955940639199 https://x.com/ballmatthew/status/1774413955940639199
    - HDThoreaun 2y ago
      no money no mission
  - mmooss 2y ago
    The NY Times is gaining subscribers. The Washington Post has sadly lost credibility with many who care about serious journalism. There are others though.
Kenji 2y ago
[dead]
ARandomerDude 2y ago
> stuck on models that worked in the past, like "both sides"ing issues This happens very rarely though. The Washington Post is definitely not a "both sides" kind of paper.
- davidw 2y ago
  Once you started to see the "both sides" and sanewashing from some big media outlets, it became quite noticeable. There's some nuance to it: it's not like every article was some kind of ham-fisted propaganda worthy of Pravda, just that they really weren't up to the moment. There's a reason people love the "NYT Pitchbot" so much.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Wapo and the New York Times definitely play with kid gloves on when dealing with the insane shit republicans get away it.
- scarab92 2y ago
  A good litmus test is whether they refer to what happened at the Trump hotel in Vegas as a “Cybertruck Explosion”. Obviously, the vehicle itself did not explode, the explosives packed into the truck bed did. It’s deliberately misleading language like this was turned me off both WP and NYT. Any other vehicle and they would have just referred to it as a car bomb.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > A good litmus test is whether they refer to what happened at the Trump hotel in Vegas as a “Cybertruck Explosion”. It's a litmus test for submitting to Musk's power.
  - Kye 2y ago
    Why would they make a special case for a Cybertruck? They don't say "fertilizer explosion" when a truck full of it blows up, or "[insert type of explosive] explosion" when a car bomb goes off. That he rented a cybertruck and used fireworks instead of the traditional white van full of fertilizer is worth reporting.
makeitdouble 2y ago
We're giving "both sides"ing too much benefit of the doubt. No sizeable newspaper came out of the woodwork to both side the Huawei ban for instance. It will only happen on issues they don't want to criticize too much, and need to muddy the water.
gotoeleven 2y ago
Do you have an example of a specific article that you thought was too both-sidesy? Every time I hear this argument, it actually turns out that the arguer's problem with the article at hand is it was not left-wing enough--like taking a conservative argument at face value instead of just calling it racist and moving on. So, if you think WaPos problem is that it is not left-wing enough then I can only conclude that you are very left-wing yourself and so probably don't give good business advice.
- davidw 2y ago
  Here's a thorough critique from 2014, well before the current election or even the 2016 election, about an article in the NYT. It doesn't mention T---p. It's illustrative of the problem: https://pressthink.org/2014/08/when-quoting-both-sides-and-leaving-it-there-is-the-riskier-call/ https://pressthink.org/2014/08/when-quoting-both-sides-and-l... This style of journalism continued to prevail through all kinds of pronunciations from certain people that were all-out lies, prevarications, misinformation and various and sundry other assaults on the truth. The professor who wrote the article, Jay Rosen, is quite insightful with regards to the press and some of their current failings.
  - gotoeleven 2y ago
    Sure that's great. There was clearly plagiarism. But the topic at hand is a partisan dispute about a cartoonist quitting because she can't run an anti-trump cartoon and you're saying the wapo is terrible because it is both-sidesing all the time, with the clear implication that wapo should be more often calling foul on whatever trump is doing rather than reporting on both sides. So I'm asking, where is all this both-sidesy, faux-fair, reporting on trump from the wapo or any mainstream media outlet that is so heinous? Trumps first term was non stop media driven hoaxes, from russia russia to the hunter biden laptop. Reporters at these places clearly start with what they want you to believe, and then present some mishmash of fact-ish sounding language to try to get you to think it. Arguing that the media was too both-sidesy to trump makes me honestly wonder what the heck you are talking about.
    - 2y ago
trogdor 2y ago
> stuck on models that worked in the past, like "both sides"ing issues sort of reflexively. That works great with a lot of things like "how much should we tax companies?", but not so much for some more fundamental questions like whether someone supports democracy. As someone who worked for years as an investigative reporter, I feel like this comment fundamentally misunderstands what it is that journalistic organizations strive to do. Generally speaking, the goal is to report the facts about newsworthy events. They are not trying to tell people what to think, or even what the reporter thinks. That is what opinion pieces and editorials are for. Would you be more specific about what you think should be done differently? For example, in reporting about whether someone supports democracy?
- davidw 2y ago
  > Would you be more specific about what you think should be done differently? For example, in reporting about whether someone supports democracy? No, because I'm not a news person myself. I can see there's a problem, but I don't know how to fix it; I don't know the job or the business behind it well enough. I'd look to people like Jay Rosen and Margaret Sullivan for good critiques and perhaps some suggestions of what should be done differently. But it's tricky! Because not only is the reporting part of it struggling right now, the whole business aspect is in trouble as well, which compounds problems - like I mentioned with local news. And once again, I have no idea how anyone fixes that. Perhaps some enterprising person on Hacker News will figure out something that works, although I suspect it's more of a people problem than a technology one.
- chrismcb 2y ago
  I didn't know what the OP meant about "both siding" but I feel like the biggest problem is the lack of journalism, the lack of "report the facts."instead it is about supporting a particular narrative, about reporting only the facts that lend to that narrative, even going so far as to manufacturer them. As far as local newspapers, they just lost the ad war.
  - xocnad 2y ago
    Can you provide some specific examples that inform your viewpoint?
coding123 2y ago
They're dying because we all saw the lying for the last 4 years. Morning Joe said Joe Biden was sharper than anyone he knows. Not much needed after that to shut off the TV and go on YT from here on out. Lately I might be switching to TYT to get a more middle of road view of things.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  It’s a bit silly to consider a left morning talk show news. That’s like saying you get your news from Joe Rogan.
  - davidw 2y ago
    It's not even all that "left". Immediately after the election, they scurried off to the vermin infested hotel in Florida to kiss the ring. And Joe himself is a former Republican congressman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough#Elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough#Elections
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    It explicitly advertises itself as an unbiased news programme that represents all views, not as a left wing talk show. If you search "Morning Joe" you get the following page snippet as the first result: "More about the MSNBC Morning Joe show. Watch Morning Joe for news commentary & informed perspectives. Hear the news from Morning Joe guests today". This is on a website titled "MSNBC News". First sentence of the Wikipedia article for the show: "Morning Joe is an American morning news talk show". Google presents this description in the sidebar, not sure where it's from: "The show attracts a wide variety of guests, including top newsmakers, Washington insiders, journalists, and cultural influencers, representing a diverse set of voices and opinions that provide keen insight and analysis around the day's biggest stories". Part of the reason news outlets like the WP, the NYT, CNN and MSNBC attract such opprobrium is because they all advertise themselves as unbiased and neutral arbiters of the truth without any political leanings, yet they're all extremely biased in ways that their own staff will happily admit to and even go to the wall to fight for. When Joe Scarborough went on TV and said "this Biden is the best Biden ever", he knew he was lying, and he knew he was lying about presenting a diverse set of voices and opinions too.
burner999888 2y ago
The continued demise of MSM has nothing to do with the current political situation, even though left wing echo chambers such as hn will blame it on that. It began when they lost their revenue source of selling physical newspapers and were forced to rely on ad-revenue, which didn’t cover costs. This allowed leftist billionaires to take over major media outlets and weaponize it to support their agendas and political views. Hence the constant seething hatred of any non-left-leaning viewpoint on the news, blatant attempts to help Kamala look good while making Trump look bad during the election, non-coverage of things that make the left look bad. This is why Trump calls it “fake news” and why Elon bought Twitter. It blows my mind how out of touch the left is with the current state of media censorship and corruption.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  Rupert Murdock’s empire is hardly leftist. And that’s one of the larger conglomerates.
  - burner999888 2y ago
    Wrong. Newscorp accounts for < 20% of all major news coverage. Turn on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, Bloomberg, etc right now and there’ll be some “Omg look what Trump did now!” type segment on. Straight up propaganda with extreme bias. e.g. They literally edited a Kamala interview response on 60 Minutes bc she sounded like a moron. Endless examples like that if you take an objective look. The whole “Fox News Bad!” argument has been outdated since George W left office.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mrayycombi 2y ago
Good riddance. Traditional media is just the latest tool for plutocrats to sway public opinion. They'll find new ones. Behind every sports team and media outlet is a billionaire. Trust me.
- mmooss 2y ago
  How will you know what is happening in the world? Who will generate that information? Will you read social media - owned by, and much more easily controlled by, billionaires?
mmooss 2y ago
> "both sides"ing issues sort of reflexively That's an odd claim in this context: The journalist in the OP resigned because they were criticizing one side and the people protecting Trump stopped them.
atoav 2y ago
The biggest problem with the US media IMO is access journalism and corporate ownership. You got some of the best journalists, but what does it help if their work environment makes it impossible for them to dedicate time to (for the general public) important stories? Journalism (be it traditional or grassroots) and activism are the only things that can keep corporations (and their paid poltitical wings) in check. If Journalism dies or has perverse incentives, that isn't just a "Haha well go with times dinosaur", this is a very dangerous time for any democracy.
belter 2y ago
> A friend of mine tried doing that for fun and it lasted a few years, but he got burned out because of the tremendous amount of work. A actual relevant business case for a trusted AI solution...
- davidw 2y ago
  He's actually been trying that. It kinda sorta works, but it's still not there.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"I've worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist." "The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump." "The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner." When I read the parent comment it does not seem to have anything to do with the submission. Instead it changes the subject away from the newspaper owned by Bezos killing a cartoon with Bezos in it to something about "the demise of traditional media".

by davidw 2y ago

nothercastle 2y ago

There is nothing to accelerate. Traditional news media is dead. The only thing that’s left is a tabloid shell.

ClownsAbound 2y ago
[dead]
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
BS, if anything it's complicated. Local news is in decline but publications like The Atlantic are growing.
davidw 2y ago
There are a number of really good reporters at places like the Washington Post and the New York Times. As much as those institutions do have problems, and are declining, they still have the money and resources to do good work. So, no, they are not dead, but certainly not headed in a good direction.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  the nytimes at least is a gaming company that still retains a legacy print side hustle
- nothercastle 2y ago
  I don’t agree those institutions no longer exist to report news they are mostly giant pr washing departments for the rich and influential.
  - davidw 2y ago
    I don't think it's black and white. I've seen good stories from both even recently. But they're sliding in the wrong direction, as this resignation highlights.
- Maxious 2y ago
  The New York Times is a gaming company with an interest in journalism https://x.com/ballmatthew/status/1774413955940639199 https://x.com/ballmatthew/status/1774413955940639199
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    no money no mission
- mmooss 2y ago
  The NY Times is gaining subscribers. The Washington Post has sadly lost credibility with many who care about serious journalism. There are others though.

Kenji 2y ago

[dead]

ARandomerDude 2y ago

> stuck on models that worked in the past, like "both sides"ing issues This happens very rarely though. The Washington Post is definitely not a "both sides" kind of paper.

davidw 2y ago
Once you started to see the "both sides" and sanewashing from some big media outlets, it became quite noticeable. There's some nuance to it: it's not like every article was some kind of ham-fisted propaganda worthy of Pravda, just that they really weren't up to the moment. There's a reason people love the "NYT Pitchbot" so much.
BadHumans 2y ago
Wapo and the New York Times definitely play with kid gloves on when dealing with the insane shit republicans get away it.
scarab92 2y ago
A good litmus test is whether they refer to what happened at the Trump hotel in Vegas as a “Cybertruck Explosion”. Obviously, the vehicle itself did not explode, the explosives packed into the truck bed did. It’s deliberately misleading language like this was turned me off both WP and NYT. Any other vehicle and they would have just referred to it as a car bomb.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > A good litmus test is whether they refer to what happened at the Trump hotel in Vegas as a “Cybertruck Explosion”. It's a litmus test for submitting to Musk's power.
- Kye 2y ago
  Why would they make a special case for a Cybertruck? They don't say "fertilizer explosion" when a truck full of it blows up, or "[insert type of explosive] explosion" when a car bomb goes off. That he rented a cybertruck and used fireworks instead of the traditional white van full of fertilizer is worth reporting.

makeitdouble 2y ago

We're giving "both sides"ing too much benefit of the doubt. No sizeable newspaper came out of the woodwork to both side the Huawei ban for instance. It will only happen on issues they don't want to criticize too much, and need to muddy the water.

gotoeleven 2y ago

Do you have an example of a specific article that you thought was too both-sidesy? Every time I hear this argument, it actually turns out that the arguer's problem with the article at hand is it was not left-wing enough--like taking a conservative argument at face value instead of just calling it racist and moving on. So, if you think WaPos problem is that it is not left-wing enough then I can only conclude that you are very left-wing yourself and so probably don't give good business advice.

davidw 2y ago
Here's a thorough critique from 2014, well before the current election or even the 2016 election, about an article in the NYT. It doesn't mention T---p. It's illustrative of the problem: https://pressthink.org/2014/08/when-quoting-both-sides-and-leaving-it-there-is-the-riskier-call/ https://pressthink.org/2014/08/when-quoting-both-sides-and-l... This style of journalism continued to prevail through all kinds of pronunciations from certain people that were all-out lies, prevarications, misinformation and various and sundry other assaults on the truth. The professor who wrote the article, Jay Rosen, is quite insightful with regards to the press and some of their current failings.
- gotoeleven 2y ago
  Sure that's great. There was clearly plagiarism. But the topic at hand is a partisan dispute about a cartoonist quitting because she can't run an anti-trump cartoon and you're saying the wapo is terrible because it is both-sidesing all the time, with the clear implication that wapo should be more often calling foul on whatever trump is doing rather than reporting on both sides. So I'm asking, where is all this both-sidesy, faux-fair, reporting on trump from the wapo or any mainstream media outlet that is so heinous? Trumps first term was non stop media driven hoaxes, from russia russia to the hunter biden laptop. Reporters at these places clearly start with what they want you to believe, and then present some mishmash of fact-ish sounding language to try to get you to think it. Arguing that the media was too both-sidesy to trump makes me honestly wonder what the heck you are talking about.
  - 2y ago

trogdor 2y ago

> stuck on models that worked in the past, like "both sides"ing issues sort of reflexively. That works great with a lot of things like "how much should we tax companies?", but not so much for some more fundamental questions like whether someone supports democracy. As someone who worked for years as an investigative reporter, I feel like this comment fundamentally misunderstands what it is that journalistic organizations strive to do. Generally speaking, the goal is to report the facts about newsworthy events. They are not trying to tell people what to think, or even what the reporter thinks. That is what opinion pieces and editorials are for. Would you be more specific about what you think should be done differently? For example, in reporting about whether someone supports democracy?

davidw 2y ago
> Would you be more specific about what you think should be done differently? For example, in reporting about whether someone supports democracy? No, because I'm not a news person myself. I can see there's a problem, but I don't know how to fix it; I don't know the job or the business behind it well enough. I'd look to people like Jay Rosen and Margaret Sullivan for good critiques and perhaps some suggestions of what should be done differently. But it's tricky! Because not only is the reporting part of it struggling right now, the whole business aspect is in trouble as well, which compounds problems - like I mentioned with local news. And once again, I have no idea how anyone fixes that. Perhaps some enterprising person on Hacker News will figure out something that works, although I suspect it's more of a people problem than a technology one.
chrismcb 2y ago
I didn't know what the OP meant about "both siding" but I feel like the biggest problem is the lack of journalism, the lack of "report the facts."instead it is about supporting a particular narrative, about reporting only the facts that lend to that narrative, even going so far as to manufacturer them. As far as local newspapers, they just lost the ad war.
- xocnad 2y ago
  Can you provide some specific examples that inform your viewpoint?

coding123 2y ago

They're dying because we all saw the lying for the last 4 years. Morning Joe said Joe Biden was sharper than anyone he knows. Not much needed after that to shut off the TV and go on YT from here on out. Lately I might be switching to TYT to get a more middle of road view of things.

cr125rider 2y ago
It’s a bit silly to consider a left morning talk show news. That’s like saying you get your news from Joe Rogan.
- davidw 2y ago
  It's not even all that "left". Immediately after the election, they scurried off to the vermin infested hotel in Florida to kiss the ring. And Joe himself is a former Republican congressman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough#Elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough#Elections
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  It explicitly advertises itself as an unbiased news programme that represents all views, not as a left wing talk show. If you search "Morning Joe" you get the following page snippet as the first result: "More about the MSNBC Morning Joe show. Watch Morning Joe for news commentary & informed perspectives. Hear the news from Morning Joe guests today". This is on a website titled "MSNBC News". First sentence of the Wikipedia article for the show: "Morning Joe is an American morning news talk show". Google presents this description in the sidebar, not sure where it's from: "The show attracts a wide variety of guests, including top newsmakers, Washington insiders, journalists, and cultural influencers, representing a diverse set of voices and opinions that provide keen insight and analysis around the day's biggest stories". Part of the reason news outlets like the WP, the NYT, CNN and MSNBC attract such opprobrium is because they all advertise themselves as unbiased and neutral arbiters of the truth without any political leanings, yet they're all extremely biased in ways that their own staff will happily admit to and even go to the wall to fight for. When Joe Scarborough went on TV and said "this Biden is the best Biden ever", he knew he was lying, and he knew he was lying about presenting a diverse set of voices and opinions too.

burner999888 2y ago

The continued demise of MSM has nothing to do with the current political situation, even though left wing echo chambers such as hn will blame it on that. It began when they lost their revenue source of selling physical newspapers and were forced to rely on ad-revenue, which didn’t cover costs. This allowed leftist billionaires to take over major media outlets and weaponize it to support their agendas and political views. Hence the constant seething hatred of any non-left-leaning viewpoint on the news, blatant attempts to help Kamala look good while making Trump look bad during the election, non-coverage of things that make the left look bad. This is why Trump calls it “fake news” and why Elon bought Twitter. It blows my mind how out of touch the left is with the current state of media censorship and corruption.

cr125rider 2y ago
Rupert Murdock’s empire is hardly leftist. And that’s one of the larger conglomerates.
- burner999888 2y ago
  Wrong. Newscorp accounts for < 20% of all major news coverage. Turn on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, Bloomberg, etc right now and there’ll be some “Omg look what Trump did now!” type segment on. Straight up propaganda with extreme bias. e.g. They literally edited a Kamala interview response on 60 Minutes bc she sounded like a moron. Endless examples like that if you take an objective look. The whole “Fox News Bad!” argument has been outdated since George W left office.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mrayycombi 2y ago

Good riddance. Traditional media is just the latest tool for plutocrats to sway public opinion. They'll find new ones. Behind every sports team and media outlet is a billionaire. Trust me.

mmooss 2y ago
How will you know what is happening in the world? Who will generate that information? Will you read social media - owned by, and much more easily controlled by, billionaires?

mmooss 2y ago

> "both sides"ing issues sort of reflexively That's an odd claim in this context: The journalist in the OP resigned because they were criticizing one side and the people protecting Trump stopped them.

atoav 2y ago

The biggest problem with the US media IMO is access journalism and corporate ownership. You got some of the best journalists, but what does it help if their work environment makes it impossible for them to dedicate time to (for the general public) important stories? Journalism (be it traditional or grassroots) and activism are the only things that can keep corporations (and their paid poltitical wings) in check. If Journalism dies or has perverse incentives, that isn't just a "Haha well go with times dinosaur", this is a very dangerous time for any democracy.

belter 2y ago

> A friend of mine tried doing that for fun and it lasted a few years, but he got burned out because of the tremendous amount of work. A actual relevant business case for a trusted AI solution...

davidw 2y ago
He's actually been trying that. It kinda sorta works, but it's still not there.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"I've worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist." "The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump." "The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner." When I read the parent comment it does not seem to have anything to do with the submission. Instead it changes the subject away from the newspaper owned by Bezos killing a cartoon with Bezos in it to something about "the demise of traditional media".