The main stream media broke, the world is now figuring out what moving on means.
Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
31–40 of 195 posts
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#32This piece makes the case that the only way traditional media can hold powerful people accountable is by being the arbiters of their distribution, by controlling who gets published and how their story is told. The way things used to be before the internet. It’s a good thing this is not the case anymore. Big media is essential for democracy, but controlling distribution is not democratic. Big media has two options now…
Big media is essential for democracy? Democracy literally predates the printing press.
Yeah, that’s been the thinking at least since Lippmann’s time.
If you only vote on local issues, you don’t need media to inform you since you can see it first hand. But as soon as the average citizen is expected to keep up with state, national, intl politics you need a media capable of informing them.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#33> As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know, and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good. And that is all true, for what it’s worth. But this is about power. We need to take some back, lest the rich and powerful run away from one of the last forces restraining them. I don't want the same arrogant, self-unaware journalist that pushes pernicious narratives to…
This 100%
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fact: You are conflating two separate instances where Trump bullied reporters to make your point. Instance from 2018 (with what you termed “racist” insinuations): https://youtu.be/OXp5GJjuOvQ Instance from 2020 actually relating to COVID-19: https://youtu.be/N5NQdmHzBTY I’m going to take this as a reminder that we should all carefully consider sources of information, even when those sources are our own recollections…
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-pandemic-us-preside... No, this was the "racist" incident when Weijia Jiang asked Trump why he was insisting on bringing up the fact that the U.S. was doing better than (several European countries, including UK, Italy, Spain, and France at the time) other countries. And he said, "They're losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that's a question you should ask Chi…
I suppose the guy calling Covid-19 "Kung Flu" was in no way trying to deflect blame to China?
Was his treatment of that reporter in particular bad? No, not really. I don't believe he brought up China because she was Chinese.
But I don't think "he always throws temper tantrums" or "he always finds a scapegoat" or "he's always badmouthing China even when he knows there's been a spike in hate crimes against Chinese people" are terribly good excuses. Premeditation and a pattern of behavior make his actions worse, not better.
> because at the time, China was claiming they had basically solved Covid-19 with lockdowns and that the virus was no longer spreading in their country.
You are putting words in his mouth. We don't know what he meant because he refused to answer the question. Immediately after that exchange, he cut the briefing short and left the room.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#35At some point one gets a knock on the front door, sees a journalist holding a guillotine and pike, but just can't muster the old outrage. The field of heads is vast, most of them had less power than the journalists who decapitated them, and is it really necessary to fight another battle in the culture war over a tiny bakery doing naughty things? Can I really trust you when you say Elon Musk's union-busting is bad, or am I going to give it a quick google and find out that GM and Ford are worse, and you're going after Elon because he's a celebrity CEO who smoked weed with Joe Rogan once? Would you tell me if a modern-day Kissinger was committing a modern day institutional mass murder? Why did you drop Hong Kong as soon as COVID happened?
If your paper has power, then in some loose sense it governs, and have you kept the consent of the governed? And if you've lost it, why?
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-pandemic-us-preside... No, this was the "racist" incident when Weijia Jiang asked Trump why he was insisting on bringing up the fact that the U.S. was doing better than (several European countries, including UK, Italy, Spain, and France at the time) other countries. And he said, "They're losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that's a question you should ask Chi…
She said: "Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition when, every day, Americans are still losing their lives?" Did he answer the question? Or did he look at an Asian woman and immediately start attacking China? And this is just ridiculous: "Weirdly, some, who feared Trump being a true Hitler-like fascist 2-3 years ago, were upset that Trump wasn't being fascist enough and shutting the whole country down…
>Or did he look at an Asian woman and immediately start attacking China?
I don't think that's entirely fair. I suspect his answer would be pretty much the same no matter who asked it. He was pre
>Marshalling private militias to attack people is fascism, however, and it's a practice Trump shares with both Hitler and Mussolini.
"LIBERATE MICHIGAN", anyone?
Though, in fairness, the plot to kidnap Michigan's governor didn't start until two whole two months after he sent that Tweet. The Blackshirts carrying rifles through the capitol building were largely peaceful.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#37>> They felt that way because papers like the Post could offer the carrot of great exposure to those who needed it, but also, always, the stick of negative coverage to those who spurned them. There is nothing devious or ignoble about this; a powerful press, for all its flaws, is good for democracy No, doing hit pieces on anyone is a flagrant exercise of power that deserves no respect and destroys the credibility of t…
I'd suggest to read Hunter S. Thompson's obituary on Nixon https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-... "It was all gibberish, of course. Nixon was no more a Saint than he was a Great President. He was more like Sammy Glick than Winston Churchill. He was a cheap crook and a merciless war criminal who bombed more people to death in Laos and Cambodia than the U.S. Army lost in all of World War II, an…
Here's Matt Taibbi's writings on White Fragility:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility
It's plenty opinionated. But it's interesting because Matt Taibbi is not a Republican, in the same way that Reason (not Democrats) is interesting when it criticizes Republican ideas.
CNN saying anything about Trump or Fox News saying anything about Biden is by comparison of insignificant (if not negative) value, because there is a 97% chance that it's just partisan culture warring.
And so that should be the rule. If you're talking about the other team, be objective. If you're talking about your team, have an opinion. Because an opinion that the other team is bad is not actually useful.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#38> why not Elon Musk's Maybe because of the lies and fraud? Or the hazardous working conditions? Or all the people Tesla's lemons have killed when the wheels fell off or the "full self driving" system crashed the car at speed? I don't believe that journalists are any better than the rest of us, but let's not pretend our "job creators" are good for the world.
I’ll take job creators over people who have money and do nothing with it. There are affluent people who have money and park it or spend it away. Also just having great volumes of potential workers and no one to organize them into a productive body does little good.
Yeah, Tesla is real productive. Only Elon Musk would have the brilliant idea of building a $100% automated factory, failing to do that, setting the goal of building 5,000 cars a week on normal lines, failing to do that, moving his employees into a circus tent in the hot sun to hit the goal, failing again, then giving up and declaring victory.
Tesla can't build cars because Elon Musk, being a big dumb-dumb, disregarded everything we know about manufacturing. Those employees would be more useful at any other car manufacturer. And yes, that includes Chevy.
I actually think Elon Musk probably is better than most other billionaires. That says more about them than it does about him.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#39> As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know, and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good. And that is all true, for what it’s worth. But this is about power. We need to take some back, lest the rich and powerful run away from one of the last forces restraining them. I don't want the same arrogant, self-unaware journalist that pushes pernicious narratives to…
The self-righteous arrogance of this author is comical.
Re: Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power
#40> As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know, and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good. And that is all true, for what it’s worth. But this is about power. We need to take some back, lest the rich and powerful run away from one of the last forces restraining them. I don't want the same arrogant, self-unaware journalist that pushes pernicious narratives to…
Particularly when the largest news organizations are run to enrich and empower some of the richest men in the world. Slim, Murdoch, Bezos. All run the most widely read, widely respected papers in the country.