Originally published at: What does it mean to be a journalist? - Boing Boing
…
12 Likes
[ article posted by Yoy Luadha ]
3 Likes
Yes. The second one is how they maintain the first one.
17 Likes
Well we need to hear both sides. The two sides are stability versus chaos.
Unhinged and often incoherent rants versus reasoned discourse (but still strictly in support of capitalism as the defining economic system).
Some people are pro-civilization. And some people are against it.
Nice clean dichotomies that make it easy to write clickable headlines and collect reaction invoking soundbites.
5 Likes
Yes it is. Media companies are run by amoral, greedpigs whose only goals are personal wealth and power and don’t care if that comes from making the world burn
What? The reason is absolutely relevant. The only way to fix the state of journalism is to recognize what’s ruining it
17 Likes
On that point, here’s “Pinch” Sulzberger, publisher of the NYT and high-profile nepo baby, wringing his hands over the threat to the free press from right-wing regimes around the world and how it might very come to the U.S…under Il Douche.
And yet he also says in the very same piece:
I disagree with those who have suggested that the risk Trump poses to the free press is so high that news organizations such as mine should cast aside neutrality and directly oppose his reelection.
There’s only one reason to write this paragraph after writing a whole bunch of others accurately outlining the risk of Biff’s re-election to his paper, and you nailed it.
The problem is that “both sides” are presented and framed by the corporate press as equally valid. The incoherence and bigotry and sexism of one side is polished up as a reasonable choice, while doubt over relatively superficial matters and minor gaffes on the other side are played up to cast doubt on their fitness.
All to pretend that the duopoly system supporting the income streams of the outlet’s affluent readers is in good shape, and that it’s just another exciting horse race.
17 Likes
The “working the ref” strategy worked to the extent that we used to get “both sides” stories, even when one side had zero supporting evidence and only right-wing assumptions about how things ought to be. This was when Colbert explained “Truthiness” to us, and satirically explained how “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Tired of “working the ref” by calling journalism biased, the right has now been outright buying up the media and installing Murdochian editors. Look at Sinclair Media or The Washington Post.
11 Likes
This John Oliver / Bill Nye video about accurate, proportional representation of reporting always sticks out in my mind as an excellent, visual way of representing the two sides of these kinds of “argument”:
And I think this is the kind of framing we need any time any of these things is presented. But it’s not in commercial media’s interest.
When your revenue is primarily driven by advertising, it is in your best interest to produce material that generates the most clicks / views, and that means sensationalist, populist, inaccurate bullshit.
And as long as this remains the case, I don’t know how we prevent it.
It’s why I still view the BBC as being the best of a bad bunch.
And yes, they have their issues (I’ve said as much here before and been leapt on because of their poor record of reporting on LGBTQ+ issues.)
But they’re not driven by profit and the need to satisfy shareholders, nor are they directly controlled by the UK government, so they’re the closest to unbiased journalism you can get.
Also, I don’t know how it is in the States, but while you’re training to be a BSJ qualified journalist in the UK (British School of Journalism), one of the very first things you are taught is that your opinion is given to you by your editor and by proxy, the owner of the organisation you work for. When I learned that, I completely stopped buying newspapers.
It’s why commercial media outside of the BBC in the UK is so polarised.
And it’s also why I think awareness of these biases needs to be taught in schools on national curriculums, so people are better prepared to interpret the messages being thrust at them by the media they’re consuming.
To put it succinctly:
Follow the money.
Again, I think I’ve noted it here before, but one of the most darkly funny things I have ever heard at work was at my current workplace (yes, I work for the devil / NewsUK / Rupert Murdoch).
While setting up laptops for TV journalists during the pandemic, I remember a pretty young journalist with a very RP accent standing up and loudly proclaiming “You know, I think the best thing about me is that I have no ethics”, with not even a hint of irony.
And from an employer’s perspective in modern UK media organisations, she was perfectly correct.
Everyone loves to hate him, but Piers Morgan is a perfect example of how mercenary the average British journalist is.
Ex-editor of The Mirror (a left-wing red-top), ex-presenter on Good Morning Britain (centrist daytime slop), now working for NewsUK (right-wing and populist), he goes where the money is, and is all too happy to say exactly what his corporate pay-masters want him to.
Ahem, sorry, got a bit ranty there.
16 Likes
9 Likes
And as we grapple with this problem, we should of course incorporate the neologism du jour, “sane-washing,” which describes the corporate media’s insane and constant insistence on paraphrasing Tromp’s nonsensical ramblings into coherent, thoughtful claims and insights.
11 Likes
I agree with all the criticisms of what the MSM passes off as journalism, but what would an actual solution look like, one that wouldn’t fall apart in six months to two years if implemented?
If I’m being honest, I have to view it as a return to normalcy. There was a weird, rare period of several decades when a few major news outlets both had enough market power to invest in real journalism and had enough pressure (internal and external) forcing them to do so. Before that, and again today, that’s no longer true. Any MSM outlet could invest more in journalism, and at times some have. What happens is, they start to lose market share and then hemorrhage money until they either change strategies or get taken over or get overtaken. From then on it’s pure selection effects that guarantee that those we consider the MSM at any point in time, with maybe a few on-their-way-out exceptions, will have many of the problems discussed here. The other possibility are outlets intentionally run at a loss by rich people. These are not companies with huge profit margins, and when numbers are available the actual-journalism portion is either much lower profit or operating at a loss.
There’s plenty of good journalism in the world, and it’s easy to find. Most people empirically just don’t want it enough to find and pay for it, when they could be entertained instead, and I don’t know how we solve that.
I will add it’s of course not limited to political news. Coverage of every other topic is similarly biased, misleading, and sensationalized, just over slightly different axes. “You will write this article from this viewpoint, now contact a dozen experts until one gives you a quote you can use to support what you want to say. No, you don’t have time to actually learn anything about the topic.”
8 Likes
The issue with “gotcha” journalism is that the press isn’t invited to actually engage with what the Washington Commanders VP is saying. The press has instead made the issue about the way in which he said it.
Is there a high-level of homophobia and bigotry amongst the Commanders’ players? That would be a newsworthy question to investigate. Is Jerry Jones a racist/homophobe?
Of course pretty much all outlets choose not to investigate these claims, even if they were made publicly. One big reason is access reporting. This might be particularly true in the realm of sports reporting, where such investigations would likely result in teams and leagues turning off the access taps to outlets such as ESPN. Instead the story becomes about Rael Enteen, and it’s easy to portray him as an aggrieved liberal, probably some guy with an axe to grind and symptomatic of liberal moral bankruptcy. It’s much easier for the MSM to sell this narrative, especially when the comments were made in private.
Also, let’s not forget that the Commanders organization fought long and hard to preserve a pejorative term for Native Americans as their team name. Ultimately they had to cave to pressure, but MANY internally were not happy about it. A liberal traitor in their ranks? That would not be tolerated.
4 Likes
Well, to put the other side of the argument (you know, for balance): No, we often really don’t need to hear the other side.
/s not /s
4 Likes
Bill Nighy or Bill Nye? I suppose Bill Nighy might have talked about climate change, but it seems less likely than the other Bill. Either way, I can’t find the video you’re referencing.
3 Likes
Sorry, my mistake, Bill Nye, and corrected now!
Further edit:
Also found the video and updated the post accordingly.
6 Likes
But journalism is not about opinions. It’s about reporting facts.
Comment is about opinion, and it is not journalism.
There’s a reason (well there used to be) that journalists are called reporters.
/naivety
resumecynicsm
On the other hand… (with no trace of irony) 
8 Likes
That’s certainly the ideal, and it is most definitely highlighted when learning journalism too (I didn’t do a full journalism degree, just the preparatory module during my BTEC).
But ultimately it has been warped by the British press to be:
“You as a journalist should have no stance on what you’re reporting.
But when you submit your copy, understand it WILL be modified by editorial to represent the view of the organisation owner”
6 Likes
You know, Bill Nighy the Science Guighy.
9 Likes
4 Likes
There’s a sense in which this is true, and a sense in which it is impossible. No matter what, you write on some topics and not others. You include some facts and figures, in some order, and not others. You interview some sources and use some quotes, and not others. You can increase or decrease bias, but you can’t eliminate editorial content in anything more complicated than (some parts of) the weather forecast.
My go-to thought experiment for this idea sums it up pretty well in the first four lines, showing that facts and truth are always at least somewhat relative to who is asking and why. In that regard, the postmodernists were just plain right, even if almost everyone that followed misunderstood them.
2 Likes
