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

I read a number of articles on the Oracle v Google case that explained the technical aspects of the case and why it had important implications for ordinary people -- why it wasn't just a slap fight between large companies. I am also regularly impressed by the technical coverage in ArsTechnica on a wide variety of topics.

The problem isn't that there's no good reporting, it's that if you're not an expert it's difficult to tell which reporting is good and bad. As a gamedev, I've seen some fantastic articles from tech journalists and games journalists on everything from game modding/emulation, to game design and theme, to the development process behind games, to consumer reviews that really get at the heart of what makes a game special or flawed. I've also seen some really sophomoric content on those same subjects that leaves me feeling unbelievably frustrated. And they come from the same publications.

So it's not as simple as just saying, "here's a good news source, trust what they say." The quality of a given publication can vary wildly. But it's also not as simple as saying, "every journalist is terrible at their job." There's some good content out there.

To add to that, I also kind of agree with this section of the article:

> journalism also has its own weird ideology that doesn’t match up with a party or movement. [...] But those values are rarely the actual reason anyone likes us, or the direction in which praise pulls us.

I think it's unfair for people to look at a culture that has generally shifted towards an attitude of "arguments/sources as soldiers" and say that the reason everything is broken is just because journalists lie. Journalists are part of a vicious cycle that encompasses how we approach education, the way we talk about politics, the way we fund our news sources, the way we conduct elections, and the way we consolidate newsrooms and talk about media antitrust. Journalists are one single part of a very large, complicated problem.

And just like everyone else, journalists respond to the incentives that they're given. The average person on the street doesn't necessarily always want an informed, balanced media source. They want a media source that they can use as a soldier in their political arguments. And in a Capitalist society, their spending habits and viewing habits help to make sure that the news sources that cater to their wants are consistently better funded than the ones that don't.

> and walked away from it thinking that it would help laymen better understand the topic?

I read a number of articles on the Oracle v Google case that explained the technical aspects of the case and why it had important implications for ordinary people -- why it wasn't just a slap fight between large companies. I am also regularly impressed by the technical coverage in ArsTechnica on a wide variety of topics.

The problem isn't that there's no good reporting, it's that if you're not an expert it's difficult to tell which reporting is good and bad. As a gamedev, I've seen some fantastic articles from tech journalists and games journalists on everything from game modding/emulation, to game design and theme, to the development process behind games, to consumer reviews that really get at the heart of what makes a game special or flawed. I've also seen some really sophomoric content on those same subjects that leaves me feeling unbelievably frustrated. And they come from the same publications.

So it's not as simple as just saying, "here's a good news source, trust what they say." The quality of a given publication can vary wildly. But it's also not as simple as saying, "every journalist is terrible at their job." There's some good content out there.

To add to that, I also kind of agree with this section of the article:

> journalism also has its own weird ideology that doesn’t match up with a party or movement. [...] But those values are rarely the actual reason anyone likes us, or the direction in which praise pulls us.

I think it's unfair for people to look at a culture that has generally shifted towards an attitude of "arguments/sources as soldiers" and say that the reason everything is broken is just because journalists lie. Journalists are part of a vicious cycle that encompasses how we approach education, the way we talk about politics, the way we fund our news sources, the way we conduct elections, and the way we consolidate newsrooms and talk about media antitrust. Journalists are one single part of a very large, complicated problem.

And just like everyone else, journalists respond to the incentives that they're given. The average person on the street doesn't necessarily always want an informed, balanced media source. They want a media source that they can use as a soldier in their political arguments. And in a Capitalist society, their spending habits and viewing habits help to make sure that the news sources that cater to their wants are consistently better funded than the ones that don't.

We won't be able to "fix" journalism without fixing the surrounding culture and attitudes of ordinary citizens. Bad journalism is a symptom of that problem. People read and fund the news sources that they want to see.

Explanatory journalism strives to help lay people understand complex topics, like this piece about how undersea cables are laid down:

https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

So to answer your question...25 years ago? But while explanatory journalism is interesting and useful if the author is knowledgeable, it isn't the sort of reporting that people think about when they consider newspapers in the context of an informed electorate.

Investigative reporting involves uncovering an issue which the journalist believes should be corrected. The journalist's goal is to convince people that the issue exists, and to explain why it needs correcting. They don't necessarily need to be an expert on the topic to do that, especially if they can present convincing documentation of the alleged wrongdoing. For example, Glenn Greenwald was able to report on the USA's surveillance of its own citizens without being an expert on how the United States' intelligence agencies operated, because Edward Snowden leaked him a myriad of internal documents describing their programs.

It is a shame that nobody seems to do good investigative journalism anymore; the last good example I remember in the US was the WSJ's reporting on Theranos. But to be fair, if your country's citizens simply do not care about huge and glaring problems which barely need to be explained, why bother with investigative journalism? It's no longer an effective way to correct social issues.

Virtually all technical reporting by The Intercept. Most of that is reporting about technology for journalists by journalists. So maybe the exception that proves the rule?

>Independent

How are these compatible?