No argument from me about the points you raised. Well said.
Billy
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In a message dated 11/27/2009 8:27:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
That's better.
I still would have problems with an article written in praise of the Black
Panthers or an article written in praise of David Duke.
I think that the former is much more likely (orders of magnitude more
likely) than the latter. All in all, the history of advocacy journalism with
the pretense of objectivity has ruined many newspapers. To the point that I
expect the advocacy, yet when I find it I also find that I am simultaneously
justified ("see, I was right") and pissed off (because I don't like it).
David
_
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free.”—P. J. O’Rourke
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote:
Whoa :
To say something exists and is newsworthy is not the same as saying it is
good for you.
The issue for today is the sad state of newspapers and, more generally,
the news media.
The point isn't that identity politics is the answer to a mother's
prayers, but that
unless journalists understand it for what it is, and not ignore it, they
will
inevitably screw up their coverage of the news.
Well, identity politics can be OK, the answer is, "it depends." But often
it is too simplistic and crude. The Jews did quite well with it in Israel,
but
the Aryan Nations, IMHO, made one mistake after another. I dislike it
in its "black power" form, but don't see a problem when someone promotes
Japanese-American self interest, etc.
Verstehen sie ?
Wilhelm
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In a message dated 11/27/2009 6:39:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes:
I have to say that I don't like all of that prescription you have there
Dr. Rojas. I think that they are often promoting identity politics, not
ignoring it with impunity. A few posts ago , you had something on here that
praised Texas for NOT having much in the way of identity politics, yet here
you
say it would be nice if the press did not ignore it. So Texas is good for
trying something else, but the press is bad for trying something else.
HUH??
David
_
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free.â€â€”P. J. O’Rourke
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote:
Centroids :
Worthwhile article about the decline ( almost a fall off the cliff ) of
journalism in the USA.
But when all is said it seems to me that the article misses the point.
Think of what it would take to fix the news business.
( 1 ) Follow the example of successful news services, viz, the Financial
Times, the WSJ.
The Economist. Report --with serious content-- news of direct interest
to people with a
stake in the outcome of events reported.
( 2 ) Keep feature material and human interest stuff in its place. As
"add-ons," OK, but
such fare is not what people pay good money for. Alas, because of the
commercial
ad-heavy model now in place at most "news" organizations, features and
human interest
sometimes dominate --as a sop to advertisers so that controversy doesn't
hurt business sales
even if such coverage kills the news business in the process.
( 3 ) Instead of cutting cultural and religious news, give such news
greater emphasis.
We live in an age of revival of religion , an age of identity politics,
and of visual culture.
News organizations everywhere act as if religion doesn't matter, as if
identity politics
can essentially be ignored with impunity, and as if visual factors don't
really count.
This is crazy and only shows the deficiencies in the education of most
journalists.
Essentially they don't know what in the hell they are doing.
My view of the situation.
Billy
=================================================
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
Journalism's slow, sad death
By Michael Gerson
Friday, November 27, 2009
Like the nearby _Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History_
(http://www.mnh.si.edu/) , the _Newseum_ (http://www.newseum.org/) --
Washington's
museum dedicated to journalism -- displays dinosaurs. On a long wall near
the entrance, the front pages of newspapers from around the country are
electronically posted each morning -- the artifacts of a declining industry.
Inside, the high-tech exhibits are nostalgic for a lower-tech time when
banner headlines and network news summarized the emotions and exposed the
scandals of the nation. Lindbergh Lands Safely. One Small Step. Nixon Resigns.
Cronkite removes his glasses to announce President Kennedy's death at 1 p.m.
Central Standard Time.
Behind a long rack of preserved, historic front pages, there is a kind of
journalistic mausoleum, displaying the departed. The Ann Arbor News, closed
July 23 after 174 years in print. The Rocky Mountain News, taken at age
150. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which passed quietly into the Internet.
What difference does this make? For many conservatives, the "mainstream
media" is an epithet. Didn't the Internet expose the lies of Dan Rather?
Many on the left also shed few tears, preferring to consume their partisanship
raw in the new media.
But a visit to the Newseum is a reminder that what is passing is not only
a business but also a profession -- the journalistic tradition of
nonpartisan objectivity. Journalists, God knows, didn't always live up to that
tradition. But they generally accepted it, and they felt shamed when their
biases or inaccuracies were exposed. The profession had rules about facts and
sources and editors who enforced standards. At its best, the profession of
journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure --
reporting from a bomber during a raid in World War II, or exposing the
suffering of
Sudan or Appalachia, or rushing to the site of the World Trade Center
moments after the buildings fell.
By these standards, the changes we see in the media are also a decline.
Most cable news networks have forsaken objectivity entirely and produce
little actual news, since makeup for guests is cheaper than reporting. Most
Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for
verification. Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers,
instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from "birthers" to Sept.
11, 2001, "truthers." Bloggers in repressive countries often show great
courage, but few American bloggers have the resources or inclination to report
from war zones, famines and genocides.
The democratization of the media -- really its fragmentation -- has
encouraged ideological polarization. Princeton University professor Paul Starr
_traced this process_
(http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/journalism_minus_its_old_publi.php)
recently in the _Columbia Journalism Review_
(http://www.cjr.org/index.php) . After the captive audience for network news
was
released by cable, many Americans did not turn to other sources of news. They
turned to entertainment. The viewers who remained were more political and more
partisan. "As Walter Cronkite prospered in the old environment," says
Starr, "Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann thrive in the new one. As the
diminished public for journalism becomes more partisan, journalism itself is
likely to shift further in that direction."
Cable and the Internet now allow Americans, if they choose, to get their
information entirely from sources that agree with them -- sources that
reinforce and exaggerate their political predispositions.
And the whole system is based on a kind of intellectual theft. Internet
aggregators (who link to news they don't produce) and bloggers would have
little to collect or comment upon without the costly enterprise of
newsgathering and investigative reporting. The old-media dinosaurs remain the
basis
for the entire media food chain. But newspapers are expected to provide
their content free on the Internet. A recent poll found that _80 percent_
(http://blogs.forrester.com/consumer_product_strategy/2009/11/new-forrester-report
-consumers-weigh-in-on-paying-for-content.html) of Americans refuse to pay
for Internet content. There is no economic model that will allow
newspapers to keep producing content they don't charge for, while Internet
sites
repackage and sell content they don't pay to produce.
I dislike media bias as much as the next conservative. But I don't believe
that journalistic objectivity is a fraud. I was a journalist for a time,
at a once-great, now-diminished newsmagazine. I've seen good men and women
work according to a set of professional standards I respect -- standards
that serve the public. Professional journalism is not like the buggy-whip
industry, outdated by economic progress, to be mourned but not missed. This
profession has a social value that is currently not reflected in its market
value.
What is to be done? A lot of good people are working on it. But if you
currently have newsprint on your hands, thank you.
____________________________________
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