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Not a good journalist maybe, but if you identify too little with them, you probably don't even get to "sit where you're sitting", as Chomsky said.
by vintermann 1y ago
Not a good journalist maybe, but if you identify too little with them, you probably don't even get to "sit where you're sitting", as Chomsky said.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> if you identify too little with them, you probably don't even get to "sit where you're sitting", as Chomsky said The people winning White House credentials are political influencers. Chomsky was an interesting linguist. His political observations are about as scientific as our current crop of Silicon Valley elites’.
- mikkupikku 1y agoChomsky's observations about how the media works may not have been solid science, but from the way you describe the present circumstance it really sounds like Chomsky is still on target.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> from the way you describe the present circumstance it really sounds like Chomsky is still on target The refutation is there are lots of places to sit. Like, yes, the people at a linguistics conference will predominantly be linguists. That doesn’t suggest a linguistics conspiracy.
- vintermann 1y agoSo you don't have any problem with the Hegseth Pentagon demands then? There are still many places to sit, and who gets access is mostly decided by neutral competence anyway? (That's what your linguistics conference analogy suggests). Chomsky's whole point is that it doesn't take a conspiracy for journalists to share their superiors' views. Not for those superiors to be very aligned with each other.
- mikkupikku 1y ago> "That doesn’t suggest a linguistics conspiracy." That's Chomsky's point. In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky explains how the appearance of collusion can arise without conspiracy. Like-minded people hiring and promoting like-minded people isn't a conspiracy, it only looks like one because people with similar incentives and values will behave in similar ways given similar circumstances.
- vintermann 1y agoScientific? That's neither here nor there. What he said, and I agree is true and important, is that you won't get to work as a journalist and do things like, say, interview people for BBC, unless you believe most of the things your employer believes.