Is journalism dying?

I think it’s within the fundamental responsibility of journalists to call a claim “baseless” if, in their judgment, it is. They’re the people in a position to know (as opposed to, like, us). They’ve just interviewed the relevant experts on both sides of the story. And if an actual judge says that the President’s proxies are trying to undermine faith in an election, using a word like “subvert” is justified. On the other hand, NOT using those words would be granting Trump (or whoever) a legitimacy he hasn’t earned.

I don't really need daily headlines like "Trump Once Again Demonstrates Lack of Scruples" when that kind of thing is all over my social media feed.

fetch my fainting couch!

I don't know, maybe Trump really is as relentlessly bad as the Times portrays him to be, but it's very hard to read that paper day after day and have any sense of why, you know, 72 million people might vote for him, other than they are all crazy, misinformed, racist or what have you. I guess there is a popular sideline in Times analysts trying to explain this great mystery, though no one seems to ever ask if maybe he's not as one-dimensionally evil as they portray him to be, and whether that might explain part of it. I feel like some other news sources have no trouble calling Trump on his bullshit yet somehow seem to present more of an appearance of evenhandedness or objectivity.

Weird genre of post you’re inventing here

can you point to some articles in other press about various scruples that he has demonstrated?

I'm not saying other press sources are constantly writing about his strong moral fiber, just that they tend to treat him more like all of the other politicians they cover (not all of whom regularly cover themselves in glory where demonstration of scruples is concerned) and less like a uniquely corrupt and maleficent force. Anyway, there's no joy to be had these days trying to advocate for old-fashioned journalistic values of neutrality, separation of editorial pages from "hard news" pages etc. Perhaps those values were always a thin veneer of respectability that deserved to be worn away.

Bob McChesney and John Nichols:

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/the-local-journalism-initiative.php

https://www.esquireme.com/news/48076-how-the-uae-is-celebrating-todays-international-day-of-peace

...

Wow and yikes. I went to the homepage and it's all like that, just puff pieces sucking up to assorted Middle Eastern moguls and hotshots. Gross.

can't believe how far the most trusted name in news, Esquire Middle East, has fallen

I just looked it up, Esquire has a bunch of international editions. Not all of them owned by Hearst, some it looks like they just sold the rights to the name to an in-country publisher. But Esquire ME is an actual Hearst mag. So is Esquire Bulgaria, which I bet is a treat.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/is-the-media-prepared-for-an-extinction-level-event?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_021024&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5be9da642ddf9c72dc27c25d&cndid=29476922&hasha=f0ef51a738774f8c6d037c5c6beb7573&hashb=7cfed5b1cbcbc6a71fea3c2fc2bc754ee2661f52&hashc=fdd5c8d249d863be98861f55628588b242a4ca01384346986428715bbfdd44db&esrc=CDS_OP

Is the media prepared for utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_021024&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5be9da642ddf9c72dc27c25d&cndid=29476922&hasha=f0ef51a738774f8c6d037c5c6beb7573&hashb=7cfed5b1cbcbc6a71fea3c2fc2bc754ee2661f52&hashc=fdd5c8d249d863be98861f55628588b242a4ca01384346986428715bbfdd44db&esrc=CDS_OP

Never

I read that article (clean link) and my reaction was that it makes me wonder if journalists fundamentally misunderstand how the average person sees news. Why pay to learn something that will likely bum you out, and about which you can do nothing? Isn't life hard enough already? More and more, I feel like a medieval peasant. The rulers are gonna do what they're gonna do, and the people in charge of telling us about that are mostly cheering them on (in a "can't argue with success!" sort of way), so fuck "the news." I'd rather spend my money on music, books and movies, and if I'm "uninformed," so be it. I don't feel like I'm missing much.

yeah

Urgh, my wife and I are j-school types. We don't really have a lot of backup plans and it's a bit late to generate a backup plan now.

Recently she looked into going to law school at age 46. That seems pretty far-fetched, but it's not like I have a better idea.

We are unlikely to manage mortgage/college/retirement/debt etc. whilst working at e.g. McDonald's. (No disrespect to those who do, just saying it would be a tough bunch of changes.)

if you're considering career moves, as a high school teacher i mean this 100% sincerely, please consider teaching! media literacy is absolutely kicking our collective asses and we don't have enough people who understand it to teach kids about it.

The essay's right about the forces at work, but what's amazing to me — and The Messenger is obviously the most ridiculous example of this — is how many people with lots of money at big media companies have just totally failed to understand the realities. Advertising is gone as a primary revenue stream for news/media companies. But these guys still think they're gonna get rich selling ads.

Subscription and/or nonprofit models are the obvious ways to go. They both have their challenges, but there are a lot of people doing good work with both of them right now. Will just have to see how well they can sustain themselves. I'm less pessimistic about journalism than I was five years ago, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. But for sure it's unstable, and I'm happy not to be working for legacy media companies still trying to retrofit their old models.

More and more, I feel like a medieval peasant. The rulers are gonna do what they're gonna do, and the people in charge of telling us about that are mostly cheering them on (in a "can't argue with success!" sort of way), so fuck "the news." I'd rather spend my money on music, books and movies, and if I'm "uninformed," so be it. I don't feel like I'm missing much.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Saturday, 10 February 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Most people in the medieval era couldn't read or write. Which is what I get from your posts

The essay's right about the forces at work, but what's amazing to me — and The Messenger is obviously the most ridiculous example of this — is how many people with lots of money at big media companies have just totally failed to understand the realities. Advertising is gone as a primary revenue stream for news/media companies.

And when a much-ballyhooed site like The Messenger collapses the crash sounds louder -- it becomes another warning sign, another "there, you see? Media IS collapsing!"

xp I suspect that primary and secondary school teaching is going to mostly be a volunteer force in 20 years and work on an equivalent of the original Sunday School system in 30.

please consider teaching! media literacy is absolutely kicking our collective asses and we don't have enough people who understand it to teach kids about it

Teaching media literacy would have to be a stealth operation, because with the enshrinement of standard tests driving the entire curriculum these days there's not much space for anything else in a school day.

I disagree. It’s pretty easy to align lessons on media literacy with the common core. You are assessing their ability to make inferences and comprehend nonfiction texts.

treesh, I know you're a smart and experienced enough teacher to control your own lessons in depth and make your teaching materials work for you rather than the other way around, but that is a high level and a difficult attainment. For a less experienced or committed teacher, the fact that most contemporary media are not consumed as nonfiction texts places a large constraint on their effectively teaching media literacy. Even more so, if the classroom materials are imposed rather than discretionary.

Anyway, I acknowledge your greater expertise on this, so if you think my perspective is insufficiently grounded, I'll accept your conclusions.