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Just finished Kara Swisher's Burn Book today, in which she says she does not report on such scoops unless personal matters have a repeated pattern or could affe
by n144q 2y ago
Just finished Kara Swisher's Burn Book today, in which she says she does not report on such scoops unless personal matters have a repeated pattern or could affect a company's stock. It never occurred to me that there is such a choice to make here, but after thinking about it a bit, I realized that this is what distinguishes a bad journalist who writes an article that could end up hurting people more and make matters worse (e.g. about people who are going through divorce), from a good journalist that writes about things that actually matter to shareholders and to the industry.
- ternaryoperator 2y agoPrecisely. This is the difference between scandal-mongering and journalism. Both can cover things that are true and factual, so can be deemed news. However, the former is closer to entertainment than it is to information of value.
- swatcoder 2y agoYep, professional journalists for much of the 20th century aspired to be conscious of what they were covering and how that served the public interest. There was a duty being honored. It was exactly this understanding that allowed closeted public figures in politics, entertainment, to navigate a time when it wasn't okay for their personal lives to be made public. Journalists and editors were often aware of stories that could be told, but believed that their duty wouldn't be served by reporting on them. Journalism did not always look like that, and did not everywhere look like that, but it was the prevailing norm. We're now in a very different time again, where any "scoop" that stirs moral outrage, earns lurid eyeballs, or undermines a public figure is not only fair game, but the ideal career-making story.