

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did - ams1
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/18/cronkite/index.html

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9oliYQjP
Journalists still pursue stories aggressively. The difference is that in the
1960s and 1970s, the stories they pursued in politics surrounded things that
mattered like wars and Watergate. Today, the only stories that journalists
will pursue aggressively are rumours that Obama is going shirtless on a beach.
Having spoken to editors of journalism sites before, I'd have to only
partially blame that profession for the change. Readership numbers validate
and promote this behaviour.

If you want to fix what's wrong with journalism, perhaps we need to start in
the classroom by encouraging a culture that values literacy. Yes, science and
math are also important, and they've been getting attention. But being able to
read and write lengthy essays then debate them is also important. IMHO people
flock to the stupid journalism stories because they don't have the
comprehension skills to understand what the meaningful stories' implications
for them are.

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trevelyan
Watergate saw the FBI take down Nixon through leaks to the press., not
independent journalism. Without Felt the story would have been buried:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/washington/19felt.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/washington/19felt.html?_r=1&hp)

This suggests a more practical remedy to political abuses - more checks and
balances and a weaker multiparty system (avoid centralization of power). The
Bush years stand in contrast as to the difficulty of effectively holding
abuses of power in check when a single party dominates almost all branches of
government.

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eru
And right now you have Democrats almost anywhere.

How about introducing a proportional system? Or approval voting?

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philwelch
On the contrary, I think both Cronkite and Russert did exactly what they were
meant to do: increase ratings and make themselves famous. It's just that
Cronkite was of an era when the networks had not yet realized that faux
journalism got higher ratings than the real thing.

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jimbokun
Maybe not Hacker News per se, but a very good analysis.

I suppose the Hacker News angle is looking at the poor journalism (or lack
thereof) being done by the large media corporations, and consider hacks that
can be used to beat them. What are some ways that a news startup could tell
the truth and get attention, with a sustainable business plan?

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abefortas
We don't need to stretch the definition of hacking to be interested in
something.

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noodle
while true, we also have had interesting (in my opinion, at least) things
flagged and deleted in the past because they weren't topical to the community.

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j_baker
I've really grown to dislike the American media. And no, not in the "the media
is so left/right wing" way. It's just that they sensationalize the stupidest
of topics while ignoring the real issues.

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nir
I don't think there's anything uniquely American about it. It's the same -
usually worse - pretty much everywhere. The sad part is that it seems that the
Web, once seen as hope for improvement, is actually making it worse.

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sailormoon
Argh! This article reminds me of my love-hate relationship with America.

    
    
      95%: I hate you and everything you stand for
      5%: You are the most intelligent and likeable people I have ever met
    

I never know what to say.

