This is a list I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits. You would think it would grow out-of-date, but...
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Why are journalists so insulated from these criticisms? They are valid observations.
The only conclusion I keep getting to is that there are very few people in the industry practicing actual journalism, and the folks that aren’t, are doing so with the knowledge they aren’t.
When people think their own perspective and approach is neutral and objective they tend to assume that anything that contradicts it must be a malicious personal attack.
If Dems had a shred of intelligence or decency they would have started "working the refs" decades ago when they saw how effective right-wingers had been at getting the MSM to embrace "both-sidesism" and normalize the most radical and outrageous policies and politicians in the name of "fairness".
Continuing to cover bad actors is the one that most annoys me. Media continues to quote Trump as though he’s a rational person who understands and means what he says. I just don’t want to hear it anymore.
I think what a presidential candidate says should be covered. But with Trump the media needed to pivot from the would/ could/should Trump do the things he said he was going to do, to should a presidential candidate saying these things be disqualify.
Bad actors with a history of misinforming the public seen as unsuitable sources would be a real refreshing change.
I like the idea of investigation replacing guests with sales pitches.
Sometimes you get so many biased sources it's like sitting in a class with thirty teachers on one chalk board.
2/ or perhaps that of a military strategist, who looks at the media as a key element on a battlefield, and explains how that element can best be exploited?
I'm asking because you truly are one of the most insightful media critics I know of -- yet (as you suggest) little if anything ever changes
Long time ago, publishers, advertisers and journalists made a pact. Each got something. Owners got an agreement not to alienate so many readers. Advertisers: Well, you don't see many take downs of department stores. The journalists got to be truthelling heroes within stark limits of professionalism.
This pact is coming to the end of its usefulness. It is falling apart, failing to govern, but still "in charge" at many newsrooms, traditional and recent. It's talking a long time to die, and that's why my list remains. The new system would begin with "accountablity journalism is a public good."
add to list...stop reporting what someone else has reported 10 times over...stop writing endless variations on a theme (click bait $$)..and get off your ass and start investigating...
Many factors, but a list of factors is not a "cause."
In political journalism, professionalism went awry a long time ago. See "The Boys on the Bus." Dependance on advertising had trap doors concealed by monopoly status at the local level. Journalism is a public good, but in the US not treated as.
I have no problem with increase unless it happens at the expense of something needed by the whole. Increasing your bottom line by misinformation is detrimental to the goal of journalism, which I understand to be the enlightening of our citizenry. Lying, I believe, does not aid freedom.
In the case of journalism, that is misinformation. In the case of a human...a liar ends up lying to themselves as they repeat their lie their lie may become their truth. Not pretty. Life can be tough enough without poisoning our own systems. IMO.
when you have the media-of-record tying themselves into knots trying to banish "liberal bias" and the tabloid media is spending its time making sensational shit up without so much as a passing resemblance to anything like balance, something is deeply wrong.
Context to stories would help too. Saying Joe Biden is old!!! Because he had a bad debate without acknowledging the times he was on his game and ignoring Trump is also old and often sounds like a raving lunatic is news malpractice. Stories for clicks are more and more annoying.
Assuming "politics as a strategic game" means reporting on politics as a horse race/commentariat on the court intrigue, 'amateurish' seems less of a problem than the intentional distraction to elide the actual stakes of political outcomes.
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The only conclusion I keep getting to is that there are very few people in the industry practicing actual journalism, and the folks that aren’t, are doing so with the knowledge they aren’t.
I like the idea of investigation replacing guests with sales pitches.
Sometimes you get so many biased sources it's like sitting in a class with thirty teachers on one chalk board.
Is it like a theatre critic, whose main job is to tell audiences whether a production is worth seeing?
Is it closer to a business consultant, who tells his clients (the media) how their businesses could perform better?
I'm asking because you truly are one of the most insightful media critics I know of -- yet (as you suggest) little if anything ever changes
When an interviewee lies, mute them and post receipts demonstrating their lie. Then unmute.
In political journalism, professionalism went awry a long time ago. See "The Boys on the Bus." Dependance on advertising had trap doors concealed by monopoly status at the local level. Journalism is a public good, but in the US not treated as.
In that sense it goes back to Franklin, yes.
But a more common review of this history would date it from the 1920s and the professionalization of many trades.
So, in a sense yes, journalists are looking after their own bottom lines
In a much bigger, more direct, and more meaningful sense, the owners are.
Would you blame Walmart's shitty corporate practices on the bottom line of the store employees?