
The perfect epitaph for establishment journalism - mcphilip
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/independent-epitaph-establishment-journalism
======
VLM
Establishment journalism has long slipped entirely into infotainment.

I would imagine having to report on actual non-infotainment news must
infuriate those self-selected and heavily hyper optimized to report pure
infotainment.

This is the root of establishment journalist anger toward Snowden etc...
They're sitting there fuming that they could be making money doing their
business as usual showing Kardashian bikini pictures, talking about Apples new
iPhone, cross promoting their networks primetime sitcom offerings tonight,
celebrity guest interviews about lasagna recipes, all the "greats" of
infotainment, but this bastard is forcing them to talk about non-profitable
non-infotainment topics, so he makes them mad. Just like forcing me to write
about ladies fashion would make me mad.

~~~
mturmon
"Establishment journalism has long slipped entirely into infotainment."

This remark, and your whole comment, is not well-informed.

When you talk about "establishment journalism" (in the U.S.), you're talking
about NYT, WaPo, WSJ, and a handful of other outlets like this. Each of these
papers has its strengths and weaknesses, but "infotainment" is not the main
weakness. (Take a look at the NYT front page today, for example.)

In other words, your gripe about "infotainment" may be the case, but that's
happening in a different segment of the media, not the one the OP was
targeting.

It's too bad, because the original post _did_ have a good point, and was
heading in the right direction. Probably the main problem with the NYT (I'm a
subscriber, and I at least look at its front page every day) is that it does
not like to rock the boat. It's an establishment paper. Some ideas, even if
having merit, are simply out of bounds. ("Everything from A to C" is what
Christopher Hitchens, in his pre-9/11 days, used to say.)

This "not rock the boat" tendency explains why the (ostensibly liberal) NYT
had on board Judy Miller, a largely-discredited cheerleader for the Iraq war.
She had access to top Bush administration sources, and she seemed to know what
was happening and going to happen. Thus, she became a mouthpiece. The NYT, in
this case, was willing to sacrifice being correct for merely being abreast of
the establishment narrative.

That's the real problem with the high end of establishment journalism.

~~~
VLM
You make some good points.

One interesting thing to contemplate is how would an establishment journalism
organization do infotainment... we'll, videos of Kardashians in bikinis are
not going to work in ink on paper physical newspapers. Maybe the way they
would entertain while sorta informing would be to allow discredited
cheerleaders a propaganda mouthpiece for entertainment of the readers (in
addition to your valid point about just keeping up to date with current
events). Some topics are out of bounds because rocking the boat usually isn't
entertainment. And everyone else in their industry is in a race toward the
fluff, and there's at least some interaction between those different lines of
business, maybe not a lot, but some. If they intentionally went for pure
infotainment, the wouldn't have to go too far off course, just a little
further along the path they're apparently already on.

I'm too young to do physical papers. I checked out nytimes.com and "Upworthy’s
Viral Content Is Taking Off" apparently about youtube marketing. "The new
albums of Pusha T and Cam’ron show they have..." "Mr. Gunn, a recent Emmy
Award recipient, has emerged as a breakout star of “Project Runway.”" "William
Wegman lives with his family and oft-depicted dogs in a pair of connected
buildings in Chelsea." To be fair I admit they keep real news at the top and
push the fluff downpage, but its looking perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 fluffy on their
web front page. What they need are some lasagna recipes, add some young women
posing in bikinis, tone down the editorializing, cut the hard news by about
half, that would make them yellow journalism infotainment with the best. The
point isn't that it could be turned into yellow journalism, which is obvious,
but that its not far to go. They're about a new editor and one page redesign
away, not really all that far.

------
DanBC
In theory the DA Notice[1] system is, in context of UK publishing, a
reasonable solution. In practice government has abused it, and the oversight
mechanisms are not working, so we have to rely on whistleblowers and
journalists and FOI requests.

The UK MP's expenses scandal was scooped by an American journalist working in
England who was surprised by the lack of actual investigation, so she made a
bunch of FOI requests for expenses.

Circulation figures for UK press is depressing.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation#Circulation_since_2000)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-
Notice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-Notice)

Weird that a story about two English newspapers has Americans commenting about
American newspapers.

~~~
gadders
The UK expenses scandal was publicised by the Daily Telegraph after a "whistle
blower" gave them a CD with details of the claims on them.

~~~
DanBC
The leak happened because there were FoI requests being contested by
parliament.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal)

> A February 2008 Freedom of Information Act request for the release of
> details of MPs' expenses claims was allowed by an Information Tribunal. The
> House of Commons Authorities challenged the decision on the grounds that it
> was "unlawfully intrusive".[6] In May 2008, the High Court (England and
> Wales) ruled in favour of releasing the details of MPs' expenses
> claims.[7][8] In April 2009 the House of Commons authorities announced that
> publication of expenses, with certain information deemed "sensitive"
> removed,[9] would be made in July 2009.[10]

> However before this could take place, a full uncensored copy of the expenses
> records and documentation was leaked to the Daily Telegraph, which began
> publishing details in daily instalments from 8 May 2009.

~~~
gadders
A bit of a stretch. There is no evidence that the leaker leaked the documents
because of the American journalists FOI requests.

~~~
DanBC
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make?

Heather Brooke (the American journalist) made FoI requests about MPs expenses.
She started in 2004. She did this because it was a way to get a good story.

House authorities declined to release the information. This went to and fro in
courts. The High Court (May 2008) ruled that the information should be
released. House authorities agreed to release the information in June 2009
with some redactions. The Telegraph got the leaked disc before June 2009, and
started publishing.

It is clear that Heather Brooke's FoI requests started the chain.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Brooke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Brooke))

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Brooke#MPs_expenses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Brooke#MPs_expenses))

([http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/tag/mps-
expenses/](http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/tag/mps-expenses/))

~~~
gadders
I am disputing your fact that the expense scandal was scooped by a US
journalist. She made some FOI requests. They were denied. Hardly a scoop as
you claim.

It only became a story once the Telegraph got the actual details of the
claims.

------
droopybuns
I get the impression that their job is to take the press releases verbatum
directly from the government. And then, because they are people persons, they
deliver them directly to the public, because they are super good with people,
which is awesome.

------
skidoo
To be more clear, the Fairness Doctrine was dismantled by the Reagan
administration and permanently shelved by Obama himself, meaning that for the
press in America to be held accountable for its own actions is now somehow
contrary to their constitutional rights to free speech. I think the full
implications are just barely being seen publicly, but essentially, non-biased
media is absolutely a thing of the past.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine)

And while citizen journalism can allow for unbiased reporting, with no
editorial guidelines or presence then it also opens the floodgates for citizen
journalism to be even less restrained than commercial media in terms of
lunacy.

~~~
icebraining
You do realize we're discussing the Independent, a UK newspaper, not subject
to the Fairness Doctrine or the lack thereof, right?

~~~
skidoo
I'm implying what's happening in the UK is not a new or uncommon thing. Real
freedom of the press is on its way out the door in general, which I think
should suggest that any ideal of a healthy democracy is a pipedream,
particularly when the freest nations are increasingly convoluted.

------
clarkmoody
It's quite a striking evolution, going from the truth-to-power press of
Vietnam-era America to the Democrat mouthpiece lapdog media we see today.

Rather ironic that the Obama campaign actively opposed "warrantless
wiretapping," and now the press isn't holding him accountable at all. We won't
visit the other equally-ironic points where his policy doesn't quite match up
with his campaign.

~~~
pekk
You lose all credibility when you assert that the entire (US) media is
beholden to the Democrats.

~~~
clarkmoody
Well it's a comment on an article about the establishment media, so let's
assume I'm talking about ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, etc.

Now, think back to the Bush 43 administration and contrast those media
outlets' treatment of his presidency with their reporting today.

~~~
anon1385
Since when are Fox News and the Wall Street Journal not part of the
establishment?

Also, I would hardly say the institutions you listed were particularly
critical of Bush. They went along with the Iraq war build up by republishing
the government misinformation about WMD without question and so on.

~~~
clarkmoody
Fox News launched in 1996, hardly as established as the big 3 news networks,
especially when we're following the evolution of media since the Vietnam era.

WSJ launched in 1889, so it would definitely be considered "establishment."

Of course I wouldn't mention anything that would damage my own position in the
argument ;-)

------
pekk
I'm afraid the need to actually investigate and analyze has not been obsoleted
by the occasional leak or espionage.

It should trouble us when all our news about a subject is coming from one
source which we have no way of checking up on.

------
devx
Ironic that it's coming from the "Independent". They probably don't even
realize the irony themselves.

------
gadders
It's a fine line. I can see where Greenwald is coming from, but I don't think
that gives journalists carte blanche to just release whatever they feel like
without concern for national security.

