
Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? - detcader
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html
======
joe_the_user
Basically that (real) journalism will only live in exile?

The discussion of journalism in the abstract here is missing the relatively
quick changes that Snowden's leaks highlighted. A journalism with ties to the
established parties can still be "real journalism" if you have a strong
democracy in general. American "democracy" has degenerated into a circus the
permanent government uses to decide which frontman serves its interest better.
As this degeneration has proceeded, journalism as a part of loyal opposition
has become more or less impossible.

I mean, Obama's message of _" I welcome this debate and I intend to put the
person who began it in solitary for the rest of his life"_ is par for the
cynically demagogic course on both sides of the aisle.

Thus, it seems like journalism in the sense of open debate and airing dirty
laundry is mostly going to live based on the soft opposition between various
states, each of which may find housing it's opponents dissents to it
convenience (with the truth depending on this thin and dubious reed).

~~~
saraid216
> American "democracy" has degenerated into a circus the permanent government
> uses to decide which frontman serves its interest better.

Can you actually point to a period of time when things were better?

Framing the problem as one of degeneration, rather than as one of inadequacy,
is in my opinion one of the most critical problems with our approaches to
change. It makes us look for ways to repeal implemented changes assuming that
we'll regain a golden era by doing so, rather than actually _looking_ at the
situation, operating from first principles, and building something actually
effective.

~~~
alan_cx
"Can you actually point to a period of time when things were better?"

Yesterday.

And yesterday, the answer would have been, yesterday. And so on.

Literally, day by day it gets worse. So, the day before was clearly a time
when things were better.

~~~
hackula1
Before too long you'll hit some pretty terrible times in American democracy.
McCarthyism, internment camps, slavery, trail of tears, witch burnings, and on
and on all the way back to the beginning.

------
bparsons
Keller's version of news is one where all content in a story is generated by
the two opposing sides PR firms, in which he gives both sides equal space.

To go out and find facts independent of these actors is considered "activist"
and therefore unbiased.

In his world, there are no facts -- just assertions made by interested
players. His job as a reporter is simply to record the stage managed argument.

This is the standard defence for a reporter who has built a career out of
never offending anyone powerful.

~~~
EdiX
> In his world, there are no facts -- just assertions made by interested
> players. His job as a reporter is simply to record the stage managed
> argument.

IMHO this is also why journalism has had so much trouble recently monetizing
their product, they are a middlemen pushing a message from someone that wants
it disseminated as widely as possible onto people whom they expect to pay for
the privilege. They are asking for money to the wrong side of the equation.

------
detcader
The unfortunate question that keeps coming up in my head: does Glenn expect
all the journalists of this new enterprise to be as good as him? If you look
at his past articles, going back years before the Snowden leaks, he is clearly
fluent in what he does. Being a former lawyer accounts for a good part of it.
For example he never descends into "liberal vs conservative" "left vs right"
semantics. He recognizes that these meaningless labels hinder discourse (even
in this exchange, Keller tries to bait him into it, but Glenn doesn't budge).
It also seems as if he has some kind of bank (a personal wiki? I must know!)
of links to past articles and sources that he can pull from and sprinkle over
his claims, a practice that makes for amazingly solid articles.

Like another user said, I've been reading most everything he writes and tweets
-- starting months before the Snowden leaks. I just trust that they're
relevant to me as a US citizen 99% of the time. Few journalists are worthy of
such trust.

~~~
droopyEyelids
First off, I love Mr Greenwald, but I expect that other journalists will be
much better than him and eventually surpass his lead.

In my opinion, GG's strength lies in his clear-mindness, research skills, and
instinctual opposition to bullshit.

He has tremendous weaknesses in terms of hostility though. NOT that he calls a
lie a lie, but instead he frequently both uses insults, and assumes malice.

In writing for the public, especially if you hope to convince anyone of
anything, those are huge mistakes.

Glenn consistently calls things and people "stupid" (very little on earth is
stupid, when it looks that way there are factors influencing the behavior you
aren't accounting for, and addressing those factors has a far more persuasive
effect than cursing the person who behaves under their influence as 'stupid').

Secondly, Mr Greenwald _very_ frequently implies people are behaving with
malice. Malicious action is the worst thing you can accuse someone of; if a
person is truly malicious they are beyond reason (because their reasoning
ability tells them to hurt you.) Very few people on this planet operate with
malice outside of the moments they're passionately enraged. Instead, tons of
us hurt each other because we've been conditioned to do some action that has
effects we don't acknowledge, because we're faced to choose between hurting
ourselves or offloading it onto someone else and don't know how to do it
better, or a similar reason.

I believe Glenn will end up an editor, or in some senior position where his
instinct informs other journalists where to look for stories, but as for the
actual research and writing? To maintain the relationships you need with
sources and the public, you have to understand the points I've written above,
and Mr. Greenwald doesn't seem to show any tendency to move in that direction.
(As an aside, I think this might be because of his courtroom training, where
it's an adversarial system, or he is incredibly stressed out)

~~~
selmnoo
Yes, sadly I too have noticed this behavior from Glenn, his tone quickly turns
confrontational at times and this starts to pick at his credibility in the
view of the audience.

Someone should really explain this to him so he can make some corrective
efforts on this.

~~~
nbevans
I saw an interview with him and the BBC a few weeks ago. When the subject of
the UK came up he said he didn't care what they thought and he didn't care if
he couldn't enter that country ever again because of what he believes is a
hostile political system.

He seems very willing to make enemies of entire countries which is an odd
personality trait to say the least. I would think most westerners would be
extremely distraught if, for some reason, they realised they could no longer
visit the USA, UK, and numerous other major Western nations because of
something they had done wrong.

~~~
a3n
"because of something they had done wrong."

What has he done wrong?

~~~
jlgreco
Perhaps that 'they' is meant to refer to the country.

------
pavs
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything
else is public relations." \- George Orwell

~~~
saraid216
"Well, fuck."

Do I get a Pulitzer now?

------
detcader
Contrary to some other users here I don't see Greenwald's habitual hostility
as a negative thing, at least in his case. What he writes about, writes
against, are systems of oppression and death -- if you agree with his
positions in the slightest you will agree with that. The alternative of "maybe
killing American citizens with drone strikes without due process is a bad
thing, I think it might be, don't you?" would not have gotten him where he was
(in terms of readership, visibility, reputation, w/e etc) before Snowden, and
probably would not have appealed to Snowden.

------
mladenkovacevic
As clueless as this New York Times writer chooses to be, he at least
understands that the mention of Glenn Greenwald will bring forth clicks and
impressions. (Journalism about a new journalistic business model to support an
old journalistic model -it's not quite irony but some other literary device I
can't remember the name of)

~~~
r0h1n
"this NYT writer" was the executive editor of New York Times for 8 years, a
period during which he headed the entire NYT newsroom. Not that it should
change the way we view his opinion, but it still helps to know.

[http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped...](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/billkeller/index.html)

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Ah Ok his supposed "cluelessness" makes a little more sense now.

------
spikels
Guys like Bill Keller are a big part of what's wrong in mainstream media. In
just one of many examples of Keller's flawed thinking in this article examine
his logic in defending accusations of liberal bias at the NYT:

"I once saw some opinion research in which Times _readers_ were asked whether
they regarded The Times as “liberal.” A majority said yes. They were then
asked whether The Times was “fair.” A larger majority said yes. I guess I can
live with that." _emphasis added_

Excuse me but isn't this entirely consistent with the NYT in fact being
biased?

------
lurchpop
Keller conveniently sets up the story painting Greenwald as a partisan.

He is the exact opposite of that. He's pro civil liberties and the rule of law
-- consistently. People think he's a partisan because his writing sometimes
makes Democrats look bad. His positions didn't change when Bush was in office.

------
chalst
I have great respect for Bill Keller, but Greenwald makes the much stronger
case here. Keller suggests that news that is _trivial, shallow, sensational,
redundant_ tends to be the same as news that is _ideological and polemical_ \-
I'm surprised that Greenwald did not list the many outlets that have produced
seminal journalism in the past century (e.g., Orwell at Tribune, the neo-
conservatives at Commentary. Hitchens at The Nation), which seem to undermine
the usefulness of the correlation that Keller claims.

One passage (from Greenwald, which Keller does not argue with), sticks out:
_The climate of fear that has been deliberately cultivated means that, as The
New Yorker’s Jane Mayer put it, the newsgathering process has come to a
“standstill.” Many Times national security reporters, such as Scott Shane,
have been issuing similar warnings: that sources are now afraid to use the
traditional means of working with reporters because of the Obama
administration’s aggression. Ubiquitous surveillance obviously compounds this
problem greatly, since the collection of all metadata makes it almost
impossible for a source and journalist to communicate without the government’s
knowledge._

------
SCAQTony
I like Glenn Greenwald because I have a bias towards his politics. I follow
him on Twitter, and I read every tweet and article he writes. With that mind I
still recognize that he is NOT the future of news. As mentioned he is biased
and on Twitter he belittles the opposition. (I do too but the news has to be
about informing the public and that includes all facets in an unbiased way.

~~~
Daishiman
What's the problem with belittling as long as it is made in a presentation by
which you state your opponent's arguments and tear them with facts, and state
clearly when you're speculating?

This is the sort of BS that's destroying journalism. You can argue for a side
either honestly, presenting all you know, recognizing you opponent's valid
points, but using your knowledge to debunk the other side, or you can be
mischievous, ignore and distort facts, resort to fallacies, and generally
achieve the effects of empty rhetoric.

Opinionated people are not the problem. Fallacious people and talking heads
are.

------
uptown
"The mainstream press has had its failures — episodes of credulousness, false
equivalency, sensationalism and inattention — for which we have been
deservedly flogged."

From that list, the stand-out failure of the mainstream press is
unquestionably "inattention". The decay of in-depth reporting of stories that
will impact society in exchange for focusing the spotlight on more-marketable
content is a self-inflicted wound that shows no signs of remission. One of the
most talked-about pieces of content that's come out of the NYTimes in recent
years was their Snow Fall piece. It explored a new way of communicating a
story, and may serve as a model for how they present some content in the
future - but ultimately, a story that provided the Times with some of its
greatest exposure in recent memory was just a story about an avalanche that
affected an infinitesimally small percentage of the world.

Broadcast news has decided to follow a formula. Evening news dumps the real
news out in a half-hour, usually capping the 24-minutes left over after their
pharmaceutical or insurance commercials run to finish their show off with
something to make viewers feel good about the world - maybe an inspirational
story about some kid that got to score a touchdown, or a new baby animal at
the zoo. But that touchdown, or that baby animal video, or the story about the
royal "whatever" comes at the expense of inattention to something that impacts
a whole lot more people than the puff piece.

But maybe they have no choice. If the NYTimes runs a piece on a subject on
their cover every-day for a year, a majority of their readers might stop
reading. If broadcast news started their evening newscast with a story about
the environment every night maybe people would change the channel or turn them
off completely.

Greenwald, and others have the advantage that they currently can take a story
and carry it for days, weeks, months, or years if that's what it takes to tell
the story. The NSA story is big enough, and apparently the source material is
numerous-enough, that 5 months later there's still enormous repercussions for
the revelations just-now being published. The attention he's giving to this
one story must be unsettling to a business setup to cover NSA revelations in
the same publication as a story about twerking. Makes you wonder how many
other stories of this magnitude are just waiting to be revealed - but aren't
due to lack of focus by those entrusted to report.

~~~
tokenadult
_From that list, the stand-out failure of the mainstream press is
unquestionably "inattention". The decay of in-depth reporting of stories that
will impact society in exchange for focusing the spotlight on more-marketable
content is a self-inflicted wound that shows no signs of remission._

But even here on Hacker News, where a lot of us count on having thoughtful
readers of the comments we post and the stories we submit, the demand for
shorter, less attention-demanding comments and submissions, and tl;dr
summaries of blog posts that are only about five paragraphs long, still
continues. So if news organizations aren't serving up stories that are based
on close attention to important issues, maybe that is because the news
organizations know what most news consumers are looking for.

------
detcader
Someone graphed the use of forms of the words "fair", "fact", and "accurate"
in the exchange for Glenn vs Bill:
[https://twitter.com/yottapoint/status/394685094679437312/pho...](https://twitter.com/yottapoint/status/394685094679437312/photo/1)

------
alan_cx
So, same as the science thread then. Money corrupts science, and suddenly now
journalism. And sport. Oh, education too. Oppps, for got health care. And war.
Internet? Hmmmmmm

Isnt there a saying about money and corruption? Its been going on a bit of a
while now, right?

And will we heed this and make changes? Hell no. Just as per usual small
"mavericks" going up against the money, ultimately changing very little in the
great scheme of things, while the interests of money roll on.

------
Zigurd
Bill Keller is defending what can't be defended. Mainstream media is dependent
for survival on access. Without access to politicians and political officials
who are pushing their own agendas, their material almost completely dries up.
The NYT can annoy government only to a calibrated extent. And when they do so,
they do it with the backing of some faction.

------
RyanMcGreal
Since I've hit my limit on nytimes.com and can't read the article, I guess
I'll have to wait until next month to find the answer.

~~~
DennisP
That, or paste the title into google.

------
subpixel
This is a really fascinating read. Did they really have to give it such a
facile, link-baity title? One step forward, one step back for the Grey Lady.

------
hannibal5
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything
else is public relations.” ― George Orwell

------
milesf
I'd read the article, but apparently I've read my 10 NYT articles for the
month. I'm sure there's a way around it, but I don't want to bother.

THAT is why folks like Glenn Greenwald are the future, because they won't hide
behind foolish paywalls.

~~~
unimpressive
How do you think they should finance their operations?

Honest question. If you have something brilliant there's obviously a market
opportunity here.

~~~
crgt
Are there any sites experimenting with micro payments? I don't really want
another recurring monthly subscription, but I might be willing to pay 1-5
cents for each article beyond the 10 monthly freebies, if they could figure
out a way to make the payment method frictionless enough.

~~~
unimpressive
Turns out you and me are on the same page. Ever since I heard of the concept
of micropayments I've felt they were the way forward. Unfortunately, I feel
that until somebody with the perseverance of the Collison brothers shows up to
hack through the legal schlep, a usable micropayment processor that does
_real_ micropayments (I could pull out a quote from Theodore Nelson here about
fractions of a cent, but I won't bother.) won't materialize.

~~~
girvo
I think it'd be quite a market for easy integration of an internet-wide
micropayment system using BitCoin, if BitCoin continues its growth and
acceptance. Seems like a really good fit.

~~~
XorNot
Bitcoin is entirely unsuited to micropayments because it takes a long time to
verify it (~20 minutes, rather then <1 second) and it's already having issues
with the ballooning size of the blockchain. Putting another few million
transactions a day through it will make it completely unsustainable.

~~~
girvo
That's a good point, I remember seeing an article on the impact Satoshi Dice
has had on the blockchain. A shame really.

