4 ms·

These problems are largely economic. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

by chaps 1y ago

lynx97 1y ago
I once sat on a table nearby of the local investigative newsroom crew having a chat in a cafe. The vibe I got was so evil, I definitely wouldn't give them any of my money. In fact, I have given up on the concept of independent journalism, I just dont believe anymore it is happening. Knowing the onwership structure of the publishers in my country (and many others around me) also adds to the unwillingness to donate. They are all inconservative hands, and are being used to push agendas.
- chaps 1y ago
  I think a lot of what you're seeing is people being people rather than journalists being journalists. Sometimes gallows humor is the only thing you can do for yourself while you're looking through brutal, terrifying reports of abuse for hours and hours.
  - lynx97 1y ago
    It seems like you're suggesting I am not capable of putting things I overheard in context? Please don't. I am well aware of the difference between sarcasm and deliberate manipulation. To keep things grounded, almost nobody bites the hand that feeds 'em. Whistleblowing or swimming against the stream, while being celebrated whenever it happens, is a very low minority in any profession. If your boss tells you where things are supposed to go, you might grind your teeth, and maybe bitch about it to your friends, but chances are high you will comply. Journalists are no different.
    - chaps 1y ago
      Friend, I'm not suggesting that at all. I could, though: in no way did you describe any of what you considered to be bad from them. You left it conclusory in such a way that leaves the reader (me) to try to fill the gaps in what you mean. Your aggressive tone doesn't leave much room. And personally, I would never feel confident in being sure that I understand the context of a conversation that I'm not invited to. Everything you described, like I've said about 10 times now, is economically rooted. Donate to your local investigative nonprofit.
      - lynx97 1y ago
        Ignoring the fact that I miss the blind trust you seem to have, that all we need is to donate some money and the outcome will magically be good... I honestly don't know any local investigative nonprofit that is not biased. There are the big conservatively led newspapers, and there are smaller left to extreme left leaning publishers that try to be a counterweight. However, to my knowledge, we dont have any publishers that are really trying to report independent from a political side or agenda.
        chaps 1y ago
        Friend, I think your cynicism's clouding how you're interpreting my words. What you're interpreting as blind trust is me just saying that people are people and people gonna people, yanno? And lol, nah. The amount of bullshit I've seen from my peer group is laughable and I've had a tendency to be very aggressive in pushing back on bad reporting. Like the Chicago Tribune -- they weren't including all of the facts in their reporting on something and wouldn't share any public records that they received through FOIA. So I FOIA'd for a full year of the Tribune's FOIAs and published them without any expectation of anything in return. That journalist no longer speaks to me and doing that burned bridges with the Tribune forever. I did it again the next year because fuck bad journalists who get in the way of public awareness. We should push them to be better. Lol. I'm not sure that it's even actually possible to have "unbiased" reporting. You want something unattainable and it's understandable why it'd be frustrating that no such thing exists. We live in a fucked up world, m8.
        lynx97 1y ago
        Thanks for your last paragraph. You apparently have a lot more inside infos then I ever will, and still, you confirm my observation. There is no unbiased reporting. However, I am not willing to compromise on this. If there is no way I can get unbiased infos, I dont want any "journalism" anymore. If it is a lost cause, so be it. And, that is not cynicism, it is plain despair. I just dont want to be lied to, no matter from what side.
        1y ago
- lurk2 1y ago
  > They are all inconservative hands > Journalists who said they were Republicans continued to drop from 18 percent in 2002 and 7.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2022. This figure is notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican party (26 percent according to the poll mentioned earlier) in 2022. About half of all journalists (51.7 percent) said they were Independents, which is about 12 percentage points above the figure for all U.S. adults (40 percent). Overall, U.S. journalists today are much more likely to identify themselves as Independents rather than Democrats or Republicans—a pattern similar to 2013. https://www.theamericanjournalist.org/post/american-journalist-findings https://www.theamericanjournalist.org/post/american-journali...
  - morsch 1y ago
    They were explicitly referring to their country, which is just as likely not to be the US, so citing US statistics without further comment or contextualization seems rude. But it's beside the point anyway: They weren't referring to the political affiliation of the people working at the newspaper, they were referring to the leanings of the people who own the newspaper.
    - lurk2 1y ago
      > They weren't referring to the political affiliation of the people working at the newspaper, they were referring to the leanings of the people who own the newspaper. Is Jeff Bezos a conservative?
  - lynx97 1y ago
    I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything in this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a low profile, since in many circles, right wing association has become a synonym for evil. Besides, I am not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats are not relevant to my statement above them.
    - lurk2 1y ago
      > I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything in this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a low profile, since in many circles, right wing association has become a synonym for evil. This is a baseless conspiracy theory. > Besides, I am not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats are not relevant to my statement above them. These patterns hold for every country in the Anglosphere. Canadian leftists are fond of accusing the media of being conservative, but the reality is that they are just so far into alt politics that they consider anyone remotely normal to be an extremist. Similar accusations of crypto-conservatism are levied against journalists in South America, so I have to think that is what is going on here. There’s an easy way for us to test my theory: What region do you live in, and what specific statements were these journalists making that struck you as evil?
vorpalhex 1y ago
These problems are not economic. They are a function of an extremely broken process. The lack of money for people doing work on the ground through this model is part of why it is dying and high quality writing is going other places.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  > high quality writing is going other places. Where is that again?
  - vorpalhex 1y ago
    A good chunk are going to substack. Some are going to other platforms. A few folks are posting on BlueSky/X but really running their own platforms (eg Michael Koffman). So far x/bsky seem to at least be the consistent discovery platforms for finding these folks who have split off.
- bcrl 1y ago
  It is economic. Significant amounts of advertising dollars were once spent on ads in local newspapers and TV stations. That is no longer the case. Expecting media content to remain high quality when the revenue stream that once supported investigative journalism has dried up makes no sense. Any time you read or view a piece of content, follow the money trail that got it in front of your eyeballs, ears or fingertips -- it may well be enlightening.

These problems are largely economic. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

by chaps 1y ago

These problems are largely economic. Donate to your local investigative newsroom.

I once sat on a table nearby of the local investigative newsroom crew having a chat in a cafe. The vibe I got was so evil, I definitely wouldn't give them any of my money. In fact, I have given up on the concept of independent journalism, I just dont believe anymore it is happening. Knowing the onwership structure of the publishers in my country (and many others around me) also adds to the unwillingness to donate. They are all inconservative hands, and are being used to push agendas.

chaps 1y ago
I think a lot of what you're seeing is people being people rather than journalists being journalists. Sometimes gallows humor is the only thing you can do for yourself while you're looking through brutal, terrifying reports of abuse for hours and hours.
- lynx97 1y ago
  It seems like you're suggesting I am not capable of putting things I overheard in context? Please don't. I am well aware of the difference between sarcasm and deliberate manipulation. To keep things grounded, almost nobody bites the hand that feeds 'em. Whistleblowing or swimming against the stream, while being celebrated whenever it happens, is a very low minority in any profession. If your boss tells you where things are supposed to go, you might grind your teeth, and maybe bitch about it to your friends, but chances are high you will comply. Journalists are no different.
  - chaps 1y ago
    Friend, I'm not suggesting that at all. I could, though: in no way did you describe any of what you considered to be bad from them. You left it conclusory in such a way that leaves the reader (me) to try to fill the gaps in what you mean. Your aggressive tone doesn't leave much room. And personally, I would never feel confident in being sure that I understand the context of a conversation that I'm not invited to. Everything you described, like I've said about 10 times now, is economically rooted. Donate to your local investigative nonprofit.
    - lynx97 1y ago
      Ignoring the fact that I miss the blind trust you seem to have, that all we need is to donate some money and the outcome will magically be good... I honestly don't know any local investigative nonprofit that is not biased. There are the big conservatively led newspapers, and there are smaller left to extreme left leaning publishers that try to be a counterweight. However, to my knowledge, we dont have any publishers that are really trying to report independent from a political side or agenda.
      - chaps 1y ago
        Friend, I think your cynicism's clouding how you're interpreting my words. What you're interpreting as blind trust is me just saying that people are people and people gonna people, yanno? And lol, nah. The amount of bullshit I've seen from my peer group is laughable and I've had a tendency to be very aggressive in pushing back on bad reporting. Like the Chicago Tribune -- they weren't including all of the facts in their reporting on something and wouldn't share any public records that they received through FOIA. So I FOIA'd for a full year of the Tribune's FOIAs and published them without any expectation of anything in return. That journalist no longer speaks to me and doing that burned bridges with the Tribune forever. I did it again the next year because fuck bad journalists who get in the way of public awareness. We should push them to be better. Lol. I'm not sure that it's even actually possible to have "unbiased" reporting. You want something unattainable and it's understandable why it'd be frustrating that no such thing exists. We live in a fucked up world, m8.
        lynx97 1y ago
        Thanks for your last paragraph. You apparently have a lot more inside infos then I ever will, and still, you confirm my observation. There is no unbiased reporting. However, I am not willing to compromise on this. If there is no way I can get unbiased infos, I dont want any "journalism" anymore. If it is a lost cause, so be it. And, that is not cynicism, it is plain despair. I just dont want to be lied to, no matter from what side.
        1y ago
lurk2 1y ago
> They are all inconservative hands > Journalists who said they were Republicans continued to drop from 18 percent in 2002 and 7.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2022. This figure is notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican party (26 percent according to the poll mentioned earlier) in 2022. About half of all journalists (51.7 percent) said they were Independents, which is about 12 percentage points above the figure for all U.S. adults (40 percent). Overall, U.S. journalists today are much more likely to identify themselves as Independents rather than Democrats or Republicans—a pattern similar to 2013. https://www.theamericanjournalist.org/post/american-journalist-findings https://www.theamericanjournalist.org/post/american-journali...
- morsch 1y ago
  They were explicitly referring to their country, which is just as likely not to be the US, so citing US statistics without further comment or contextualization seems rude. But it's beside the point anyway: They weren't referring to the political affiliation of the people working at the newspaper, they were referring to the leanings of the people who own the newspaper.
  - lurk2 1y ago
    > They weren't referring to the political affiliation of the people working at the newspaper, they were referring to the leanings of the people who own the newspaper. Is Jeff Bezos a conservative?
- lynx97 1y ago
  I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything in this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a low profile, since in many circles, right wing association has become a synonym for evil. Besides, I am not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats are not relevant to my statement above them.
  - lurk2 1y ago
    > I don't believe self-reported stats are worth anything in this context. Many conservatives have learnt to keep a low profile, since in many circles, right wing association has become a synonym for evil. This is a baseless conspiracy theory. > Besides, I am not a U.S citizen, so your quoted stats are not relevant to my statement above them. These patterns hold for every country in the Anglosphere. Canadian leftists are fond of accusing the media of being conservative, but the reality is that they are just so far into alt politics that they consider anyone remotely normal to be an extremist. Similar accusations of crypto-conservatism are levied against journalists in South America, so I have to think that is what is going on here. There’s an easy way for us to test my theory: What region do you live in, and what specific statements were these journalists making that struck you as evil?

vorpalhex 1y ago

These problems are not economic. They are a function of an extremely broken process. The lack of money for people doing work on the ground through this model is part of why it is dying and high quality writing is going other places.

wredcoll 1y ago
> high quality writing is going other places. Where is that again?
- vorpalhex 1y ago
  A good chunk are going to substack. Some are going to other platforms. A few folks are posting on BlueSky/X but really running their own platforms (eg Michael Koffman). So far x/bsky seem to at least be the consistent discovery platforms for finding these folks who have split off.
bcrl 1y ago
It is economic. Significant amounts of advertising dollars were once spent on ads in local newspapers and TV stations. That is no longer the case. Expecting media content to remain high quality when the revenue stream that once supported investigative journalism has dried up makes no sense. Any time you read or view a piece of content, follow the money trail that got it in front of your eyeballs, ears or fingertips -- it may well be enlightening.