On the angst of American journalists (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#71

Post by chaps » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #70

chaps wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This is a stupendously bleak vision of journalism. Are you saying that there should be no new journalism because there's no benefit? If you're sourcing your news from national news, try looking for investigative journalism at the local level.

I'm saying that there's lots of new journalism. I would concede that the specific format of nonpartisan local newspapers is less popular than it used to be, but this has not in my experience made it any harder to determine what's going on in my local area, and I don't know of any evidence that others are finding it harder either.

Ah sorry, I think I misread what you meant in your original post. Yeah, I have the same problem. A lot of these issues would go away if journalist orgs worked together to a larger degree (sharing FOIA docs, etc), but the competition and risk of sharing info leads to naturally strange ethics systems.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#72

Post by krageon » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #64

krageon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a brief period, journalism was a respected professional-class career. That must have been an extremely brief period significantly before I was alive, because I have never heard a single human being imply this.

Journalism schools exist. The supply of people stupid enough to get a graduate degree that costs tens of thousands of dollars that takes two years of your life who don’t expect to make a good salary is quite limited. Unless the graduates of J schools always expected to rely on the family money or their supportive spouse.

There's a lot of examples of dumb schooling choices that continue to exist, regardless of prestige. I don't believe I share your outlook on this, especially given that I've seen it first hand.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#73

Post by ravel-bar-foo » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

caslon wrote: post #69

refurb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If things weren't good in 2019, then they've never been good . Seriously. In 20 years people will look back on the post-2008 economic frenzy like they look back on the Clinton years.

Have they ever been good? I come from a long lineage of people who had a parent die while they were still children. Sure doesn't seem like the good's been equitable or balanced.

The US Gini coefficient has been rising for 70 years, but life expectancies are high. So yes, better than ever for the median person, but also less equitable than ever.