4 ms·

reason.com doesn't really do journalism or reporting. They're an advocacy group run by a "think tank" which is a nice way of saying "propaganda company". This

reason.com doesn't really do journalism or reporting. They're an advocacy group run by a "think tank" which is a nice way of saying "propaganda company". This is like seeing a story "Big Macs are delicious sandwiches (mcdonalds.com)". Their only obligation is to their ideology I know a lot of people reading this are sympathetic to that ideology. Having sympathies doesn't somehow make my description of the purpose of the organization less accurate. https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/b5fb809a409cd25c948e7bf4ca96ed03.pdf https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/b5fb809a409cd25c... There's nothing in there about say, valuing accurate journalism that informs the public with relevant information.

bende511 2y ago
and their ideology is dismantling the administrative state
- woooooo 2y ago
  They're OK on civil liberties and foreign wars, typically, so at least they're consistent with an ideology over pure partisanship.
- WeylandYutani 2y ago
  They want to go back to the days when rich people could basically do anything they wanted.
  - nickthegreek 2y ago
    Go back?
cyanydeez 2y ago
Your comment is mostly useless. It's like saying facts are being produced by fact makers and there's something wrong with making facts. Looking at all the media right now, point to a non propaganda outlet, so we can better understand your facts.
- 373864483647 2y ago
  This is like saying criticism is useless
- kristopolous 2y ago
  404media? Wikileaks? Project Brazen? Motherboard? Bellingcat? Quanta magazine? Rest of world? Intercept? Techdirt? Even things like BBC, CBC, NHK, NPR - you can whine about their politics but they're journalists at a news organization, trying to do their job as reporters instead of forwarding a particular agenda. If you think sensationalist bad faith pushers who are trying to persuade an ideology are the same as journalists trying to abide by ethics, accuracy and codes of conduct who value responsibility and integrity then I can't help you.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    Bellingcat has stated that their funding sources include Open Society and US National Endowment for Democracy. Rest of World is funded by Sophie Schmidt, daughter of Eric Schmidt, former President of Alphabet/Google. Intercept was originally funded by Pierre Omidyar.
    - kristopolous 2y ago
      Open society did things like fund xerox machines in the eastern block to make zines and literature proliferate more (samizdat). Their work on pro-democracy groups, independent media, and civil society organizations in Eastern Bloc country's journalism is often credited by scholars to be part of the collapse of the Soviet Union. There's a lot of antisemitic trolls who think it's edgy to call them secretly pro-communist somehow. Claiming eastern European Jewish billionaires are secretly polluting the commons with communist propaganda is definitionally Nazi bullshit. It's really hard to be more of a bulls-eye on the dartboard. Again it goes back to the media literacy question. If you can't see a difference in purpose and objective between funding independent media organizations and white supremacist antisemites, I can't really help you.
      - 2y ago
rayiner 2y ago
Isn’t advocacy that pushes an ideology more or less what “journalism” means? At least Reason is open about its ideology.
- autoexec 2y ago
  Journalism is often used as a means to advocate for an ideology, but that's certainly not the definition of the practice. Accuracy, fairness, and avoiding bias are ideals that make for much better journalism, which is why it's a shame that so much of what we actually get was written and publicized by people who don't worry very much about any of those things. That said, if someone wants to promote an ideology then reporting on events related to what concerns them in order to inform their supporters or gain new ones seems like a very good idea.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    The classic example is when cable news has on "retired generals" that advocate for war and when you look them up on linkedin they have current jobs like "Distinguished Fellow at Lockheed Martin Corporation". There's so many of these "what the fuck man?" moments you have with cable news you forget there's professionals out there than don't do that kind of shit.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  Is that a sarcastic observation of the state of news media in recent years? Because that is not at all what journalism means. Journalism is about reporting the truth as objectively as possible, and there used to be a journalist "creed" of sorts, much like doctors have. NYT and other trusted publications built up that trust by (mostly) upholding such principles in the past, and have lost a lot of that trust by violating them.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    I’m not being sarcastic. There is a changing norm within the field of journalism itself, and researchers are openly advocating abandoning objectivity as a creed. https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/objectivity-in-journalism-is-a-tricky-concept-what-could-replace-it/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/objectivity-in-journalism-... “To find out, we read every article mentioning the word from 2020 to 2022 in three publications where journalists talk to each other: Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Journalism Lab, and Poynter. We coded each of these 195 articles on a five-point scale from ‘very negative’ to ‘very positive,’ and found that when American journalists speak about objectivity, they are three times more likely to speak negatively of it than positively (our count is 111 to 38).”
skissane 2y ago
> There's nothing in there about say, valuing accurate journalism that informs the public with relevant information. I think your criticisms of them are unfair (at least with regards to this specific article) – and I'm speaking as someone who actually doesn't have a huge amount of agreement with their ideology (I'm no libertarian). The grandparent is pointing out that the case was about a "fine" – the article itself doesn't use that specific word, but it is obvious to anyone who reads it that is what it is talking about. It links for more information to another page – https://ij.org/case/c-s-lawn-administrative-appeal/ https://ij.org/case/c-s-lawn-administrative-appeal/ – which does use that word. But I think, the author of this article (Rob Johnson) not using the term "fine", is not due to some attempt to mislead the reader – it is because the US government doesn't technically call it a "fine", calling it a "liability" is the language it uses, and being a lawyer he naturally gravitates to using the most technically correct language regarding the case. Part of the reason why it is called a "liability" not a "fine", is fines are ultimately kept by the government, whereas at least some of this $50,000 is allegedly unpaid wages which are to be ultimately paid to the employees, but the employer disputes the government's claim they underpaid them to begin with. What the court case is actually about, is whether someone who is having a $50,000 liability imposed on them (whether as a fine or as back-payment of underpaid wages) has the constitutional right to have a proper trial before an independent judge and jury before having the liability imposed, or whether a "trial" before a "judge" who actually works for the executive agency issuing the liability is sufficient. Whatever is the right answer on that one, I don't think Johnson's position is per se unreasonable. And Johnson is picking on one of the several counterarguments to that contention that DOJ lawyers make in a brief – that constitutional protections against expropriation don't apply to money because money isn't property – and calling it out as unreasonable. I don't think Johnson is necessarily wrong here. Rejecting this contention wouldn't necessarily win the case for the non-government side, since this is really a threshold issue – are those constitutional limits even in scope here? Just because (contrary to this argument in the brief) you conclude "yes they are", doesn't mean that when you go into their details, you won't find that some exception to them applies. But if the whole thing is out of scope, you don't even reach consideration of the exceptions.
- kristopolous 2y ago
  If someone at reason is doing unbiased investigative serious journalism then they aren't doing their job because that's not what that organization does. It'd be like an employee of McDonald's marketing department posting press releases about what a great choice meal prepping is from local farmers markets. A core, essential part of media literacy is understanding what the goals of the organization are and that the people working there are doing their job. Some do journalism and everyone else knows the value of wearing it as a costume.

bende511 2y ago

and their ideology is dismantling the administrative state

woooooo 2y ago
They're OK on civil liberties and foreign wars, typically, so at least they're consistent with an ideology over pure partisanship.
WeylandYutani 2y ago
They want to go back to the days when rich people could basically do anything they wanted.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  Go back?

cyanydeez 2y ago

Your comment is mostly useless. It's like saying facts are being produced by fact makers and there's something wrong with making facts. Looking at all the media right now, point to a non propaganda outlet, so we can better understand your facts.

373864483647 2y ago
This is like saying criticism is useless
kristopolous 2y ago
404media? Wikileaks? Project Brazen? Motherboard? Bellingcat? Quanta magazine? Rest of world? Intercept? Techdirt? Even things like BBC, CBC, NHK, NPR - you can whine about their politics but they're journalists at a news organization, trying to do their job as reporters instead of forwarding a particular agenda. If you think sensationalist bad faith pushers who are trying to persuade an ideology are the same as journalists trying to abide by ethics, accuracy and codes of conduct who value responsibility and integrity then I can't help you.
- walterbell 2y ago
  Bellingcat has stated that their funding sources include Open Society and US National Endowment for Democracy. Rest of World is funded by Sophie Schmidt, daughter of Eric Schmidt, former President of Alphabet/Google. Intercept was originally funded by Pierre Omidyar.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    Open society did things like fund xerox machines in the eastern block to make zines and literature proliferate more (samizdat). Their work on pro-democracy groups, independent media, and civil society organizations in Eastern Bloc country's journalism is often credited by scholars to be part of the collapse of the Soviet Union. There's a lot of antisemitic trolls who think it's edgy to call them secretly pro-communist somehow. Claiming eastern European Jewish billionaires are secretly polluting the commons with communist propaganda is definitionally Nazi bullshit. It's really hard to be more of a bulls-eye on the dartboard. Again it goes back to the media literacy question. If you can't see a difference in purpose and objective between funding independent media organizations and white supremacist antisemites, I can't really help you.
    - 2y ago

rayiner 2y ago

Isn’t advocacy that pushes an ideology more or less what “journalism” means? At least Reason is open about its ideology.

autoexec 2y ago
Journalism is often used as a means to advocate for an ideology, but that's certainly not the definition of the practice. Accuracy, fairness, and avoiding bias are ideals that make for much better journalism, which is why it's a shame that so much of what we actually get was written and publicized by people who don't worry very much about any of those things. That said, if someone wants to promote an ideology then reporting on events related to what concerns them in order to inform their supporters or gain new ones seems like a very good idea.
- kristopolous 2y ago
  The classic example is when cable news has on "retired generals" that advocate for war and when you look them up on linkedin they have current jobs like "Distinguished Fellow at Lockheed Martin Corporation". There's so many of these "what the fuck man?" moments you have with cable news you forget there's professionals out there than don't do that kind of shit.
Ferret7446 2y ago
Is that a sarcastic observation of the state of news media in recent years? Because that is not at all what journalism means. Journalism is about reporting the truth as objectively as possible, and there used to be a journalist "creed" of sorts, much like doctors have. NYT and other trusted publications built up that trust by (mostly) upholding such principles in the past, and have lost a lot of that trust by violating them.
- rayiner 2y ago
  I’m not being sarcastic. There is a changing norm within the field of journalism itself, and researchers are openly advocating abandoning objectivity as a creed. https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/objectivity-in-journalism-is-a-tricky-concept-what-could-replace-it/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/objectivity-in-journalism-... “To find out, we read every article mentioning the word from 2020 to 2022 in three publications where journalists talk to each other: Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Journalism Lab, and Poynter. We coded each of these 195 articles on a five-point scale from ‘very negative’ to ‘very positive,’ and found that when American journalists speak about objectivity, they are three times more likely to speak negatively of it than positively (our count is 111 to 38).”

skissane 2y ago

> There's nothing in there about say, valuing accurate journalism that informs the public with relevant information. I think your criticisms of them are unfair (at least with regards to this specific article) – and I'm speaking as someone who actually doesn't have a huge amount of agreement with their ideology (I'm no libertarian). The grandparent is pointing out that the case was about a "fine" – the article itself doesn't use that specific word, but it is obvious to anyone who reads it that is what it is talking about. It links for more information to another page – https://ij.org/case/c-s-lawn-administrative-appeal/ https://ij.org/case/c-s-lawn-administrative-appeal/ – which does use that word. But I think, the author of this article (Rob Johnson) not using the term "fine", is not due to some attempt to mislead the reader – it is because the US government doesn't technically call it a "fine", calling it a "liability" is the language it uses, and being a lawyer he naturally gravitates to using the most technically correct language regarding the case. Part of the reason why it is called a "liability" not a "fine", is fines are ultimately kept by the government, whereas at least some of this $50,000 is allegedly unpaid wages which are to be ultimately paid to the employees, but the employer disputes the government's claim they underpaid them to begin with. What the court case is actually about, is whether someone who is having a $50,000 liability imposed on them (whether as a fine or as back-payment of underpaid wages) has the constitutional right to have a proper trial before an independent judge and jury before having the liability imposed, or whether a "trial" before a "judge" who actually works for the executive agency issuing the liability is sufficient. Whatever is the right answer on that one, I don't think Johnson's position is per se unreasonable. And Johnson is picking on one of the several counterarguments to that contention that DOJ lawyers make in a brief – that constitutional protections against expropriation don't apply to money because money isn't property – and calling it out as unreasonable. I don't think Johnson is necessarily wrong here. Rejecting this contention wouldn't necessarily win the case for the non-government side, since this is really a threshold issue – are those constitutional limits even in scope here? Just because (contrary to this argument in the brief) you conclude "yes they are", doesn't mean that when you go into their details, you won't find that some exception to them applies. But if the whole thing is out of scope, you don't even reach consideration of the exceptions.

kristopolous 2y ago
If someone at reason is doing unbiased investigative serious journalism then they aren't doing their job because that's not what that organization does. It'd be like an employee of McDonald's marketing department posting press releases about what a great choice meal prepping is from local farmers markets. A core, essential part of media literacy is understanding what the goals of the organization are and that the people working there are doing their job. Some do journalism and everyone else knows the value of wearing it as a costume.