The American Press Is Destroying Itself • Hacker News Board

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#71

Post by BiteCode_dev » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #65

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #62

I don't think they are. I think they are optimizing for survival. Serious news is expensive, and at this point, a niche market. Few people would consume it (or even be capable of doing so), even fewer are ready to pay the real price of it. So they did the next best thing: they changed to please the market in a way that makes money. Grabbing a lot of attention, as cheaply as possible, so that you can sell it to the hi…

> But as a group that needs to survive, it's a working strategy. It's not working though. A lot of people canceled their NY Times subscriptions after the "Send in the troops" op-ed. Massively pissing off your customer base like that is not a winning move.

Individually, each entity composing the group we call "press", may find itself in geopardy.

But as a whole, it's working.

They are just copying each others, because they can see what works and what doesn't. But because everything has a context, and luck is involved, they will be many dying anyway.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#72

Post by ReptileMan » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #41

scott_s wrote: post #33

Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox ( https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co... ): > There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is…

But I think Klein is failing to engage with the core issue, that many of the positions now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in newspapers are held by a majority of Americans and considered reasonable by a supermajority. If newspapers systematically refuse to represent views that most people hold, how can we trust their objectivity?

It gets even worse. If you ignore the problem by not talking about it and only fringes discuss it - people will go to the fringes to hear what they have to say. And you may get big surprises at the voting booth.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#73

Post by aspenmayer » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #30

phaus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centrists would be somewhat rare it it hadn't become a slur for both extremes to label anyone that's not an extremist. Moderates are far more common than centrists. But these day's you're either completely toxic and insane or you get ridiculed as a centrist for not caring enough.

[flagged]

Agreed on all points. Appeals to centrism are a negotiation tactic; not with the one considered too extreme who should be more moderate, but to the third party who is watching who is sympathetic to the one calling for moderation. It benefits the status quo, and therefore is innately conservative.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#74

Post by aebtebeten » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

shiado wrote: post #53

Looking back reading Manufacturing Consent at a young age was one of the most important things I did. It sets you up for a liberating life of zero expectations for media.

Q. Why do they call it a medium?

A. Because it's neither rare nor well done.

It was amusing to see Chinese tabs pull a tar-baby on Trump a few weeks ago, with regard to the trade treaty. When communists have tabloid journalism and hedge funds, it gets difficult to tell them apart from the capitalists. At least "having too few political parties" still seems a reasonable tell for repressive states.

(to be fair, ad-supported journalism has had a much longer run than I'd thought it would)

Edit: older than I'd thought:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/chinese-a...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trade-trump/tru...

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#75

Post by scott_s » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #41

scott_s wrote: post #33

Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox ( https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co... ): > There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is…

But I think Klein is failing to engage with the core issue, that many of the positions now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in newspapers are held by a majority of Americans and considered reasonable by a supermajority. If newspapers systematically refuse to represent views that most people hold, how can we trust their objectivity?

The news is not objective. There is no such thing as a “view from nowhere.” Editors make decisions daily about what even is news, and that is a subjective process.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#76

Post by claudeganon » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #41

scott_s wrote: post #33

Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox ( https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co... ): > There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is…

But I think Klein is failing to engage with the core issue, that many of the positions now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in newspapers are held by a majority of Americans and considered reasonable by a supermajority. If newspapers systematically refuse to represent views that most people hold, how can we trust their objectivity?

Most of white American would’ve supported siccing the police and military on the civil rights movement in the 60s. That doesn’t mean that newspapers should’ve advocated they do so. The same holds true here.

Ethics are not equivalent to populism.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#77

Post by nhod » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

born_a_skeptic wrote: post #52

gfodor wrote: post #42

Taibbi at this point should start a new news co. He, and to some degree, Glenn Greenwald, have been the only two members of the press who seem to be unable to see the emperor’s new clothes in the parades of the last several years.

Why not Tucker Carlson? Just for the record, I subscribe to The Intercept and am a fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Tucker Carlson drops hints that he can’t see the emperor’s clothes, but he nevertheless describes their beauty in exquisite detail almost every other night. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#78

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #54

scott_s wrote: post #33

Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox ( https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co... ): > There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is…

It would be hard to argue that a view is universally repugnant when it is espoused by an elected official and there is at least a significant minority of voters polling in support of the view. Given those criteria, we should argue that outright racist or sexist views are both unacceptable and not universally repugnant. I'm still supportive of editors who refuse to publish in those cases. So I'm just quibbling with th…

I wonder how much division in the country plays into this. I keep hearing references to there being at least two countries within the US. Is this maybe the outcome of using the sphere model from the Vox article higher up and applying it only within the "blue country"?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#79

Post by born_a_skeptic » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #67

born_a_skeptic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not Tucker Carlson? Just for the record, I subscribe to The Intercept and am a fan of Glenn Greenwald.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?speaker=tucker-c...

Alright, so he was wrong 8 times out of ~10,000 statements in the last 4 years? Or, am I missing something?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#80

Post by JohnStrangeII » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #68

JohnStrangeII wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does have an ambiguous "and" in the relevant sentence but it's a bit of a far stretch to get from that to the paraphrase you provide. Here is the literal quote from the article: "Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderb…

I'd believe it if there weren't so many inaccurate reports claiming exactly that. His wording: >"..ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers.." very much sounds like he thinks the same, and a majority of the readership familiar with the story are going to read it that way even if you can be extremely charitable and say that this…

I think you're missing the point. It's an opinion piece (aka editorial, or blog post in this case) and not a news article. Of course, you can disagree with his interpretation.