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Reuters' position on covering Trump

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Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#91

Post by soundwave106 »

ufmace wrote: post #60
a_humean wrote: post #14

So Reuter's position is that the media environment in the US is rapidly becoming like illiberal democracies in Egypt, Russia and Iran, and so its time to use skills applicable when operating within typically third world authoritarian regimes. What heart warming times we live in.

I should note that if you lean to the Right and/or don't worship the Clintons and the Democratic party, then most of the US media has seemed like a third-world Party Line news for a long time.

So long-running papers such as the Wall Street Journal, regional / local newspapers with long conservative histories (example: the Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, etc.), several long running political analysis magazines (National Review, Weekly Standard, American Spectator), even the vast tabloid (New York Post) and AM talk market, are Clinton / Democratic party worshipers? News to me.

Heck, Fox News itself is over 20 years old. So I'm not sure what "long time" you are referring to.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#92

Post by a_humean »

malnourish wrote: post #69
logicallee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a country where you can read Hillary's emails (via wikileaks, that you won't get in trouble for visiting) but she can't read yours. (Nor can Trump.)

We can really only read those emails due to leaks. Public officials' communications should be in the domain of the public by default unless there is a real urgent need to keep something secret.

I would actually strongly disagree with that. Officials need to be able to exchange ideas freely amongst themselves and within confidence in a non-media environment. They need to be able to say things to each other in person, on phones, and in email communications in less discrete terms that otherwise would need to be crafted to appease their political coalitions and oppositions. They need to be able to ask and say stupid things. If you take that away from officials they lose their ability to actually deliberate and think about policy in terms of the merits of the policy. There is a balance to strike in terms of transparency and public accountability, but a transparency free for all in which no communication is private can easily lead to bad policy and outcomes.

Its not too different from not having a client see your business's internal communications. 99% of the time you aren't trying to screw your client and are trying to do a good job for them, but you really don't want to show them the sausage factory in any case because it will make it harder to do a good job for them if everything you do or say is presented to the client.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#93

Post by [deleted] »

camperman wrote: post #65
JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #3

Honestly I feel way overwhelmed by the administration related news and it has barely been over a week. It's also a constant reminder that oh yeah this really did happen and it continues to get worse.

This is entirely intentional. The God Emperor is overwhelming you with shock and awe to make opposition seem pointless, which it is of course.

[deleted]

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#94

Post by fvdessen »

mwfunk wrote: post #72
ufmace wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should note that if you lean to the Right and/or don't worship the Clintons and the Democratic party, then most of the US media has seemed like a third-world Party Line news for a long time.

If you view people who don't agree with you politically as strawmen who "worship" your least favorite politicians, then you've already failed at understanding the world. Everyone disagrees on stuff, but if you want to understand people and the world, the only way to do that is to see things from other peoples' perspective. They have plenty of reasons for voting the way they do that have nothing to do with being brain…

I don't think parent poster has a problem with people having opposing views, but with media organisations affirming they are unbiased while they are not. And this criticism is not limited to the right wing -- see Chomsky.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#95

Post by awalton »

logicallee wrote: post #54
a_humean wrote: post #14

So Reuter's position is that the media environment in the US is rapidly becoming like illiberal democracies in Egypt, Russia and Iran, and so its time to use skills applicable when operating within typically third world authoritarian regimes. What heart warming times we live in.

America is a country where you can read Hillary's emails (via wikileaks, that you won't get in trouble for visiting) but she can't read yours. (Nor can Trump.)

> but she can't read yours. (Nor can Trump.)

Lol, how quickly we forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

They can read your email at their discretion, via a warrant from a secret court whose proceedings you can neither contest nor attend, and order companies to comply without exposing who for or why they are doing said orders.

Only truly off-the-record end-to-end encrypted communications are safe channels in the United States. And email ain't one of them.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#96

Post by westbywest »

malnourish wrote: post #69
logicallee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a country where you can read Hillary's emails (via wikileaks, that you won't get in trouble for visiting) but she can't read yours. (Nor can Trump.)

We can really only read those emails due to leaks. Public officials' communications should be in the domain of the public by default unless there is a real urgent need to keep something secret.

The impossible grey area would be what defines 'urgent.' Nevertheless, I would welcome less abuse of state secrets privilege.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#97

Post by tokenizer »

owenversteeg wrote: post #10

Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased as possible. Of course, like any news organization, they have a few biases, but I think that purely because of the position that they're in they are the least biased news source today. They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al…

> They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al Jazeera, and the Times of India, so they can't cater to one crowd's political biases.

All of that is mainstream news. This whole fake news thing is a part of the cultural war. Religious/Conservative people simply don't trust Mainstream media. To them, all of them are liberal and highly bias. Enough to omit facts for their narratives.

Example: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/19/just-another...

Sources, Reports, Officials, Reporters, etc - News is HUMAN god dammit! No such thing as non-bais, and every story should be investigated, and not appeal to the authority of the organization publishing it.

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#98

Post by sctb »

lacampbell wrote: post #18
anon987 wrote: post #7

Please reinstate the ban on political stories.

But haven't you heard? Trump did something people don't like so he's a fascist now. Grass roots organisations that are in touch with the common man like Apple, Google, the New York Times and the Washington post are really opposed to this. If we keep this up it's bound to make those dumb working class white people vote correctly next time.

Please do not post deliberately inflammatory sarcasm (a.k.a. troll) like this on Hacker News. Yes, it's difficult to maintain civil and substantive discussion around divisive issues, but we can't just give up entirely!

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#99

Post by williamle8300 »

mikeash wrote: post #90
williamle8300 wrote: post #71

I'm a Trump supporter so take this with a grain of salt. When he said the media was dishonest, he was referring to CNN, WaPo and the mainstream media (excluding Fox News). Anyone who follows Trump know these are the folks he's referring to. If he didn't like ALL of the media, he wouldn't even have a press corps. Reuters isn't really engaging with what Trump's saying. Are Trump's claims substantiated? I would say, Yes…

I saw a ton of liberals yelling at the DNC. Before the election, they were upset that they mistreated Bernie. After the election, they were upset that it handed the victory to Trump. It has faded away, but that's only because more important things are going on. Trump is an immediate threat to the nation in ways the DNC could never be.

How is Trump an immediate threat? I'm really curious. All of his policies are about protecting American interests, and rebuilding America's manufacturing complex.

If you're referring to the Immigration EO... please read it first. It's a really well-written bill. For those curious about whether it was a religious discrimination see this pie chart of the Muslims that are excluded[1]. The goal of the EO is to mitigate the influx of refugees from states that foment anti-Western ideals. It just happens to be this group are radicalized, and violent Islamic people.

[1] https://i.redditmedia.com/09_97z77yJ2MRBOVMVYvkcVEi66uJI5KSw...

Re: Reuters' position on covering Trump

#100

Post by Bartweiss »

jerf wrote: post #41
Bartweiss wrote: post #4

I've seen several people suggest that covering Trump is an unprecedented challenge which news orgs have no understanding of how to handle. This is a good reminder that this isn't true; even a presidency which is exceptional by American standards is well within the familiar scope of international news organizations.

I realize that it may be a lot more fun and topical to blame Trump, but the HN gestalt has been discussing the increasingly hollowed-out nature of American news reporting for years now. Public trust of the press has been dropping for decades. If this manifests as "hey, we've all got to get back to real reporting", then it will be positive. (Not a mere rhetorical sop; that is genuinely my preferred, best-case outcome.…

Absolutely agreed.

Depending on whether that 'you' is actually me or a general reader, I think my comment may have come off wrong. I'm not suggesting that the current tone in US news is a clear improvement, I'm just rejecting the claim that with this election we're in an unprecedented death-of-news situation.

The state of most media in the US is deplorable. 'Fake news' sites aside, sources have been abandoned for access, and optimizing cost per click metrics has been interpreted as a reason to run unverified nonsense and press releases under the guise of actual journalism.

That's even without the complete failures of domain knowledge, context, and objectivity; the NYT recently left my jaw on the floor with a piece about how US involvement in Honduras is making "the most dangerous place in the world" safer. The legacy of US coups there, and CIA backing of brutal paramilitaries, was not mentioned even once - an unfamiliar reader was left to believe that the country was hellish by its own efforts, and saved by American intervention. Passing that sort of myopia off as a feature story is an ugly reminder of just how bad "good" journalism gets.

Good journalism still exists, with some effort. There are sites like The Intercept which report thoroughly and carefully, and which approach stories with a clear and predictable viewpoint - something I greatly prefer to the mock-neutral tone many groups use to bury the inescapable ideological choices of reporting.

If we're lucky, Reuters just means they're going to refuse a personal stake in covering US political news. I wouldn't mind a movement towards a more distant, anthropological style of coverage. If Trump's 'opponents' line reminds reporters that good journalism is adversarial to power, we might see some of the old style come back.

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