> It seems like many journalists are failing in their primary responsibilities to keep the public informed. Fact checking liars or misleading statements is tedious, and some politicians lie or mislead....
> I can't blame journalists for the politicians lying or misleading, but I can blame them for so often going for the easy stories that they are fed, instead of the hard ones they have to look for or put together.
It's worth noting that journalism in general has had its revenue streams decimated by Craigslist, clickbait, subscriber loss due to competing with free, etc. Except for very few prestige outlets, most media outlets have been forced to shrink their newsrooms, year after year, for a couple decades. Even though the prestige outlets are healthier, they're not so healthy as to be able to pick up all the slack.
It's easy to criticize someone for not doing as thorough a job as you'd like, but it's not very reasonable when that person is the last man standing from a team of ten, and the team's workload has increased in the meantime.
That's absolutely fair; I was overly harsh and blamed journalists instead of editors and owners. I'm sorry.
I also believe journalists, like a lot of middle class folks squeezed by changes in the economy, should be paid and funded better, and I try to spend or send some money towards that, even though I'm between jobs.
If that's not something whoever reads this does, $60 bucks is 5 dollars a month, and if you have a job or enough saved, you might invest in investigative reporting.
Here's a list of some non-profits that produce real journalism. Can't vouch for them all, but ProPublica, The Marshall Project, and Reveal are great.
> I can't blame journalists for the politicians lying or misleading, but I can blame them for so often going for the easy stories that they are fed, instead of the hard ones they have to look for or put together.
It's worth noting that journalism in general has had its revenue streams decimated by Craigslist, clickbait, subscriber loss due to competing with free, etc. Except for very few prestige outlets, most media outlets have been forced to shrink their newsrooms, year after year, for a couple decades. Even though the prestige outlets are healthier, they're not so healthy as to be able to pick up all the slack.
It's easy to criticize someone for not doing as thorough a job as you'd like, but it's not very reasonable when that person is the last man standing from a team of ten, and the team's workload has increased in the meantime.