[HN Gopher] Jim Lehrer's Rules of Journalism
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Jim Lehrer's Rules of Journalism
Author : funmi
Score : 160 points
Date : 2020-01-25 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (kottke.org)
| Anka33 wrote:
| Rule 1 : Promote Marxism Rule 2 : Goto rule 1
| 40acres wrote:
| For me, Twitter has been the worst thing to happen to journalism.
| There are a lot of downsides to strong institutions and
| gatekeeping, but when it comes to journalism I always felt like I
| was reading The New York Times or The Washington Post and not an
| individual reporter. The shroud of not getting an up close an
| personal look put the institution at the forefront.
|
| With social media, Twitter specifically, the journalist becomes
| the main focal point -- unfortunately the biases comes out as we
| are all human and you begin to get a closer look at how the
| sausage is made, how much "access journalism" corrodes coverage,
| and particularly how non-diverse these institutions are (everyone
| feels like they went to some Ivy or liberal arts college with
| somewhat wealthy or well connected in journalism relatives). A
| majority of the content is still really good (climate reporting,
| international politics, 'explainers' and data backed reporting
| are all excellent) from the big institutions but I've totally
| avoided political and most opinion columns since 2016.
| danso wrote:
| I think Twitter has been bad for journalism in that it presents
| a huge distraction, on top of the dangers of being an echo
| chamber (which varies depending on who you choose to follow).
|
| But the phenomenon of reporters being able to personally convey
| their behind-the-scene thinking and experience? I think that's
| been a huge boon of valuable, informative insights we
| previously could only get in memoirs and 10-year anniversary
| reflections. What you see published as articles is something
| that's been trimmed and edited for largely pragmatic purposes
| and convention, not through some rigorous standard of
| epistemology.
|
| The NYT's Rukmini Callimachi is a great example of someone
| whose tweets greatly enrich her published work. Here is a
| thread of insights and reporting that became part of a next-day
| story on Iran and Sulemani:
|
| https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1213421769777909761
|
| One of the best examples of all is David Farhenthoid, who
| tweeted the progress of what seemed like a very picayune
| (relatively speaking) factcheck of Trump's charity claims:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/david-fahr...
|
| > _I spent a day searching for Trump's money on Twitter, asking
| vets' organizations if they'd gotten any of it. I used Trump's
| Twitter handle, @realdonaldtrump, because I wanted Trump to see
| me searching._
|
| > _Trump saw._
|
| > _The next night, he called me to say he had just then given
| away the $1 million, all in one swoop, to a nonprofit run by a
| friend. That meant when Lewandowski said Trump's money was
| "fully spent," it was actually still in Trump's pocket._
|
| Here's a more detailed breakdown of how Farenthold conveyed the
| progress of his reporting through Twitter, including
| screenshots of the legal pad he used as a checklist:
|
| https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/5/13810210/h...
|
| By "picayune", I mean that in late 2016 (e.g. September through
| November) Trump's charity claims were extremely small-time
| compared to the actual presidential race. Without a way to
| publicly convey and accumulate (i.e. snowball) his reporting,
| Fahrenthold may not have been given enough time (by his
| editors) to have the critical mass needed for a meaningful
| story. His work eventually resulted in a Pulitzer-winning
| investigation, and the impetus for the most damaging ongoing
| state-level investigations into Trump today:
|
| https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-fahrenthold
| monadic2 wrote:
| > For me, Twitter has been the worst thing to happen to
| journalism.
|
| This is the absolute reverse of true: twitter allows
| accountability of the journalists at outfits you mentioned.
|
| > With social media, Twitter specifically, the journalist
| becomes the main focal point
|
| If you put your name on reporting, you're accountable for its
| quality.
|
| > and particularly how non-diverse these institutions are
|
| Au contraire, the papers seem far more obsessed with idpol than
| twitter, preferring to focus on cults of personality and what
| their popularity (or non popularity) means than meat and potato
| issues.
|
| > A majority of the content is still really good (climate
| reporting, international politics, 'explainers' and data backed
| reporting are all excellent)
|
| I disagree, but I'll leave the question of why you consider
| this flavor of reporting high quality up to you to figure it
| out.
|
| I subscribe to the new york times, the washington post, and the
| la times, RT, al jazeera, among many other smaller
| publications. I don't think I could make any sense of the
| election year, climate change, or international politics
| without twitter, full stop--you're only seeing half the
| conversation, or less. Frankly even hacker news has better
| "reporting" on climate change than any "journalistic outfit"
| I've read, mostly because it's a massive topic to cover that
| changes very rapidly and it doesn't sell attention nearly as
| well as problems that operate within our understood paradigm of
| how our world should work.
|
| And, frankly, it's hard to imagine an outfit more driven to
| polarize and work up its base for no discernible reason than
| the New York Times Opinion section--I can't articulate it
| better than this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsWj7Q5iPus.
|
| Finally, this entire dialogue neglects that twitter allows
| journalists _to critique each other in public_ , a distinctly
| positive thing for journalism no matter what your opinions are
| about the unwashed masses.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Another take: Traditional news outlets are no longer
| trustworthy, and will need to begin building new rapport by
| paying for known and trusted talent.
|
| Journalists will have publishing control, choosing which
| platforms suit each piece the best. People will have a much
| harder time discrediting someone with a focused, proven track
| record vs a business with broad financial and political
| interests. It's the natural result of a societal emphasis on
| identity-focused decision-making. We look for other individuals
| to guide us through things we don't understand. Individuals are
| relatable. This is why podcasting has swamped radio.
| buboard wrote:
| > unfortunately the biases comes out as we are all human
|
| Can you point to an example of any recent article in any US
| paper that even tries to be objective? Only the BBC pretends to
| strive for that nowadays.
| monadic2 wrote:
| > Only the BBC pretends to strive for that nowadays.
|
| This remark is hugely ironic if you followed the recent UK
| election, but they at least have an outside perspective in
| the US.
| macspoofing wrote:
| If you take the present journalism climate as the norm, these
| rules are radical. Can you imagine CNN reporting on Trump voters
| and following rule #6? Or reporting on Trump and following rule
| #5, #11?
| pbourke wrote:
| Yes, do mention CNN without the context of Fox News and AM
| radio.
|
| Due to social media, we know more of the unfiltered thoughts of
| Trump and his supporters that any other president and political
| movement ever.
|
| My opinion of both has been formed by direct exposure to their
| utterances.
| pjc50 wrote:
| #5 and #7 are a problem - they can be exploited by bad actors.
| That's how you get the "views on shape of Earth differ"
| reports.
| nickloewen wrote:
| It seems to me that #5 (two sides) needs more nuance. It is
| often the case, as you point out, that one side is just
| wrong. But even then it is worth considering why they are
| wrong, and whether that analysis should be included in the
| story. I agree that we shouldn't be re-litigating basic
| historical or scientific facts, but I have learned a lot
| about other people (how they think, what motivates them, how
| to communicate with them) from this kind of analytical
| reporting. And I suspect some preemptive debunking has helped
| me to avoid some bad takes of my own.
| macspoofing wrote:
| All the rules are a problem for modern journalism ... that's
| why they are radical.
|
| You can 'yea but' anything. For example, for rule #2: "Do not
| distort, lie, slant, or hype." ... yeah, but what if the
| subject is evil.
|
| (Also, I have yet to see one mainstream news report on Flat
| Earth, much less a favourable one ... is that actually a
| problem you're worried about?)
| rayiner wrote:
| But ignoring it is how you get journalists parroting lines
| like "the middle class has been stagnant for decades" without
| reporting on all the contrary views.
| blfr wrote:
| Vast majority of journalists don't make it past #2. The
| problems you mention are stretch goals, it would be nice to
| have them.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| It's the job of journalists to vet the stories. No journalist
| ever has or ever will suggest that the earth is flat. That's
| a strawman.
| pjc50 wrote:
| That was deliberately a less controversial one than climate
| change, and newspapers publish denialist claims of
| basically the same level of substance as flat Earth ones
| all the time (e.g. James Delingpole)
| nickloewen wrote:
| The concern as I understand it is not that a journalist
| would just straight-up defend a conspiracy theory. Rather,
| the concern is that if you give any airtime to conspiracy
| theorists, even in the form of a debate, some
| viewers/readers will conclude that there must be _some_
| nugget of legitimacy in the conspiracy (why else would it
| be on the news?). Indeed, conspiracy theorists have relied
| on this to gain support, especially before they had the
| internet, when strategically baiting the media was the only
| way to get their bullshit noticed.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| A far greater concern than conspiracy theorists getting
| taken seriously are actual conspiracies perpetrated by
| mainstream media outlets. I gave two examples elsewhere
| in the thread: Weinstein and Epstein. Those aren't
| "conspiracy theories", they're know and active
| conspiracies. There were a multitude of opportunity to
| report on them but the stories were actively stifled for
| personal and political gain.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Maybe in the universe where CNN is capable of doing these
| things, Trump wouldn't have become President.
| [deleted]
| djinnandtonic wrote:
| 13. Acknowledge that objectivity may be impossible but fairness
| never is.
|
| The worst problem with journalism today, encapsulated in a single
| sentence.
| kristianc wrote:
| Many journalists seem to have discovered that becoming noisy,
| performative blue tick 'personas', acting out journalism on
| Twitter, and saying things like 'this, literally this' a lot as a
| substitute for actual analysis is also good for their careers.
|
| They act out this status-dance of pretending to loathe every
| second of life in the toxic digital hellscape that, in the talk
| tracks and visibility it gives them is actually very beneficial
| for their careers.
|
| They couldn't actually admit it's been good for them though, as
| that would mean admitting profiting from the algorithmic, privacy
| problem-invested landscape that they barely understand but have
| made their careers criticizing.
|
| But of course, everyone's at it! So the only way to get ahead is
| more paranoia, more angst, more toxicity. Once you're bought in,
| you can't go back to tacking to the middle. So we get an arms
| race of performative angst and hyperbolic statements.
|
| Before you know it, you're claiming that Slack notifications give
| you PTSD symptoms:
| https://twitter.com/pfpicardi/status/1220738739514814467?s=2...
|
| The problem is that that is antithetical to the real work of
| journalism - which should be about seeking truth without fear or
| favour.
| mc32 wrote:
| The problem is that on Twitter they've become more like
| activists rather than journalists/reporters.
|
| Maybe one day actual journalists will come to the conclusion
| that tweeting is antithetical to journalism and may only use it
| as a tool of discovery rather than engagement.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The problem is that on Twitter they've become more like
| activists rather than journalists /reporters._
|
| The upside though is that it's easier to tell they're
| activists / non-objective on Twitter - compared to supposedly
| 'serious' outlets pushing all kinds of agendas as "objective"
| journalism.
| siruncledrew wrote:
| Journalists today don't even need any instruction, credentials,
| or experience to be "journalists". It's a media arms-race over
| who can monopolize territory in the information-space, and
| companies will take whoever gets them results - not only who is
| best at their job.
|
| Who cares about paying for a staff of $60-80k/year well-
| seasoned investigative reporters that take weeks-months to
| produce vivid, informative pieces only for them to be forgotten
| about for another thing in the 24hr news cycle? Why not just
| pay a bunch of young people $18/hr to "rehash" 8 articles/day
| with a bunch of fluff and opinion to pump out more stuff to get
| more dollars? Why even bother going out into the world to
| gather information when I could just copy-paste the first story
| to come out, add a few pictures and edits, then release it to
| catch the demand-wave for content monetization while it's
| riding high, and call it a day?
|
| The proliferation of 'fake news' is basically just "full-
| throttle" digital journalism that said, "Fuck it, why even wait
| around for real-life happenings to report on when I could just
| create my own and make money?"
|
| Journalism is not anymore some "sacred art" or "esteemed
| profession", like a doctor or lawyer or scientist, it's just
| another avenue to make dollars from society through supply-
| demand.
| Reedx wrote:
| This is the result of the attention economy and the fact that
| nothing generates engagement like anger. That's what gets the
| most clicks and does so much cheaper than real journalism. So
| performative outrage is what becomes incentivized, both in the
| news and on twitter in a self-reinforcing cycle. Those who
| generate and harness the most outrage are the winners of the
| game.
|
| How do we fix this?
|
| That's an open question. But I think we need to change the game
| and the incentives. We probably need a new business model
| and/or for this kind of news to become widely understood as the
| junk food entertainment it is. Maybe put a nutrition label or
| cancer-like warning on them, heh...
| Knulp wrote:
| Let's take Buzzfeed.
|
| Most of what they post is utter clickbait and not really
| informative. They also do amazing pieces of investigation
| because this model brought them money and they wanted to use
| it to do better work.
|
| See this article from 2018 that was nominated for a Pullitzer
| Prize. https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-
| blood-1...
|
| Does that mean you rate Buzzfeed as cancer - including the
| great reporting they sometimes do ? Or each article
| independently ? But then who does it ?
|
| Open questions here as well ^^
| luckylion wrote:
| Radio active material can anecdotally give you super
| powers, but usually it just gives you cancer. It's
| generally a good idea to avoid it, because the chances that
| you don't wake up being able to fly are too high.
|
| The same goes for Buzzfeed in my opinion. Yes, there may be
| something of value every other year, but generally it's
| shit. You don't want to regularly ingest shit on the off
| chance that there's some delicious candy in there
| somewhere.
| maxerickson wrote:
| What an absurd interpretation of that tweet.
| iagovar wrote:
| This not an interpretation of that tweet but the current
| trend in journalism. Is pretty easy to follow actually. Do
| the exercise to look up for authors of inflammatory articles
| on Twitter.
|
| It's like they've said: Alright, truth is impossible to
| reach, so let's throw everything out window.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| It's hard to see what you're actually saying. The tweet is
| clearly a joke, and makes no reference to PTSD, triggering,
| or anything else. The Slack notification sound also makes
| me freeze up.
| kristianc wrote:
| You mean it's not time to contemplate the effects of
| workplace trauma and capitalism?
|
| https://twitter.com/imani_barbarin/status/122088704700891
| 545...
| claudiawerner wrote:
| It certainly is that time, but not because of Slack
| notifications.
| ajross wrote:
| > This not an interpretation of that tweet but the current
| trend in journalism.
|
| You _literally_ paraphrased it as "Before you know it,
| you're claiming that Slack notifications give you PTSD
| symptoms". If you don't agree with that analysis (which is
| ridiculous: the author is making a joke about being afraid
| of slack notifications) then why did you give it to us just
| to deny it later?
| detaro wrote:
| /u/iagovar didn't make that comment
| maxerickson wrote:
| More than 1 poster involved.
|
| But that is the point, the poor interpretation of the
| single tweet does not particularly bolster the argument
| analyzing the general behavior of journalists on twitter.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Universal truth, is, in fact, a bit of an impossibility.
| ("Truth" being dependent on point of view.) That said,
| "truth" is also unnecessary. That is, it's unnecessary if a
| journalist is just reporting the known facts of a
| situation.
|
| If what a journalist really wants to do is tell their own
| "truth". Then yeah, facts and hard evidence aren't really
| necessary and putting out their "truth" becomes entirely
| possible.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _" Truth" being dependent on point of view_
|
| Some truths do.
|
| A lot of truths don't depend on point of view.
|
| Whether something is right or wrong, benefit or detriment
| etc does depend on point of view. But lots of truths just
| depend on what's reported matching what is the case.
|
| E.g. "whether X did Y (e.g. whether John punched Jack)"
| is not based on opinion. There's a universal truth there,
| either John did or he didn't. Speculation about what
| happened (when the journalist speaks without evidence)
| and whether "it's good that X did Y", sure, are based on
| opinion.
|
| Media, all too often, fails to report correctly on things
| that fall on universal truths (in a famous case, saying
| someone had WMDs when they didn't). It fails to look for
| evidence, and it even often blatantly lies or distorts
| the universal facts.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| > _" whether X did Y (e.g. whether John punched Jack)" is
| not based on opinion. There's a universal truth there,
| either John did or he didn't_
|
| I'm pretty sure you just conflated "truth" with fact.
| John punching Jack. Or John not punching Jack. Is one of
| the facts of the situation. At least, police and criminal
| courts would call it one of the facts. They certainly
| wouldn't call it one of the "truths".
| wcarey wrote:
| Fascinatingly, a verdict means "a speaking of the truth".
| Courts at least, consider the aim of the jury to speak
| the truth. So whether John did punch Jack would be an
| element of the truth of the matter being adjudicated.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Facts and beliefs are elements of truth.
|
| That doesn't make fact equivalent to truth, any more than
| it makes belief equivalent to truth. (Or, indeed, anymore
| than it makes belief equivalent to fact.)
|
| Juries often issue "a speaking of the truth" inconsistent
| with fact. (Even inconsistent with facts as presented.)
| That's what the Innocence Project is all about, they
| exist precisely because of the difference between these
| adjudicated "truths" and real world facts.
| specialist wrote:
| What of the publishers, producers, and editors? Do they lack
| agency in the face of journalistic perfidy?
|
| What of public relations, think tanks, and campaigns? Those
| legions of people paid to push a point of view?
|
| It's amusing (tragicomically) that your sole criticism is for
| the people with least power in a corrupt media ecosystem.
| unishark wrote:
| whataboutism?
|
| The article is about a journalist so we're thinking about how
| other journalists compare.
| specialist wrote:
| Then the correct criticism of journalists is that they
| don't uphold their integrity in the face of the outrage
| tsunami. Or, more accurately, most who did are no longer
| employed as journalists.
| Knulp wrote:
| I feel like the conversation is lacking a journalist point of
| view so I'm going to pitch in :) I usually don't say anything in
| this kind of debate (especially on Twitter ;) ) because it's
| pretty useless, but I love reading the community here and it's
| the first time that a debate disppoints me. I feel like it's one
| sided and completly lacking the usual counter-argument and
| debate. Also, bear with me if I make english mistakes - I'm
| french and it's not my native langage.
|
| First I'd like to adress there's very different kinds of
| journalism, different set of skills associated with it and of
| course, a company they work for. As a job, working for the New
| York Times, for a local journal, for a tech magazine or for
| travel channel is completely different. I don't think people
| realise how different the job actually is from one media to the
| other. You can't say 'journalists' the same way you can't say
| 'engineers' because there's people doing software, people doing
| tests, people building machines, people advising companies and
| many other people doing many other things and having no idea how
| to do some other engineer job because it is... entirely
| different. We're not interchangeable and we don't all do the same
| job at all.
|
| All medias are also different. Which implies different owners,
| rules, and bosses. As a journalist, you're like everyone else :
| you're an employee. You can have ethics, you can have thoughts or
| a list of rules. At the end of the day, it's a job and if your
| boss asks you to do something completly stupid, you can either
| say no, loose that job and possibly die of hunger. Or you roll
| with it and hope very very hard it will not stay on the internet.
| (Spoiler alert : it will and you'll be ashamed of it all your
| life.) You do have rights in some countries; but first, like many
| rights, not everyone know them; and second, those rights don't
| necessarily protect you. Maybe the media can't fire you right
| away or because you refused working, but a few months later, when
| they're considering reconducting your contract, you'll just get
| cut. It's just sad math. Not everyone can afford to be a hero.
| Knulp wrote:
| Another point is that there's this image that being a good
| journalist means investigating. Movies or tv shows never
| mention the actual money you're getting for publishing online.
| I often see discussion here on how much engineers make.
| Everytime I read those, I can't believe the numbers. So let's
| talk money. In France the middle ground for an online paper is
| getting paid between 40 dollars for a short piece and 120 for a
| long one. That's usually 8000 characters for long ones, so more
| or less 800 to 1000 words. If you want to do a good job, it
| requiries usually two days : you have to research, get people's
| contacts. Agree on a time for three or four interview which are
| going to last between 30 minutes and an hour each. Then if you
| have everything (rarely happens) you have to write. If no one
| answers or you realize the subject was actually much more
| complicated than you thought, it might take a week or a month.
| The nature of the job makes it hard to know how long exactly
| something is going to take if you want to do it right... But at
| the end of the day, the amount of money you get paid doesn't
| change and you might just get paid 100 dollars for two days
| work, and that's before taxes. I'll talk about my own
| experience as a freelancer for a year here, and I'm actually
| one of the very lucky ones because I had work. I calculated
| that this year, I often got paid 1 or 2 euro the hour. I earned
| 300 or 400 a month - well, usually it's more 1500 a month, then
| nothing for two month, then 200, then 600, then nothing
| again... Often I got paid four months after being published -
| and sometimes on Paypal. I also worked for a big American media
| and they pay you the same amount as in France - except at the
| end you get a check and your bank at home will also cut its own
| share of it and you'll end up with two times less money. I am
| absolutely not exagerating. Of course, I stopped being a
| freelancer because I couldn't make it work. Yes, my job was
| more interesting and I was travelling and getting to cover more
| exciting stuff. But it couldn't compensate the stress that came
| with having literaly no money and my savings going down and
| down and down and down. So now I have a job that is actually
| one of the rare ones where I can do a good job in France and
| get paid ok. I'll still never earn more than 20 to 25K a year
| after taxes. But I'm lucky. Really. So imagine how it is for
| mostly everyone else.
| Knulp wrote:
| So I'd like to take the debate here where I think it should
| lie: with the companies' management. The problem isn't the
| journalists - there's good ones, bad ones like everywhere and
| they can't shoulder all the trust crisis that's out there.
| The problem is that no one is really checking who posts what
| online. Medias have had a history of having an article go
| through 3 to 4 people before getting okayed and being
| published. I actually hate that you only have one name on an
| article because it is really not a solo work (or at least it
| never should be). Often I have read articles I wrote and was
| unable to recognize them. Or they were cut of a part I though
| balanced the whole argument I was making. In those cases I
| feel like it's unfair only my name get written down because
| I'll get all the criticism. In other cases, we were really
| two working on an article and the editing work was
| formidable. But somehow in the end, I'm the only one getting
| the credit for it, which also feels unfair to my colleagues.
|
| All those problems are not easy to solve. They beg many
| questions : is there just too many people in journalism ?
| Should companies shrink so they finally get profitable again
| and the remaining staff can do quality work - at the expense
| of thousands of people that would get without a job ? Should
| there only be subscription-based info ? But then does that
| mean no one without money would get the right to good
| information ? Should every company sort out a way to be both
| a newsroom (one that doesn't make much money or even none at
| all) and develop multiple activities on the side like an ad
| company, so that they can stay afloat (some have succeeded
| that way but it's not a valid point for everyone) ? I don't
| have an answer and mostly every media is trying to figure out
| their way out of all this. The thing is it's easy to
| criticize from outside that the managment is shit... but the
| ships are sinking and when you're sinking, you're not
| thinking ahead as to which direction you're going to take, or
| what part of the boat you're going to make better. First you
| try to figure out how to get all the water out and keep all
| the people inside alive. It's not an excuse, just the context
| we have to deal with.
|
| Side note : there's also a problem of journalist schools.
| That's my own opinion, but I actually think they are very bad
| for the job - because you won't learn more than in a media,
| and it makes all the journalists come out very similar.
| Problem is, if you don't do them, you have no network and, at
| least in France, you actually can't intern in big medias.
| Twitter is a similar bubble to the bubbles school create.
| Twitter makes journalists feel like what they see or talk
| about has a bigger influence than it really has. But that's
| not a problem that's only with journalists. It's also with
| the platforms and it's been argued that it's all over the
| internet.
| Knulp wrote:
| Then... I want to adress one final fact which is that it's
| easier to say it's the "journalists" fault if information
| has gotten so bad. Journalists for sure hold responsability
| in this but the public that doesnt value the work, isn't
| willing to pay for it and will click on whatever is coming
| up without caring about sourcing... Well, that crowd also
| has its share in how bad the situation has gotten. I don't
| think you can blame journalists for all the fake news
| websites that came up and how they often became the first
| things you got to access. The tools for visibility that we
| have to deal with are completely not appropriate for
| responsible journalism and also require an amount of time
| that will never be worth the money (Google, Facebook etc).
| Those fake news website play dirty and of benefit greatly
| from it.
|
| In one of the medias I worked for, it does say something
| that one of the most visited article of the year was about
| a tenia worm that was in someone's intestine and took
| literally ten minute to write, edit and publish. None of
| the very interesting piece of good journalism got as much
| attention. If you want to do good reporting that will
| shine, you need good keywords, a video, tons of links...
| And a long text for good SEO. They can't all have that. And
| because of the lack of money, all those steps are often
| asked of the journalists themselves. How can you do a good
| job if you have to get a good idea while browsing the
| internet because you don't have time to go out, talk to
| people and take the risk it will be all for nothing ? Then
| you have to sell your idea to your boss. Then research.
| Then interview. Then maybe do a video. Then maybe edit it.
| Then write the story. Then also doing editing and all the
| linking. Then publishing. Then promoting it with your own
| media so you get recognised by your coworkers. Then
| promoting it online. Then get another idea. All that in one
| morning of course because where's your worth as a stable
| employee if you can't publish 5 articles a day ?
|
| I'm not saying journalists are not responsible for what is
| happening, that all the points you made weren't good points
| or that I have any answers. I'm just getting tired of
| always reading hate and simplistic arguments like "Anyway,
| Buzzfeed is shit" and "Journalists are only caring about
| twitter". Those are the symptoms, not the cause of the
| illness. And it would do great to move the debate elsewhere
| if we want to cure this. It won't be done by journalists
| alone. A journalist doesn't exist without an audience and
| this will have to be a common effort or journalism is just
| going to die and well, it's only my opinion, but I don't
| think the world will be better for it.
|
| Sorry that rant ended up being a whole book. But if you get
| there, I would love to hear what you think and we can
| discuss this outside of hate and "they" and "journalists"
| and "toxicity".
| busterarm wrote:
| All I've seen in your posts is a defense that ethics and
| standards don't matter because the economics don't make
| sense. At the end of the day you have a choice of whether
| or not to be a journalist or to do something else
| entirely.
|
| If you're doing it for the love at that point, then it's
| not about the money and no argument can trump ethics and
| standards there. I think journalists spend so much time
| reflecting on others that there is little to no self-
| reflection. Just because your boss asks you to do
| something stupid, doesn't make it okay to do it.
|
| If you're a soldier in the military and you carry out an
| unethical, illegal order, you're not only still going to
| get tried for it but you have the legal right to deny
| that order. And that's a job where you're already
| expected to maybe kill people for your government.
|
| But while I'm glad that the military holds higher
| standards of ethics than most of the rest of us, the job
| of a journalist can be one with the potential to lead men
| to war. Ethics are just as important in your job is just
| as it is in theirs. Your tools are just as powerful and
| can equally be used as weapons.
| luckylion wrote:
| I get the feeling that you're somewhat justifying the
| state of journalism with "you have to make money somehow"
| and "people are also not valuing good journalism".
| Consider what would happen if you transferred that to
| other professions. "Oh well, people die because the house
| collapses, but the owners want it cheap and I have to pay
| the rent. Also, people don't value good craftsmanship in
| buildings", or, let's take it up a notch, "I'm breaking
| into hospital networks, encrypt their data and ask for a
| ransom, I have to pay the rent. Also, the general public
| never valued all the great software I wrote beforehand".
|
| Journalists aren't the root cause of the state of the
| media, but they aren't unwilling victims either. It's
| like working for a land mine manufacturer. You're not
| responsible for the concept of war existing, but you sure
| are contributing to suffering.
|
| I generally like Thomas Jefferson on the topic:
|
| _To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a
| newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I
| should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound
| principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few
| subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression
| of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation
| of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned
| prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed
| which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes
| suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The
| real extent of this state of misinformation is known only
| to those who are in situations to confront facts within
| their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look
| with commiseration over the great body of my fellow
| citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the
| belief, that they have known something of what has been
| passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts
| they have read in newspapers are just as true a history
| of any other period of the world as of the present,
| except that the real names of the day are affixed to
| their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from
| them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte
| has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a
| great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no
| details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who
| never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he
| who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
| nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with
| falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still
| learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
|
| Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such
| way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading
| the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities.
| 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it
| would contain little more than authentic papers, and
| information from such sources as the editor would be
| willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. The
| 2d would contain what, from a mature consideration of all
| circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be
| probably true. This, however, should rather contain too
| little than too much. The 3d & 4th should be professedly
| for those readers who would rather have lies for their
| money than the blank paper they would occupy._
| jariel wrote:
| It'd rather seem that Jefferson really didn't have the
| answer either. His 'solution' probably wasn't a solution,
| and would probably drive said paper out of business.
| 12xo wrote:
| Attention is the currency of media. Modern, mainstream "news"
| programs are not journalism per se, they are just conduits for
| advertising dollars.
|
| The sad part is that concocting sensationalism is extremely
| profitable, especially politics. And when you can create the
| controversy and then charge outrageous amounts of money to the
| very people to whom you poke, you control the discourse and you
| make a lot of money, which in America is power.
|
| Modern, mainstream "news" is just like fast food. If you care
| about your body and your health, you will not eat the stuff. But
| most people dont care, dont mind and dont even think about it.
| Its cheap, tasty and convenient.
| celticmusic wrote:
| probably a silly complaint, but it would've been really nice to
| put the asterisk on the left side of the numbers so that one
| could immediately see by scanning which are the refined 9.
| qrbLPHiKpiux wrote:
| > No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
|
| This is the entire internet.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I think Lehrer's point here is that journalists often speak to
| sources "off the record", and that this is often used to fuel
| conflict instead of illuminating the situation.
| fnord77 wrote:
| most of these seem like a good personal ethos to have, even if
| you're not a journo
| jellicle wrote:
| Somewhat amusingly, the list highlights the Achilles heel of
| journalism by omitting one simple rule: "tell the truth".
|
| Not lying is not at all the same as telling the truth.
|
| Modern journalism, at best (very rarely seen), tells you
| something that is, narrowly taken, true. Even this version of
| journalism does not attempt to tell you what the actual truth of
| the matter is.
|
| Narrowly true statement: "Republican Senator Blarg said today on
| the floor of the Senate "these charges are nonsense, fake news,
| totally made up"."
|
| That's a true statement! It was said! But it's also misleading
| about the whole matter to convey it to your readers.
|
| Telling your viewers the real truth of the situation: "The
| charges levied in the Senate are obviously accurate and serious,
| but Republican Senators are lying about them in an attempt to
| obfuscate and downplay the situation."
| degosuke wrote:
| I wonder whether the improvements in machine learning would ever
| be sufficient, so that for an article we could generate a quick
| report of how many points from the list are "checked".
| celticmusic wrote:
| people would just game it, you can't solve this with
| technology.
| lando2319 wrote:
| Journalists pick and choose facts to support the narrative, I
| don't think having them "checked" would matter.
|
| What you want to know is the facts that go against the
| narrative that aren't mentioned.
|
| Then take a holistic view.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Something that gathers all of the known facts in one place
| for review. That used to be what journalists did, not so much
| any longer.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I think the author unintentionally misspoke in calling him "one
| of the last". The growth of journalism in which Lehrer's
| standards are not observed should not distract us from the fact
| that there are many journalists reporting with integrity, and in
| some cases, great courage.
| jc01480 wrote:
| Can you reference some?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Journalism is in the same boat as websites are.
|
| There are more fantastic ones than ever before but the number
| of crappy ones and major players that have entered the market
| in the past 20 years have overshadowed them by orders of
| magnitudes.
|
| I think this is pretty much happening everywhere as access to
| the middle class and knowledge worker/white collar jobs are
| becoming the norm.
|
| A small cadre of experts still exist but the number of
| amateurs, scammers and grifters is aggressively growing.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Interesting that none of the rules of journalism include just
| reporting facts. In fact, it says that journalists should be
| disciplined for "reckless" reporting of any fact.
|
| It kind of explains why we live in the fact light environment of
| quotes and spin. Presumably, if a hard fact proves unpopular with
| a large enough group, then those facts, even when backed by hard
| evidence, can likely land you in a lot of trouble.
|
| A bit understandable I suppose? I mean, if talking bad about
| Trump or Obama increases the number of shooters in your Walmarts
| and churches, then yeah, probably should be careful about doing
| that. At the same time, if you have to walk on egg shells around
| people so emotionally invested in a person, or place, or subject
| that they're going to shoot up anyone who disagrees with them,
| then your journalism on that issue is not likely to be very
| "good" in any case.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Interesting that none of the rules of journalism include just
| reporting facts.
|
| Facts are not enough because in order for 'facts' to be useful
| they have to be embedded in a larger structure - like a theory,
| or ideology, or narrative, or whatever.
|
| Here's a fact: "Sun rises in the East, and sets in the West".
| This fact is compatible with heliocentric and geocentric
| models. The fact on its own doesn't tell you which is which. It
| doesn't tell you the context, nor the other facts that may have
| been omitted or superfluously included when reported, and
| proponents of both theories can use it to justify their
| position. This is why there can never be such a thing as
| "journalism that just reports the facts".
| bilbo0s wrote:
| > _This fact is compatible with heliocentric and geocentric
| models. The fact on its own doesn 't tell you which is
| which._
|
| But the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun does tell
| you which "model" is actually a fact. That's the point.
|
| You're making an argument about which facts should be
| reported? The sun rising in the east? Or the phases of Venus?
| Or both? Or both and more?
|
| But stating that you need an ideology or narrative to support
| your facts is a bit nonsensical in my own opinion. There
| really is only one conclusion that can be drawn from the
| totality of the facts. To state only a single fact, and then
| say, "here is an ideology or narrative so you can understand
| the fact I just gave you." Really is just stating an ideology
| or narrative.
|
| Think of it this way, if you still need a narrative, then you
| didn't give anyone all the facts.
| nickloewen wrote:
| Indeed, sometimes reporting "just the facts" is more likely
| to lead people to the wrong conclusion than the right one.
| (For example, I think it would be difficult to come to an
| accurate understanding of social inequality if one was only
| ever given statistical facts, and never any interpretation or
| root cause analysis.)
| MaupitiBlue wrote:
| Reading his rules, it's hard not to agree with Bob Woodward that
| many journalists have become "unhinged" over Trump.
| [deleted]
| 0x445442 wrote:
| You forgot to put journalists in quotes.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| It's much more rare though and it's almost entirely absent when
| looking at political coverage. Two journalists I can think of off
| the top of my head who have acted with outstanding integrity in
| recent years are Ronan Farrow and Julie K. Brown (broke the
| Weinstein and Epstein stories respectively). Part of what makes
| their journalism so strong is that they had to fight _the entire
| industry_ to get their stories out.
|
| Political coverage is a nightmare though. Just yesterday George
| Stephanopoulos was caught on camera acting in an extremely
| partisan manner [1]. This happens on both sides of the isle
| regularly at this point (the White House itself is hardly
| faultless). It's only ratcheted up since 2016 where it seems the
| press took it up themselves to "save" us, where the definition of
| save seems to be: push their own political opinions.
|
| 1. https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1220758756071497728
| coffeefirst wrote:
| There's plenty of political reporters doing excellent work. Get
| off Twitter and turn off cable news, they're a mess. But
| outside of that world there's no shortage of professionals who
| take the work seriously AND go through a fact checking process.
| fenomas wrote:
| > caught on camera acting in an extremely partisan manner
|
| I'm sorry, but even as political talking points go this makes
| no sense. He made a "cut" gesture during a live feed, but live
| news broadcasts cut from one feed to another dozens of times
| per hour, and the feed he was motioning to cut wasn't of any
| particular importance to either party (it was a Trump lawyer
| listening to someone off-camera asking a question). That's
| hardly "extremely partisan".
| GhettoMaestro wrote:
| Not any live feed.... a feeding frenzy (Impeachment) and he
| wants to cut off the dude's rebuttal? That's chickenshit.
|
| But of course I'm sure you'll have a rebuttal to this as to
| why ol Georgy did nothing wrong. You type of folks always
| show up white-knight style in these threads.
| endorphone wrote:
| There is a bizarre right-wing contingent on HN. Okay not
| right-wing, as they're seldom actually conservative, but they
| somehow identify with this administration. To them the most
| banal thing from mainstream media (excluding Fox News, of
| course) is demonstration of some egregious media bias.
|
| It is bizarre. I have never encountered people like this in
| this industry in real life, so is HN somehow brigaded? Who
| are these people who are so desperate to wave a flag and show
| how world-weary and wise they are for discharging with basic
| logic and normal common sense?
| thu2111 wrote:
| You think you never encountered them, but if you consider
| all right wing people to be bizarre then they're probably
| not going to talk to you about politics, are they? HN isn't
| brigaded. It's just a place where you're exposed to more of
| what people really think without caring if you attack them.
|
| As for demonstrations of media bias, well, do you think the
| media isn't biased?
|
| Here's an article that covers a series of severe factual
| errors in the New York Times, caused by the political
| biases of the institution:
|
| https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-
| got-a...
|
| It's by no means complete. I've seen total falsehoods be
| printed in the NYT about Britain quite a few times and they
| didn't make the list.
| endorphone wrote:
| "but if you consider all right wing people to be bizarre"
|
| Let's again define the terminology here. I'm a
| conservative. Many of my friends and peers are
| conservatives. We traditionally would be "right wing".
| Only what has been co-opted as the right wing are an
| absolutely bizarre collection of group-thinkers who have
| circled the wagons around the abomination that is Donald
| Trump and tied their ego and identity to defending the
| same. It is _absolutely_ bizarre, and hopefully will be
| studied for decades, in the same way that we study other
| maladies.
|
| Never before has conservatism been so
| absolutely...deplorable. To be something to rightly be
| ashamed of.
|
| "Here's an article that covers a series of severe factual
| errors in the New York Times"
|
| A small selection of articles about Britain. See, I don't
| expect the NYT to have perfect coverage about Britain,
| nor do I expect Wired to have technically correct
| coverage of neural networks. Nor, for that matter, do I
| expect the NYT to be faultless -- thousands of articles a
| day, every day. Some of them are going to be wrong.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Thank you for saying this. It was the case when I first
| joined HN that many posts were quite conservative. But
| here, and frankly across the US, there has been a shift
| to voices that are indeed deplorable.
|
| I admired Jim Lehrer no end. But a person can wonder if
| the rules alone are strong enough to withstand the
| assault.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| > Here's an article that covers a series of severe
| factual errors in the New York Times, caused by the
| political biases of the institution:
|
| I don't have the expertise necessary to evaluate this
| myself. Two issues that jumped out at me, however: unherd
| doesn't mention that some of the articles they criticize
| are opinion pieces, and if you Google keywords from their
| first takedown you'll find more nuanced coverage.
|
| From that I'm (possibly unfairly) categorizing the
| article you linked as likely of minimal value, and didn't
| read it through.
| busterarm wrote:
| What do you do when it's the NYT Editorial Board
| themselves writing the Op-Ed that gets facts wrong?
|
| The older I've gotten, the more I've read news stories
| that are directly related to me, my industry or people
| I'm in regular contact with. The percentage of these
| stories that are demonstrably false even on a basic fact
| checking level is 100%. In most instances, the reporting
| tells the exact opposite story from the events that
| happened and every single part of the story is
| misrepresented.
|
| I started to see this a lot with Vice and BuzzFeed but
| it's crept into WaPo and most notably the NYT. I can't
| trust the Grey Lady anymore.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| FYI, all the articles I clicked on in the link that
| started all of this were opeds by people not associated
| with the nytimes.
| busterarm wrote:
| I wasn't speaking to that article specifically but at the
| lax stewardship that the NYT is under right now.
|
| NYT Editorial Board members do write Op-Eds of the sort I
| mention.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| I think the problem is that you're associating people
| calling out media bias and corruption with Trump. I
| explicitly said the white house has issues too. _Major_
| issues, tons of them. That doesn 't absolve the mainstream
| media, there are a lot of valid things to critique there.
| endorphone wrote:
| If one were to draw a Venn diagram of people who are sure
| that everything in mainstream media is fake news, it'd
| have a close to 1:1 relationship with Trump supporters
| (reality, it seems, has an anti-Trump bias). For that
| matter, they'd all be climate change deniers as well,
| unsurprisingly. They probably get their kicks blocking or
| vandalizing superchargers because...reasons.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN on generic ideological and/or partisan
| tangents. It just leads to predictable flamewars. Also,
| please don't post insinuations about brigading unless you
| have some objective basis for doing so. Perception of these
| things is notoriously (if not entirely) unreliable and is
| not an objective basis. That's why we have a site guideline
| specifically about that:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| HN is a large, widely distributed community. Therefore it's
| divided on any issues that society is divided about--or
| rather, societies, since it's also a highly international
| site. Moreover, HN is a non-siloed community [1], unlike
| nearly everywhere else on the web, so you're more likely to
| encounter a cross-section of things you don't normally run
| into. Ironically, what is in fact a more _un_ biased
| distribution of perspectives is precisely what creates the
| feeling of bizarre contingents, brigading, and so on, among
| users who aren't accustomed to running into that
| demographic segment. This is something we all experience
| online.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=fal
| se&qu...
| Balgair wrote:
| Honestly mate, you need to find better news then. It's out
| there, but it's not 24/7 stuff. The GP is right, there are
| vastly more good, professional journalists than the celebrity-
| style 'It-girls' on the networks.
| mturmon wrote:
| > ...White House itself is hardly faultless...
|
| Are you referring to the difficulty the White House had
| acknowledging their client, Saudi Arabia, murdered a Washington
| Post journalist in their embassy?
|
| Or are you referring to the spectacle Trump incites at his
| rallies toward the reporters who are covering them? (E.g.:
| "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required")
|
| My point: If you survey political journalism and come away with
| a sorrowful conclusion that "both sides of the aisle" have
| problems with accurate reporting, then you're not really
| acknowledging that Trumpists have an agenda of demonizing any
| reporter or organization that reports uncomfortable facts.
|
| The media still don't know how to respond to this asymmetrical
| warfare, and that's the real story for anyone who believes that
| facts matter in political reporting.
| endorphone wrote:
| That Stephanopoulos example of partisan behavior is an
| _incredible_ choice, especially when you then claim that the
| White House is "hardly faultless". Given that you could
| randomly choose virtually any second of Fox News coverage and
| have a much worse example, still you chose this?
|
| Stephanopoulos was giving directing clues for his own talk
| program. There is positively nothing "partisan" about that,
| however partisan he may be. The White House, on the other
| hand...well let's not even go there.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146480.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Just yesterday George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera
| acting in an extremely partisan manner [1]
|
| To be fair, Stephanopoulos was a Democratic operative for years
| before transitioning to media. Why would you expect him to not
| be partisan?
| proximitysauce wrote:
| I wouldn't but I also wouldn't expect a political operative
| to become the chief anchor and political correspondent of a
| major network.
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| The problem I see is that no one can agree on what is right
| or the truth any longer. What one side considers the truth
| might not be the same for the other, look no further than
| the impeachment proceedings.
|
| I'm amazed that we've reached a point in the USA where we
| can't agree on some simple truths anymore.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >I'm am amazed that we've reached a point the in the USA
| where we can't agree on some simple truths anymore.
|
| I'm curious. Can you give one or two examples of the
| 'simple truths' that we can't agree on anymore?
|
| >What one side considers the truth might not be the same
| for the other, look no further than the impeachment
| proceedings.
|
| The impeachment proceedings are interesting examples
| because I truly believe that objectively, even if the
| facts are as stated by the Democrats, it would be a gross
| abuse to remove Trump from office for that. It's bonkers.
| Trump's conduct, at best, warrants a Congressional
| censure. But I take your point one two sides looking at
| the same event but interpreting it vastly differently.
| The Kavanaugh nomination was the same way, as well as
| coverage around Covington kids (could not believe as it
| was happening that news reports would profile children in
| the way they did).
| Frondo wrote:
| One simple truth in dispute is that vaccines save lives
| and do not cause autism.
| pbourke wrote:
| See also "anthropogenic climate change is real"
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| Thanks that's a perfect example.
| jariel wrote:
| "I'm curious. Can you give one or two examples of the
| 'simple truths' that we can't agree on anymore?"
|
| "Should Trump be impeached for leveraging military aid to
| require an investigation into local companies in a nation
| that was ostensibly interfering in American politics,
| when the target of said investigation is a political
| opponent, thereby creating an obvious conflict of
| interest"
|
| "Should Hillary Clinton be charged for communicating
| sensitive information using persona devices, or deleting
| information requested by the FBI during the subsequent
| investigation"
|
| These are really hard issues actually.
|
| If you stand outside your hatred or love for these
| people, and stand outside of your own political
| preferences, they become considerably more nuanced and
| difficult than we'd care to admit.
|
| They are not black and white enough to have easy answers,
| and so, we get narratives, misinformation, and
| polarisation.
| unishark wrote:
| > The problem I see is that no one can agree on what is
| right or the truth any longer.
|
| I don't think this is a new problem in politics at all.
| In my earliest memories of observing politics I remember
| being outraged at the convenient redefinition of words.
| Politicians are basically advocates for an agenda (most
| of them are even trained attorneys). And most everything
| they do and say is designed to further that agenda.
| Character is secondary and will not be what gets them
| elected/re-elected.
| salimmadjd wrote:
| Even the "newspaper of record", the NY Times has lost its
| journalistic process.
|
| This is just one recent example that comes to mind. See why
| Harvard Professor is suing the NYT [1] for completely twisting
| his post about MIT and Jeffrey Epstein [0]
|
| I found this so outrageous how NYT would completely twist words
| and not make the appropriate corrections when given the evidence.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D135DBWfabM
| sgustard wrote:
| > "Lessig's defamation suit covers a September 2019 article
| titled "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein's
| Money, Do It in Secret." He claims the headline misrepresents
| his interview, where he condemns the donation, but says that
| "if you're going to take the money, you damn well better make
| it anonymous.""
|
| If you see the egregious defamation there, then you're a more
| nuanced reader than I am.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/13/21063873/jeffrey-epstein-...
| specialist wrote:
| Lehrer's Rules are solid, ethical, and actionable. I agree 100%.
|
| Alas, they are completely moot in today's ad-supported automated
| outrage machines. And I'm fresh out of goodwill.
|
| Until we decide that discourse is more important than profits,
| forge a new consensus, we have to treat reporting like the
| replication crisis in science.
|
| Just two rules apply:
|
| Sign your work.
|
| Share your data.
|
| The corollaries are just as simple:
|
| Unsigned, unsourced statements are gossip.
|
| Unsupported data is propaganda.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| In addition to partisanship and sensationalism, access journalism
| has dramatically lowered the quality of what gets reported:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_journalism
|
| It's also worth referencing Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent which
| lays out the playbook for propaganda posing as journalism:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
| mc32 wrote:
| Just want to point out that while often manufacturing consent
| is seen in a negative light because it's been used to
| negatively manipulate people that it is also also possible to
| be used to the better good (vaccinations, education, etc. of
| course this can get abused and thus the negative aspect).
| proximitysauce wrote:
| I disagree. It's not the job of journalism to manipulate
| people, even if they think they're doing it for a good cause.
| Jim Lehrer's rules are very correct here.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think we're talking past each other. Manufacturing
| consent isn't always about lying or making things up. It
| can be presenting a united front on something and it
| entails telling the truth with which you're persuading a
| pop to see that POV.
| proximitysauce wrote:
| I've never heard manufacturing consent used like that. Do
| you have any examples of what you're talking about?
| Genuinely curious.
| jariel wrote:
| "I've never heard manufacturing consent used like that.
| Do you have any examples of what you're talking about?
| Genuinely curious."
|
| It's called 'PR', it's used all day, every day by most
| companies and political organizations, social movements
| and even the government.
|
| Highlighting the positive aspects of whatever you're
| doing, avoiding the negative aspects, discrediting
| opponents and most insidiously - misrepresenting their
| arguments is how it's done.
|
| It's about creating the intended narrative around a
| specific subject.
|
| Take any controversial issue and you'll generally see
| that the 'sides' are not having a debate in public,
| they're engaging in framing the issue in a manner. The
| end up talking past one another entirely.
|
| 'Manufacturing Consent' is a funny book, because we read
| it when we're young and naive and our eyes are opened to
| the reality of the world and the perennial war of ideas.
| Because such activities are framed as nefarious and
| related to questionable acts of intervention (i.e. US
| intervention in S. America) ... we are 'shocked and
| outraged'. But I think looking at it from a more mature,
| contextualized perspective, it doesn't seem 'shocking' it
| seems really normal.
|
| Ironically the real coup of Chomsky is to misrepresent
| the nature of 'mass idea marketing' in a fair antagonist
| way that I don't think is really helpful.
|
| Unfortunately - almost _all news_ is narrative-driven.
|
| Certainly the entirety of cable news.
|
| If you watch the local news, it feels dry and mundane,
| because it's generally very truthful, and there isn't a
| lot of 'war of ideas' over the dog that called 911.
|
| But for everything in pop culture and politics, there's a
| way to frame the subject in an ideological way (or in a
| manner that represents the interests of some group like
| advertisers or powerful individuals etc.) which is what
| happens all day long.
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