4 ms·

WSJ and the like just hire for pedigree. You end up with careerists writing generic articles, and injecting political opinion into everything

tracker1 1y ago
Journalism is kind of a weird thing... it's often been about truth to power and reporting even what the govt/establishment doesn't always want to see. Of course this also attracts a lot of activism. I think they've, for a long while, crossed over to more propaganda over truth in general. This combined with infotainment news business trends in general is a bad mix. I think it was just yesterday, I saw an article about an ICE raid of the Samsung plant in Georgia. It was a pretty long article, and even the tone of the article was pretty level. That said, there was a critical and very important piece missing from the article altogether... "Why?" As in what law(s) were broken and how/why the raid was used. TBH, I don't know that a raid was necessary over revised negotiations between DoJ/ICE, Samsung, Korea and the people in question... That said, the fact the article clearly didn't even attempt to report the ICE reasoning was pretty damning of the author and the site.
- ejstronge 1y ago
  > I think it was just yesterday, I saw an article about an ICE raid of the Samsung plant in Georgia. It was a pretty long article, and even the tone of the article was pretty level. That said, there was a critical and very important piece missing from the article altogether... "Why?" As in what law(s) were broken and how/why the raid was used. TBH, I don't know that a raid was necessary over revised negotiations between DoJ/ICE, Samsung, Korea and the people in question... That said, the fact the article clearly didn't even attempt to report the ICE reasoning was pretty damning of the author and the site. Or maybe this was a rhetorical point? Even today, there are articles that are trying to piece together who informed on the plant and what the basis for an ICE raid was. It seems you and the authors retain a similar understanding of the situation.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    My understanding is that the workers are actually contractors and not direct employees of Samsung and were left to make their own Visa arrangements and instead of getting the correct Visas to be able to actually work in the US, they used business travel (B-1) Visas which are supposed to be for temporary travel in order to enter the US for a maximum of 6 months. This was reported in other articles on the situation... it was clearly missing from the article I was referencing which changes the context to place a shift in narrative.
    - ejstronge 1y ago
      I likely have read at least one of the articles you were citing (or similar work) and my sense was that information was obtained later that was unclear at the time of the event. I see your point - especially when a journalist writes about an area where I have personal experience - but I guess I don't equate this to a decline in journalist quality given the confusion around an event like this.
      - tracker1 1y ago
        To me, it's just a core part of "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" as basic tenants of what a news article should cover in terms of an event. Part of this in terms of professional reporting (not twitter) is to reach out to sources or agency contacts for comments/statements. Even a "ICE has not yet returned a request for comment." placeholder would have helped significantly. It's just a matter of due diligence, and with online reporting there should be some follow-up/editing as new information presents or responses do come in.
ejstronge 1y ago
> WSJ and the like just hire for pedigree. You end up with careerists writing generic articles, and injecting political opinion into everything I think your comment implies that journalism in some previous time did not 'just hire for pedigree' and 'end up with careerists.' When was this time and who were the specialist writers from that moment? How can one write anything without taking a political stance? We make much of the odd era of doublespeak we endure (when is a 'special military operation' a 'war'?). But it's hard to imagine that there has ever been a time where even the selection of a descriptive phrase carries political weight. My imagination may be limited, I suppose. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your argument and you mean that content meant for general consumption has always (read since its inception) been 'generic' and with '[injection] of political opinion.'
- mikert89 1y ago
  I’m saying that modern journalists are in many cases careerists, in a way that was not true 50 years ago
  - ejstronge 1y ago
    I actually think the opposite is true. TV did not exist in the same way 50 years ago, so journalists played a more important role in transmitting news. Maybe you mean that those journalists were more specialized than the writers of today? It seems that there may have been more journalists in the 1970s (when we consider people who call themselves reporters and work in 'news'). 1972 - ~39,000 ( https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-handbook-3964/occupational-outlook-handbook-1974-75-edition-499178?page=609 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-han... ; a great resource to find out about what journalism was like) 2022 - ~17,000 ( https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat - search for Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers. If you want to add social media companies one needs a reasonable way to discount media streaming services. At any rate, this doesn't match what was being done in the 1970s so it's immaterial to your argument)

tracker1 1y ago

Journalism is kind of a weird thing... it's often been about truth to power and reporting even what the govt/establishment doesn't always want to see. Of course this also attracts a lot of activism. I think they've, for a long while, crossed over to more propaganda over truth in general. This combined with infotainment news business trends in general is a bad mix. I think it was just yesterday, I saw an article about an ICE raid of the Samsung plant in Georgia. It was a pretty long article, and even the tone of the article was pretty level. That said, there was a critical and very important piece missing from the article altogether... "Why?" As in what law(s) were broken and how/why the raid was used. TBH, I don't know that a raid was necessary over revised negotiations between DoJ/ICE, Samsung, Korea and the people in question... That said, the fact the article clearly didn't even attempt to report the ICE reasoning was pretty damning of the author and the site.

ejstronge 1y ago
> I think it was just yesterday, I saw an article about an ICE raid of the Samsung plant in Georgia. It was a pretty long article, and even the tone of the article was pretty level. That said, there was a critical and very important piece missing from the article altogether... "Why?" As in what law(s) were broken and how/why the raid was used. TBH, I don't know that a raid was necessary over revised negotiations between DoJ/ICE, Samsung, Korea and the people in question... That said, the fact the article clearly didn't even attempt to report the ICE reasoning was pretty damning of the author and the site. Or maybe this was a rhetorical point? Even today, there are articles that are trying to piece together who informed on the plant and what the basis for an ICE raid was. It seems you and the authors retain a similar understanding of the situation.
- tracker1 1y ago
  My understanding is that the workers are actually contractors and not direct employees of Samsung and were left to make their own Visa arrangements and instead of getting the correct Visas to be able to actually work in the US, they used business travel (B-1) Visas which are supposed to be for temporary travel in order to enter the US for a maximum of 6 months. This was reported in other articles on the situation... it was clearly missing from the article I was referencing which changes the context to place a shift in narrative.
  - ejstronge 1y ago
    I likely have read at least one of the articles you were citing (or similar work) and my sense was that information was obtained later that was unclear at the time of the event. I see your point - especially when a journalist writes about an area where I have personal experience - but I guess I don't equate this to a decline in journalist quality given the confusion around an event like this.
    - tracker1 1y ago
      To me, it's just a core part of "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" as basic tenants of what a news article should cover in terms of an event. Part of this in terms of professional reporting (not twitter) is to reach out to sources or agency contacts for comments/statements. Even a "ICE has not yet returned a request for comment." placeholder would have helped significantly. It's just a matter of due diligence, and with online reporting there should be some follow-up/editing as new information presents or responses do come in.

ejstronge 1y ago

> WSJ and the like just hire for pedigree. You end up with careerists writing generic articles, and injecting political opinion into everything I think your comment implies that journalism in some previous time did not 'just hire for pedigree' and 'end up with careerists.' When was this time and who were the specialist writers from that moment? How can one write anything without taking a political stance? We make much of the odd era of doublespeak we endure (when is a 'special military operation' a 'war'?). But it's hard to imagine that there has ever been a time where even the selection of a descriptive phrase carries political weight. My imagination may be limited, I suppose. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your argument and you mean that content meant for general consumption has always (read since its inception) been 'generic' and with '[injection] of political opinion.'

mikert89 1y ago
I’m saying that modern journalists are in many cases careerists, in a way that was not true 50 years ago
- ejstronge 1y ago
  I actually think the opposite is true. TV did not exist in the same way 50 years ago, so journalists played a more important role in transmitting news. Maybe you mean that those journalists were more specialized than the writers of today? It seems that there may have been more journalists in the 1970s (when we consider people who call themselves reporters and work in 'news'). 1972 - ~39,000 ( https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-handbook-3964/occupational-outlook-handbook-1974-75-edition-499178?page=609 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-han... ; a great resource to find out about what journalism was like) 2022 - ~17,000 ( https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat - search for Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers. If you want to add social media companies one needs a reasonable way to discount media streaming services. At any rate, this doesn't match what was being done in the 1970s so it's immaterial to your argument)