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Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

nytimes.com

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Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#11

Post by secabeen »

heartbeats wrote: post #5

I think it's unavoidable. With social media, the incentives simply aren't there to have a media that gives a balanced view of the story anymore. That doesn't sell. Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any stance. Now, people are starting to conflate neutrality with centrism. Even a 'neutral' news outlet is expected to take some sort of stance, and not to platform extremists. If y…

> Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any stance.

I feel that this era was a historical anomaly, brought on by the limited distribution of national TV networks, and the trust Americans had in institutions after the successes of WWII.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#12

Post by sky_rw »

This from the people who created the standard of "According to an anonymous source familiar with his thinking".

If you want to convince me that journalists are NOT the enemy of the people, then stop donating money to political causes and then publishing damning reports to opponents of those causes sourced only from unverifiable anonymous sources.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#13

Post by sremani »

Now is a wonderful time to read these words of Wisdom of PG

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202

"Journalists used to have a monopoly on the news. This power bred restraint; whatever their private feelings, they avoided overt personal attacks. Now this power and the consequent restraint are both evaporating. Now they're just Twitter users."

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#15

Post by Luechkt »

specialist wrote: post #4

Ah. The journalists and reporters. Of course. Much concern. Never a mention of the owners, publishers, editors, boards, and personages of influence. Never a mention of the quid pro quo of coverage for access. We should focus all our concern on the journalists. Those dastardly story tellers using their immense power to boss around the mail clerks.

Former journalist here.

Spot. On.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#16

Post by jweir »

Simulacra wrote: post #3

Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. Sure there were plenty of newspapers and outlets that leaned one way or the other, but it was never so blatantly partisan, to the point of suspect. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, but the media of today certainly does…

This has always been the case. Thomas Jefferson called newspapers a “polluted vehicle.” Hearst and yellow journalism. Mcarthy is was not a high point in journalistic integrity - the press propelled him before Murrow took him down.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#17

Post by blhack »

When was the last time you read a news article about a topic where you are an expert, and walked away from it thinking that it would help laymen better understand the topic?

Journalism is a bit of a personal frustration of mine. It's so important to the function of our society to have an informed population, but we don't, and it's because of the consistent lying that is done by journalists that we don't. Maybe not solely, but the news is one of our primary sense organs, and it's currently broken, or perhaps worse: it's currently on psychadelic drugs and is telling us things that aren't real. If it goes on long enough, we're going to end up schitzophrenic as a society. I think that at the very least we are in the middle of a metaphorical psychotic break. I hope we recover from it, and I really wish that the journalists would at least try to help us, instead of blatantly trying fuel it.

And while we're at it: shut down twitter. It's the drug dealer give our sensemaking organs the drugs.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#18

Post by tsimionescu »

Simulacra wrote: post #3

Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and individuals with political agendas. Sure there were plenty of newspapers and outlets that leaned one way or the other, but it was never so blatantly partisan, to the point of suspect. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, but the media of today certainly does…

You're off by a century or two, but otherwise...

In all seriousness, the press has always been the friend of the powerful - whether moneyed interests, politicians, academics and so on. You don't write for the NYT or WP or Fox News or whatever you want unless your beliefs align with the interests of their owners, their advertisers, their lobby groups etc. And even if you may write for them, you'll absolutely not be editing for them unless your beliefs align with all of the above.

It's not some massive conspiracy or anything like that - it's just the way people and organizations work. No manager will hire or promote (or continue paying) someone whose opinions significantly disagree with their own, and the same is true of the manager's manager and so on.

Much of this is also highly related to the owners of the media outlet. There have been historical examples of moguls buying newspapers and requiring gushing reviews of any of their businesses, and vitriolic attacks of their competitors - political partisanship is a step down from that as freedom of the press goes.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#19

Post by martythemaniak »

At the end of the day, they're just another competitor in the Attention Economy. Their coverage of Big Tech for example makes a ton more sense if you view it as going after your competitors, rather than some high-minded Truth Seeking.

I mean, it's not all bullshit, every participant has some differentiating angle they believe in, like Googles Organizing the World's Information, Facebook's Connecting People, NY Times' Paper of Record etc.

Re: Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either

#20

Post by heartbeats »

mgkimsal wrote: post #6
heartbeats wrote: post #5

I think it's unavoidable. With social media, the incentives simply aren't there to have a media that gives a balanced view of the story anymore. That doesn't sell. Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any stance. Now, people are starting to conflate neutrality with centrism. Even a 'neutral' news outlet is expected to take some sort of stance, and not to platform extremists. If y…

> Now, you'll have to read two news outlets You already can read multiple outlets for different perspectives. Most people don't. Why would that change?

With the increasing polarization, there will have to be some point. For example, right now, Fox News at least mention negative news relating to the president, and the NY Times at least acknowledge Trump's existence.

In the future, I predict the newspapers will be naked propagandists. If they judge that some thing someone says or does is going to be bad for their party, they will just ignore it outright or lie about it.

In 2016, Fox News had people criticizing Trump, and CNN were (unintentionally) signal-boosting him by letting him dominate the news coverage. In say 2024, I think that Fox News will fire anyone who says anything bad about the Republican nominee, and CNN will not mention them by name on air.

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