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The American Press Is Destroying Itself

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Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#351

Post by [deleted] »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #324
js2 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 48. My family had a newspaper subscription (in my case, the Miami Herald). I've been a consumer of news all my life, mostly print media. (My family rarely watched local news except for when a hurricane was headed our way, but would often watch programs like 60 minutes.) When was the news ever "Who, What, When, Where, Why?" It's always had a slant as long as I remember. Here's "the most trusted man in America" cal…

But he was "the most trusted man in America". People across the political spectrum trusted him to reliably and accurately report what's what. There are figures like that today - Joe Rogan comes to mind - but I don't think anyone could become so trusted while adhering to the speech codes outlined in the article.

[deleted]

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#352

Post by DenisM »

rickyplouis wrote: post #317
DenisM wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he willingly published a piece that he said could be dangerous. That’s rich. No, he did not say that. He said some readers may find it dangerous. It does not mean he himself finds it dangerous.

I agree, he does not believe it to be dangerous. That's kind of my point. He does not believe it to be dangerous, but many of his readers and even black journalists have acknowledged it is. At this point you either accept that black journalists are saying this piece is dangerous or you reject it, you can't pretend it to be indifferent.

Oh dear. You have falsely ascribed words to the guy and did not even acknowledge it when I brought it to your attention.

To the contrary you doubled down: this time you are saying that the editor was indifferent to raised concerns, despite the fact the he actually did acknowledge them and communicated that in his opinion other considerations overrule. That’s not indifference, that’s disagreement.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#353

Post by NotSammyHagar »

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?

Please tell me what the majority of americans support that is unacceptable to talk about? I'm guessing your idea of the super-majority is at best questionably a super-majority.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#354

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

blickentwapft wrote: post #83

I’m getting to the point of just switching off. Whatever your opinion, there will be many others who deeply and vehemently disagree with you and do so with passionate, fiery, certain-to-be-correct righteous indignation. Carry your true opinions in your head and share them with no one.

> "Carry your true opinions in your head and share them with no one."

While I don't disagree, I would add that all of us need to share our true opinions at least in one place: the voting booth. We are led by those whom we choose and we must start choosing more wisely if we want a better future.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#356

Post by arkades »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346
arkades wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your comment correctly. Are you saying that black communities should be reasonably crime-free before they can expect institutions not to systematically discriminate them and enact retributionless, extralegal violence upon them?

What I'm saying is that when black people kill more than ten times more black people than cops kill black people, somebody is not wrong to ask why the focus should only be on the cops.

Because one of those groups is a set of criminals that will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and the other one of those groups is a set of government agents with a history of not being held accountable for their actions.

There's never been a lack of focus on intra-community violence. It's been the go-to "whataboutism" for ... ever. It's also not relevant to the question of why government authorities should be exempt from the consequences of violating the law.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#357

Post by buzzkillington »

Animats wrote: post #261
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…

Serious news is expensive, and at this point, a niche market. I suspect that's correct. It's hard now to find any news outlet now that sticks to "Who, What, When, Where, Why". This is a consequence of pay per click, probably. The left and the right now both have a checklist of mandatory positions required to avoid punishment. Those positions are in many cases contrary to fact. That's not good. Denial has become a cor…

It's rather depressing. I think it feels like living in the 60s, everyone knows that nuclear war will be a disaster and everyone expects it to happen tomorrow. At least I have a first class ticket on the Titanic.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#358

Post by buzzkillington »

forgingahead wrote: post #10
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #2

Thing is, when the New York Times was "the newspaper of record", everyone read it. When they only print what will pass muster with the howling mob, for fear of losing their jobs if they offend, then only the howling mob will read it. But the howling mob doesn't have enough members to support the New York Times. That is, catering to the most vocal segment of the Right Thinkers is a ticket to an ever-shrinking readersh…

People also seem to be unaware that howling mobs move on ...you just have to wait them out. Stand firm and they'll quickly find another target to bully.

But they tend to burn down whatever they are around before moving on.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#359

Post by vkou »

aebtebeten wrote: post #74
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-supp…

China has been communist only in-name for the past 35 years.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#360

Post by buzzkillington »

fzeroracer wrote: post #218
phaus wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I was talking about. You make a bunch of assumptions about peoples' political opinions that are incorrectly portraying them as centrists and supporters of nazis if they don't adopt your world view. "Us or them" is killing America. Lack of nuance and intelligent discourse is destroying us. There's more to the extreme left than "Everyone deserves to be treated equally and with dignity." Politics in…

I mean, Donald Trump literally reversed transgender health protections this week. If you're voting for a Republican, you're voting for the party of Donald Trump and efforts like that which take away the rights of certain classes of citizens. You can't vote for a party and try to avoid taking the whole package deal. You get what you voted for.

Trans rights affect about 0.5% of the population. More people will die of covid than there are trans people in the US. It is literally a non-issue.
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