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From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

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Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#71

Post by throw0101c »

toolazytologin wrote: post #32
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very cable-news-brained to believe there always have to be two sides that are equally viable and that the only respectable unbiased stance is in the middle, dragged by the Overton window wherever it happens to go.

It’s very cable-news-brained to believe there must be sides at all. Report facts and let the readers form their own opinions.

> It’s very cable-news-brained to believe there must be sides at all. Report facts and let the readers form their own opinions.

"Feelings don't care about your facts." — not Ben Shapiro

Who won the 2020 US presidential election? If viewers think it was A and you report that it was B, will they believe you? Will they continue to watch/read you? If not, what does that do to your revenue and ability to pay your bills?

As Jason Zweig wrote:

> There are three ways to make a living: 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. 2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. 3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.

* https://jasonzweig.com/three-ways-to-get-paid/

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#72

Post by throw0101c »

laughing_man wrote: post #59
edot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands of newsworthy things happened yesterday. Which ones do you put on the front page? You don’t have to put a spin on the news to bias it. You just report or fail to report the news that goes or doesn’t go with your agenda.

We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me.

> We have the internet now, so column inches isn't a constraint. Give it all to me.

But reporters' time and effort are still a constraint.

And if you spend (more) time on story A but readers are interested in B and don't generate review via views/clicks, that affects the ability to pay your bills.

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#73

Post by throw0101c »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #47
9dev wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, facts, huh. Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Were the events in Palestine of 1948 a catastrophe, the violent expulsion of the Palestinian people from their home country, or was it a heroic effort by the Israelis to establish a homestead after the horrible expe…

> Was Donald Trump leading a violent group of traitors and looters to desecrate the capitol, or did he and thousands of others peacefully protest against the Democrats stealing the election? Neither of those is a matter of fact, but rather interpretation of the facts. The facts are that Donald Trump posted on social media encouraging people to fight the election results (or something to that effect, I don't have an e…

> Neither of those is a matter of fact, but rather interpretation of the facts.

Let us try something simpler: is the world round or flat?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_beliefs

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#74

Post by cowpig »

xwolfi wrote: post #64
the_fall wrote: post #28

The history of journalism is written by journalists, often in a self-serving way. You'll be hard-pressed to pinpoint the purported golden age of impartial truth-seeking. Early newspapers in the US were often owned by a local railroad tycoon and published hit pieces about his opponents. From the 1960s, this morphed into a way to broadcast the ideological consensus of East Coast Ivy League graduates. Some of their idea…

In France, at a very young age, we're taught that journalism is not impartial: people must take sides to express interesting opinions. We simply need to read them all: the Humanite to understand the communist point of view, the Monde for the socialists, the Figaro for the conservatives, the Croix for the Christians, etc. Once you mix all these perspectives of the same events, you get, if not "the truth", a view of th…

No, man.

> when time comes to vote on policies, having read everyone, you may consider their point of view a bit more.

Trying to be impartial, trying to understand all the points of view, is a noble effort. It's impossible to do, but the process of trying is how you can achieve the best version of truth. Seems like I agree with you here.

And that's what the best newspapers do.

I need people to be making an honest effort to understand all the perspectives and distilling them down for me.

If nobody is doing that, then it makes my job (the job of understanding everyones' perspectives) a lot harder, because it's an exercise in multi-player adversarial thinking.

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#75

Post by ETH_start »

trinsic2 wrote: post #67
ETH_start wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to know whether there's any objective way to measure how truth-seeking journalism actually is. Otherwise it just turns into people declaring, purely subjectively, that one outlet is "biased" and another is "impartial" or "truth-seeking". Ultimately, every editorial decision — what to publish, which story to highlight, what angle to frame it from — is a value judgment. And value judgments aren't matters of ob…

From my point of view journalism is or was about calling attention to points of reference that we can all agree that we are affected by in a similar way. The way you are framing this is more about agreeing with each other. IMHO that's not what journalism is about.

I don't quite follow. You're saying journalism is supposed to only cover things in which there's unanimous consent?

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#76

Post by ETH_start »

throw0101c wrote: post #70
ETH_start wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to know whether there's any objective way to measure how truth-seeking journalism actually is. Otherwise it just turns into people declaring, purely subjectively, that one outlet is "biased" and another is "impartial" or "truth-seeking". Ultimately, every editorial decision — what to publish, which story to highlight, what angle to frame it from — is a value judgment. And value judgments aren't matters of ob…

> I'd like to know whether there's any objective way to measure how truth-seeking journalism actually is. Apparantly: * https://archive.is/https://www.businessinsider.com/study-wat... * https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fox-news-study-compari... * https://washingtonmonthly.com/2011/06/19/the-most-consistent... * https://portal.fdu.edu/fdupoll-archive/knowless/final.pdf * https://portal.fdu.edu/fdupoll-archive/con…

This is a correlation, so it doesn't prove a causative association, and it's only across a very tiny subset of the entire knowledge set.

While I understand that my second point might sound like a cop-out, just consider how the survey findings may have been different, if the respondents had been asked about issues more relevant to social justice narratives, e.g. the prevalence of deadly police shootings of unarmed people of color.

Actual annual figure in recent years: roughly 10 depending on dataset and year.

Median estimates among progressive respondents in several surveys: hundreds or even thousands.

Another example:

Surveys show large fractions of progressive populations believe global poverty has worsened, when the long-term trend has been a substantial decline

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#77

Post by akimbostrawman »

9dev wrote: post #41
calvinmorrison wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel nothing but schadenfreude.

I don’t understand this sentiment. Journalists are humans too, with their own opinions that invariably shape their work. That doesn’t invalidate all their work though, and it’s vital for a democracy to have a spectrum of opinions floating around, and citizens getting in contact with that spectrum. Big newspapers and media outlets are the only institutions able and persistent enough to dig through things like the Epst…

I remember how vital they where in shaping public opinion with WMD. Truly a win for democracy.

Journalism for quite sometime has little to do with informing and more manipulating. If not for money then political/personal agendas. Sadly for most people it's only clear in retrospect.

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#78

Post by trinsic2 »

ETH_start wrote: post #75
trinsic2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my point of view journalism is or was about calling attention to points of reference that we can all agree that we are affected by in a similar way. The way you are framing this is more about agreeing with each other. IMHO that's not what journalism is about.

I don't quite follow. You're saying journalism is supposed to only cover things in which there's unanimous consent?

No consent has nothing to do with events that affect people and society. Not sure where the confusion is.

Re: From watchdogs to mouthpieces: Washington Post and the wreckage of legacy media

#79

Post by ETH_start »

trinsic2 wrote: post #78
ETH_start wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite follow. You're saying journalism is supposed to only cover things in which there's unanimous consent?

No consent has nothing to do with events that affect people and society. Not sure where the confusion is.

I didn't follow your original statement. Could you rephrase it?
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