The American Press Is Destroying Itself • Hacker News Board

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#91

Post by Shivetya » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

What I find most reprehensible about this whole situation is that more and more members of the left regulate political discourse, no make that any discourse, by defining any opposing view as illegitimate, bigoted, and now violence.

As in, they are taking the position that their moral superiority is without question and anyone who does not ascribe to this has no rights and we are nearing the point of the same having no protection from retribution of any sort.

I seriously doubt people understand what is happening to their rights because if this type of moral superiority takes hold you will be on the receiving end more often than not. Welcome to 1984.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#92

Post by scott_s » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

remote_phone wrote: post #85

scott_s wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The opinion pages are not objective. The news should be objective. If they aren’t objective then they should be clear about this otherwise people believe it as objective. That’s the whole point of news.

It is not possible for the news to be objective. Even the decision of what is news is a subjective process. If the news appears objective, that only means you share the perspective of the people reporting on and editing it.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#93

Post by rb808 » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:04 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.

The other half cancelled their subscription because they fired the editor, so they lose-lose really.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#94

Post by jtbayly » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:04 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 mean, I agree, but why be inaccurate with this statement?

> significant minority of voters polling in support of the view

We know that it’s a majority from the article:

> A Morning Consult poll showed 58% of Americans either strongly or somewhat supported the idea of “calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces.”

Is it because of the same fear that the article is describing in the press?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#95

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #63

I agree with some of this, but I just personally can't bring myself to care about the firings of the editors responsible for "Send in the troops" and "Buildings matter, too". A lot of my friends unsubscribed from the NY Times for publishing Tom Cotton's pro-fascism op-ed. The NY Times had to respond to this. They are a business and their income matters. It's not so much an issue of freedom of thought in the newsroom,…

Are you concerned about the increasing cultural divisions in the U.S.? Seems like the NYT giving up the pretense of being a general purpose news organization is a loss for those hoping for cultural reconciliation at some point.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#96

Post by itchyjunk » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

Expression and suppression of ideas have been happening ever since the onset of language in human, as far as I can tell. Any explanation that is time dependent, i.e this is happening because of so and so happening currently seems a bit inadequate to me. Any type of "look how crazy the other side is" rhetoric also feels like cliche to me because who am I do decide what's insane and what not?

As for the core of the problem itself, I have no idea what the core of the problem is. Vaguely, it seems that people take a side of issue that's phrased to have two side and they duke it out with the other side. It seem to be part of underlying mechanism of how humans behave because I see similar ideas played out in sports and such.

Maybe the problem isn't any one specific idea but rather how ideas get parsed by our brain. Or maybe I am the one complicating things and it's a simpler idea. But this whole business of right or wrong ideas, sides, values etc seems exhaustive. I'll just wait for someone else to figure it out for me.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#97

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

hcayless wrote: post #90

CydeWeys wrote: post #63

I agree with some of this, but I just personally can't bring myself to care about the firings of the editors responsible for "Send in the troops" and "Buildings matter, too". A lot of my friends unsubscribed from the NY Times for publishing Tom Cotton's pro-fascism op-ed. The NY Times had to respond to this. They are a business and their income matters. It's not so much an issue of freedom of thought in the newsroom,…

I’m interested that this is getting downvoted. It seems perfectly fair comment to me. Newspapers can not afford to massively alienate their readership, and both of these cases clearly did just that. That calls into question the editors’ fitness for their jobs.

It just doesn't really address the substance of the issue. It may well be true that the NYT has no financial choice but pander to the readers who consider non-controversial majority views to be fascist. That doesn't change the problematic effects of such viewpoint narrowing.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#98

Post by SaltyBackendGuy » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

born_a_skeptic wrote: post #79

MattGaiser wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Says the Potomac River "has gotten dirtier and dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. I go down there and that litter is left almost exclusively by immigrants."

I think you're missing something.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#99

Post by epx » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

infogulch wrote: post #17

The US seems to have fallen into a game-theoretic local minimum where each party lets their crazy cousin go throw dumb rocks at the opposition because it seems to be the optimal way to drum up fanatic support for their side, all the while whistling as if in ignorance of what's going on. At least that's how it seemed to start, now it's just devolved to outright scat slinging that's co-opted our system of government in…

Same in Brazil... I like two say there is no left and right, there are two right-wing parties, each one defending its slice of the status quo (left is pro-privileges of public servants here, which are already majority in top earners)

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#100

Post by meroes » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #91

What I find most reprehensible about this whole situation is that more and more members of the left regulate political discourse, no make that any discourse, by defining any opposing view as illegitimate, bigoted, and now violence. As in, they are taking the position that their moral superiority is without question and anyone who does not ascribe to this has no rights and we are nearing the point of the same having n…

Or it's in response to and a reversal of the moral superiorirty Christians and conservatives have held over this country for several hundred years. Maybe it's an overcorection, but that's how these things always work.