Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

kottke.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 168 posts

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#51

Post by GhettoMaestro »

fenomas wrote: post #25
proximitysauce wrote: post #15

It's much more rare though and it's almost entirely absent when looking at political coverage. Two journalists I can think of off the top of my head who have acted with outstanding integrity in recent years are Ronan Farrow and Julie K. Brown (broke the Weinstein and Epstein stories respectively). Part of what makes their journalism so strong is that they had to fight the entire industry to get their stories out. Pol…

> caught on camera acting in an extremely partisan manner I'm sorry, but even as political talking points go this makes no sense. He made a "cut" gesture during a live feed, but live news broadcasts cut from one feed to another dozens of times per hour, and the feed he was motioning to cut wasn't of any particular importance to either party (it was a Trump lawyer listening to someone off-camera asking a question). Th…

Not any live feed.... a feeding frenzy (Impeachment) and he wants to cut off the dude's rebuttal? That's chickenshit.

But of course I'm sure you'll have a rebuttal to this as to why ol Georgy did nothing wrong. You type of folks always show up white-knight style in these threads.

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#53

Post by 12xo »

Attention is the currency of media. Modern, mainstream "news" programs are not journalism per se, they are just conduits for advertising dollars.

The sad part is that concocting sensationalism is extremely profitable, especially politics. And when you can create the controversy and then charge outrageous amounts of money to the very people to whom you poke, you control the discourse and you make a lot of money, which in America is power.

Modern, mainstream "news" is just like fast food. If you care about your body and your health, you will not eat the stuff. But most people dont care, dont mind and dont even think about it. Its cheap, tasty and convenient.

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#55

Post by proximitysauce »

nickloewen wrote: post #50
proximitysauce wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the job of journalists to vet the stories. No journalist ever has or ever will suggest that the earth is flat. That's a strawman.

The concern as I understand it is not that a journalist would just straight-up defend a conspiracy theory. Rather, the concern is that if you give any airtime to conspiracy theorists, even in the form of a debate, some viewers/readers will conclude that there must be some nugget of legitimacy in the conspiracy (why else would it be on the news?). Indeed, conspiracy theorists have relied on this to gain support, espec…

A far greater concern than conspiracy theorists getting taken seriously are actual conspiracies perpetrated by mainstream media outlets. I gave two examples elsewhere in the thread: Weinstein and Epstein. Those aren't "conspiracy theories", they're know and active conspiracies. There were a multitude of opportunity to report on them but the stories were actively stifled for personal and political gain.

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#56

Post by endorphone »

proximitysauce wrote: post #15

It's much more rare though and it's almost entirely absent when looking at political coverage. Two journalists I can think of off the top of my head who have acted with outstanding integrity in recent years are Ronan Farrow and Julie K. Brown (broke the Weinstein and Epstein stories respectively). Part of what makes their journalism so strong is that they had to fight the entire industry to get their stories out. Pol…

That Stephanopoulos example of partisan behavior is an incredible choice, especially when you then claim that the White House is "hardly faultless". Given that you could randomly choose virtually any second of Fox News coverage and have a much worse example, still you chose this?

Stephanopoulos was giving directing clues for his own talk program. There is positively nothing "partisan" about that, however partisan he may be. The White House, on the other hand...well let's not even go there.

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#57

Post by bilbo0s »

coldtea wrote: post #49
bilbo0s wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal truth, is, in fact, a bit of an impossibility. ("Truth" being dependent on point of view.) That said, "truth" is also unnecessary. That is, it's unnecessary if a journalist is just reporting the known facts of a situation. If what a journalist really wants to do is tell their own "truth". Then yeah, facts and hard evidence aren't really necessary and putting out their "truth" becomes entirely possible.

> "Truth" being dependent on point of view Some truths do. A lot of truths don't depend on point of view. Whether something is right or wrong, benefit or detriment etc does depend on point of view. But lots of truths just depend on what's reported matching what is the case. E.g. "whether X did Y (e.g. whether John punched Jack)" is not based on opinion. There's a universal truth there, either John did or he didn't. S…

>"whether X did Y (e.g. whether John punched Jack)" is not based on opinion. There's a universal truth there, either John did or he didn't

I'm pretty sure you just conflated "truth" with fact. John punching Jack. Or John not punching Jack. Is one of the facts of the situation. At least, police and criminal courts would call it one of the facts. They certainly wouldn't call it one of the "truths".

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#58

Post by defterGoose »

macspoofing wrote: post #4

If you take the present journalism climate as the norm, these rules are radical. Can you imagine CNN reporting on Trump voters and following rule #6? Or reporting on Trump and following rule #5, #11?

Maybe in the universe where CNN is capable of doing these things, Trump wouldn't have become President.

Re: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism

#60

Post by pjc50 »

proximitysauce wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#5 and #7 are a problem - they can be exploited by bad actors. That's how you get the "views on shape of Earth differ" reports.

It's the job of journalists to vet the stories. No journalist ever has or ever will suggest that the earth is flat. That's a strawman.

That was deliberately a less controversial one than climate change, and newspapers publish denialist claims of basically the same level of substance as flat Earth ones all the time (e.g. James Delingpole)
Post reply on HN