Perhaps should you also consider adding quotation marks around the āfearless, adversarial journalismā slogan in your blurbās title.
adĀ·verĀ·sarĀ·y
ĖadvÉrĖserÄ/
noun
noun: adversary; plural noun: adversaries
1.
one's opponent in a contest, conflict, or dispute.
adĀ·verĀ·sarĀ·iĀ·al
ĖadvÉrĖse(É)rÄÉl/
adjective
adjective: adversarial
1.
involving or characterized by conflict or opposition.
"industry and government had an adversarial relationship"
Maybe this is just me, and maybe Iām just something of a stick in the the mud, but doesnāt āadversarialā seem like the wrong quality one should be touting as a journalist?
Iām getting a 503 error on the link.
I guess when Foxās tagline is āFair and Balancedā and most journalists seem to fall into the ālapdogā category, āadversarialā is a fair way to distinguish your product.
I would prefer to see something like āinvestigationalā usedā¦
āAdversarialā is an excellent quality for a journalist to have. Itās one way of differentiating themselves from stenographers.
Exactly the right quality, I would think, and one that has been seriously MIA for about a decade or so, until recently. The vast majority of what Iāve seen in the Western press had been curiously muted regarding the sorts of assaults weāve been seeing on democratic processes and the rule of law. The most useful function of the press has always been to shine a bright light on dark places. Iām sure that the people who create those dark places and flourish in them are wont to see that as āadversarialā. One might as well wear the term as a badge of honour.
The Intercept - The Intercept
seems to work ok
Edit:
Links to the articles still donāt workā¦
One can be dogged and dedicated to uncovering the truth independent of the statements of others without making oneself into an enemy.
Thereās a difference between inquiry and conflict.
503ād here too right now. I was reading the article on drones when it seemed to start up - I couldnāt get back to the news front page. Server is overloaded, probably.
My problem is that you seem to equate the unambiguously negative āadversarialā with other more positive qualities such as ātenaciousā, āinquisitiveā, āboldā, and the like.
Only a great fool thinks he has to become an adversary - an enemy, a foe - to be brave, resourceful, or independent.
You looked up āadversarial,ā but āadversarial journalismā is a nearly-lost term in itself. Nearly lost thanks to modern ājournalismā.
Greenwald vs Keller - adversarial journalism vs mainstream journalism
Only a very great fool thinks that, if he exposes what a person or group of people is actively trying to hide, that he wonāt be seen and treated as an adversary. Weāve seen a lot of that already as the Snowden revelations have continued.
āAdversarialā is like very nearly any other word: the connotations are only negative depending on the context. Ecclesiastes, eh? āTo every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavenā¦ā Some things should be opposed, and one hopes that our journalists have the moral fibre to oppose them.
Except in that article, āadversialā is being used to mean āopenly partisanā, or put another way, unabashedly biased.
I donāt know about you, but I donāt want bias in my news reports.
When your news organization has an agenda, it falls prey to things like āconfirmation biasā. The last thing I want is to be getting my information from a source that is very likely to overvalue evidence that supports what they already believe while undervaluing or ignoring evidence which goes contradicts those same beliefs.
Since the NSA seems to view any small questioning, or even any release of minutia about their operations as an attack by an enemy, then I would say adversarial is completely appropriate.
Except weāre talking about a news organization branding itself.
They arenāt marketing themselves to the people who oppose them - theyāre marketing themselves to the general public, to the people they hope to attract as viewers and readers and consumers of their media.
Consequently, your argument now makes it sound like you and many others are more interested in seeing a news organization start fights and create conflict than you are in their accurately and objectively informing the world about current affairs.
Please see my response to PatRx2 on this point.
I think those are two different things though. Investigational reporting is uncovering facts. Questioning the powers that be in an aggressive way and with a point of view has been Greenwaldās way. He doesnāt simply report the data. He takes the standpoint of a civil rights attorney in his pieces. And that is confrontational, as opposed to others who get facts and quotes, often from both sides of he spectrum, with balance. Some may say that is the job of a dispassionate reporter, but one side may actually weigh more for justice, in the context of legality and fairness.
I already saw it. And Greenwald already has a ābrandā. He is not out to become the staid AP, just-the-facts-maāam kind of news person, he wants to poke the bear. Now you might not like that style, but that doesnāt mean that the adjective doesnāt apply.
Hereās how it works: the president makes decisions. Heās the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home.
