
Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends either - bradj
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/business/media/trump-election-journalists.html
======
blhack
When was the last time you read a news article about a topic where you are an
expert, and walked away from it thinking that it would help laymen better
understand the topic?

Journalism is a bit of a personal frustration of mine. It's _so important_ to
the function of our society to have an informed population, but we don't, and
it's because of the consistent lying that is done by journalists that we
don't. Maybe not solely, but the news is one of our primary sense organs, and
it's currently broken, or perhaps worse: it's currently on psychadelic drugs
and is telling us things that aren't real. If it goes on long enough, we're
going to end up schitzophrenic as a society. I think that at the very least we
are in the middle of a metaphorical psychotic break. I hope we recover from
it, and I really wish that the journalists would at least try to help us,
instead of blatantly trying fuel it.

And while we're at it: shut down twitter. It's the drug dealer give our
sensemaking organs the drugs.

~~~
luckylion
> It's so important to the function of our society to have an informed
> population, but we don't, and it's because of the consistent lying that is
> done by journalists that we don't.

Are you sure it's that important to have an informed citizenry? I'd say we've
never had one, anywhere. We've had some people being informed, sure, but the
masses have never been informed well. They've been lead and entertained. If
it's that important, how have we made it this far?

What's more important for a nation than the media informing people is the
media being on the same page and projecting a similar image. Of course, you
want them to not report that aliens have landed when they haven't, but you
certainly don't want only half of them reporting it. I don't believe that the
facts really matter that much overall. But if you lose the "shared reality",
you're losing cohesion.

~~~
grawprog
>What's more important for a nation than the media informing people is the
media being on the same page and projecting a similar image

So like this?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-n...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-
news-anchors-script.html)

> I don't believe that the facts really matter that much overall. But if you
> lose the "shared reality", you're losing cohesion.

So you'd rather live in a made up fantasy world as long as we all share the
same made up fantasy world?

I just can't understand how people can think like this...

1984 should really be assigned reading for everyone in high school.

~~~
luckylion
> So like this?

Well, yes. I mean, we've had that in a more sophisticated way for the longest
time via press agencies. They deliver the news to the media companies, the
editors rewrite it a bit to match their audience's taste and add a bit of
opinion, but the basic facts are the same. Sinclair was probably just too
cheap to spend the extra few bucks to hire somebody to write 20 scripts that
have the same content but aren't worded the same.

> So you'd rather live in a made up fantasy world as long as we all share the
> same made up fantasy world?

I'd prefer if we all shared reality. But we have a terrible hard time finding
out what reality even is, and if you read any kind of media, you're certainly
not learning about reality, you're just learning about whatever reality the
media thinks is real (or wants you to think is real). And in that case, yeah,
a shared fantasy is better than many fantasies. You can communicate about a
shared fantasy reality. You'll have a hard time communicating when you don't
share reality.

~~~
grawprog
>I'd prefer if we all shared reality.

Unfortunately, unless you can see out of my eyes and think my thoughts, you
and I, as well as you and everyone else will not share reality.

That's what being human is, we all live in our own reality.

>You'll have a hard time communicating when you don't share reality.

It's worked for thousands of years. You don't need to share reality to
communicate with people, you need to be able to stop and see their reality for
a bit, understand it's different than yours and be ok with this.

I just want to seriously ask, on a planet with 7 billion people scattered
around the world how can you possibly expect everyone to share the same
reality?

How is the reality of people from two completely different places in the world
ever going to be the same?

~~~
luckylion
> It's worked for thousands of years.

I think it has, but not the way you put it. Rather: we've shared reality for
thousands of years, and that's why it worked. We've had the occasional lunatic
who didn't share our reality, but they ran into a mammoth or tried to pet a
sable tooth tiger. For the rest of us, it was easier. When you said "three
mammoths behind the forest", I had a pretty good idea about what you were
talking about.

> I just want to seriously ask, on a planet with 7 billion people scattered
> around the world how can you possibly expect everyone to share the same
> reality?

We don't need literally everyone anywhere on earth to share the same reality.
We need a shared reality mostly with those we come in contact with, for
practical reasons I'd say in a nation, but probably also in political blocs
(though the details can very well get more fuzzy the further away somebody
is). Can't have Europe think the Soviets are great while the US thinks they're
terrible, that won't work in an alliance.

And we don't need to have everyone share it either, a super majority is
enough. It's not an issue if you have 1% of people believing that reptilians
are running the government and looking for politicians blinking sideways on
TV. It starts to become a problem when you get larger groups that don't share
reality. A small group of 1% will get carried away by the flow. That's much
different with a group of 10, 20 or 30 percent.

> How is the reality of people from two completely different places in the
> world ever going to be the same?

It's not, but then again, even here on the internet, you're mostly speaking to
people from your part of the world (geographically, but even more so
culturally). It really doesn't matter whether you share reality with somebody
you have no points of contact with. And, I think, it's much easier to even
accept that somebody perceives reality differently when they're very clearly
not like you. There might be a bit of a condescending tone of "oh, of course,
they fell for the propaganda their government put out... well, that couldn't
happen to me", but it's much more acceptable for a Chinese person to have a
drastically different world view than for your neighbor.

------
specialist
Ah. The journalists and reporters. Of course. Much concern.

Never a mention of the owners, publishers, editors, boards, and personages of
influence.

Never a mention of the quid pro quo of coverage for access.

We should focus all our concern on the journalists. Those dastardly story
tellers using their immense power to boss around the mail clerks.

~~~
amadeuspagel
Trump mentions Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, all the time. But of
course journalists themselves also have power. The power to decide what
information reaches their readers, how it is presented - that is power. Not
bossing around mail clerks.

~~~
specialist
Name one investigative report that was published against the wishes of the
hierarchy.

Whereas stories like this are innumerable:

Whistleblowers punished for attempting to report unlawful rBGH in milk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#Whistleblower_lawsui...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#Whistleblower_lawsuit)

~~~
rflrob
Ronan Farrow’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein was nearly squashed by NBC,
where he worked at the time. He had to take it to The New Yorker.

~~~
specialist
Farrow is a _terrific_ example. He's like the next Seymour Hersh.

Edit: The New Yorker was Hersh's home too. Of course.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh)

------
Simulacra
Personal opinion: I think it was around 2004 when the media slowly stopped
being the journalists that protect our democracy, and instead corporations and
individuals with political agendas. Sure there were plenty of newspapers and
outlets that leaned one way or the other, but it was never so blatantly
partisan, to the point of suspect. Journalists are not the enemy of the
people, but the media of today certainly doesn't act like it.

~~~
liability
> 2004

A year or two before that you had Judith Miller at the New York Times
uncritically helping the American government start a war on false pretexts.
And more than a century before then, American newspapers were hard at work
starting the Spanish-American War for bullshit reasons.

------
sremani
Now is a wonderful time to read these words of Wisdom of PG

[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1278678974500147202)

"Journalists used to have a monopoly on the news. This power bred restraint;
whatever their private feelings, they avoided overt personal attacks. Now this
power and the consequent restraint are both evaporating. Now they're just
Twitter users."

~~~
amadeuspagel
Power doesn't breed restraint.

~~~
twic
Yeah, these words of, well, whatever they are, are both illogical and
ahistorical - journalists have been making personal attacks since the dawn of
the field.

------
bradj
I think the prima facie case for journalists is incredibly strong, even for
some of the more questionable types of journalism mentioned in the comments
like explanatory journalism, narrative reporting and opinion.

I think a lot of the problem today has to do with media literacy: a lack of
knowledge among casual readers/viewers about the purpose of journalism, and
the difference between the various kinds (and what those kinds allow in an
ethical/professional sense).

However, I don’t think the conversation ends there. Given that environment,
institutions need to do a better job supporting journalism in a way that
reflects that knowledge. I don’t know if it’s possible for a paper that calls
itself “the paper of record” to include an opinion section, or even lifestyle
reporting, and maintain its “objective” journalistic reputation.

Opinion, interpretative, and explanatory journalism is probably best life to
the magazines, or websites that explicitly share a particular editorial
viewpoint. The Economist is a great example of this type of institution.

------
shrubble
27 years ago this appeared in Wired magazine, from a speech given by Michael
Crichton...I think it applies

[https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/](https://www.wired.com/1993/04/mediasaurus/)

------
goatinaboat
Journalism is dying because the quality the average journalist produces is no
better than what can be had for free from amateurs writing blogs and tweets.
They are 100% responsible for their own downfall and the compromises it has
forced on them.

------
babesh
We need better sources of news. It is somewhat happening already with the rise
of individual 'reporters' on YouTube and other social media who amass
followers and support themselves with patronage, advertising, merchandise,
etc...

------
sky_rw
This from the people who created the standard of "According to an anonymous
source familiar with his thinking".

If you want to convince me that journalists are NOT the enemy of the people,
then stop donating money to political causes and then publishing damning
reports to opponents of those causes sourced only from unverifiable anonymous
sources.

------
atlgator
It journalists were capable of objective reasoning they would’ve gone into
tech instead.

~~~
dylan604
unscrupulous people will do unscrupulous things regardless of where they work.

------
tohmeiphun
The movement away from objective journalism is probably not a good thing.

------
peter_d_sherman
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs)

<g>

------
acruns
I think they are the enemy of the people and our nation. Neither side can be
trusted to deliver unbiased information and instead do their best to invoke
feelings of fear, hostility, anger, hatred, but most of all fear in an effort
to sell more commercial time/clicks/papers. And a large part of both sides
look to their news outlet to confirm their bias and at the same time grow
their bias based on the latest injustice/tragedy/incomprehensible outrage,
further driving the (two) sides further apart, growing their hatred for the
other side, fear that the other side is going to end their way of life, so on.

People still mostly believe what they watch and read, blindly. Especially when
it coincides with their own views. And by making up more lies, more
exaggerations, or making it seem like we are all going to die if Trump/Biden
gets elected as the next God, they are perpetually making things worse with
each story.

How hard is it to be honest and unbiased? Isn't that your job anyway?

------
heartbeats
I think it's unavoidable. With social media, the incentives simply aren't
there to have a media that gives a balanced view of the story anymore. That
doesn't sell.

Before, it used to be that you'd present side A and side B, without taking any
stance. Now, people are starting to conflate neutrality with centrism. Even a
'neutral' news outlet is expected to take some sort of stance, and not to
platform extremists.

If you want for something to spread, it's better for 100 people to really like
it than for 1000 people to find it OK. That's the pattern we're seeing in the
media right now.

Mr. Smith has a quaint notion of journalism, and one which is not shared by
his publisher, who indeed see it as a reasonable endeavour to 'combat Donald
Trump'.

I think that the future of media is to completely abandon the pretense of
neutrality and to become blind cheerleaders for 'their side'; if you want the
Republican coverage, you'll go to Fox or OAN, and hear the latest theories
about how the President is morally infallible and how the libtards ought to be
rounded up and shot. If you want the Democratic coverage, you'll go to CNN or
the NY Times, and hear the latest theories about how the President is an evil
man and how the fascists ought to be rounded up and thrown in prison.

I don't think this will be too bad. Before, you'd trust your neutral newspaper
to give you both sides of the story. Now, you'll have to read two news
outlets. But this isn't the end of the world, as long as people can adapt to
the change.

~~~
rosstex
There are sides to a story, and then there's false information. But on the
lines of what you're saying, I think that education should probably train
students in that style of media literacy: reading both sides of an issue from
neutral, partisan and extremist perspectives, and reasoning about how to
synthesize them.

~~~
heartbeats
I don't think there's any meaningful distinction between the two. You can take
facts which are _not wrong_ and use them to argue any point, no matter how
ridiculous. If that's grotesque enough, it's misconduct already, even if
you're _not technically lying_.

------
RickJWagner
Journalism is dead. Completely dead.

Just look at the Covington High School fiasco. Or look at YouTube for 'The
Walls are closing in'. Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the
headlines, only to dissolve in a day.

Yes, true journalism is dead.

~~~
TMWNN
> Or look how long the Russiagate narrative dominated the headlines, only to
> dissolve in a day.

I've heard that the word "impeachment" was not mentioned once during the
Democratic convention. Six months after the trial that we were told over and
over again the evidence was so, so, so convincing toward a guilty verdict!

------
angel_j
Journalism is not as important as journalist want us to think. Reporting is
important. Clear, unbaised reporting gives us what we need to be informed.
Nobody asks for story driven reporting, that is a fabrication.

A journalist is a reporter who wants to be Real Writer. Which is to say that
they want to do more than give us the facts, they want us to know it via the
filter of their experience and analysis. It is a self important profession,
all the moereso because universities degree it. Who gets a degree in mere
reporting?

------
martythemaniak
At the end of the day, they're just another competitor in the Attention
Economy. Their coverage of Big Tech for example makes a ton more sense if you
view it as going after your competitors, rather than some high-minded Truth
Seeking.

I mean, it's not all bullshit, every participant has some differentiating
angle they believe in, like Googles Organizing the World's Information,
Facebook's Connecting People, NY Times' Paper of Record etc.

