People still trust the media, and they are either stupid or bought. My old editor at the Globe, brilliant woman, dumb as a rock regarding what is going on.
People still trust the media, and they are either stupid or bought. My old editor at the Globe, brilliant woman, dumb as a rock regarding what is going on.
Well, she may have been a dinosaur who found the business of producing news as beneath her level of intellect-- plebeian and boring. I don't think the public in general really knows how news becomes news--how this becomes a story and not that. How editors/ publishers consider factors re what goes in and what stays out based on a variety of factors which have nothing to do with newsworthiness. People who have worked in the media, like you, Elizabeth, read stories differently, see what's missing, notice the timing of a story, the angle, the lack of sources, or see how weak or extrapolated they are. When did "people familiar with the matter" become a thing? I counted that collective/anonymous/vague attribution FIVE times in an early NYTimes story on Trump and "Russia collusion" that resulted in a Pulitzers for the reporters who wrote it. (And now we know, THEY GOT IT WRONG. Has the Pulitzer org ever revoked awards?)
I remember, in All the President's Men, the Woodward & Bernstein book about breaking Watergate, Editor in Chief Ben Bradlee famously saying in the film version, "You haven't got it" and wouldn't let the story go to print until they could name two sources. I call it "smoking gun" journalism, and it has gotten much worse with electronic communications, the internet, the mad rush to publish first in a universe monetized by clicks and page views.
I think some people are simply not curious, or remain deliberately clueless because it serves the media to keep them that way. If I were a middle school administrator, I would want a course offered to 7th or 8th graders which teaches them how to be good consumers of news. It would be a fun course, and it would serve them forever if properly taught. I would make them follow an on-going news story in two different news media, say, tv and print. Or, cable tv (MSNBC) and the Wall Street Journal. I think they'd be shocked by the difference. When I worked in the media, I would actually call up AP reporters and ask them questions. They were usually happy for the call, because their editor made them edit for space considerations.
What do you think, Elizabeth. Am I dreaming? Am I a dinosaur, too?
I have a daughter who is in the news business and I am profoundly shocked by the crap that comes out of her bureau. Her corporation killed people with holding back of vaxx dangers and they are being sued for it, rightly. She used to be super sharp. I do not know what happened. It seemed to be a progressive narrowing of acceptability, and an increase in allowed hate and criticism of normals. A new media is being born right in front of our eyes. Most legacy media is shrinking by the year.
People still trust the media, and they are either stupid or bought. My old editor at the Globe, brilliant woman, dumb as a rock regarding what is going on.
I still have trouble comprehending how that can be.
I know. But she has been conditioned. She believes authorities, trusts them, and she is rewarded for it.
Well, she may have been a dinosaur who found the business of producing news as beneath her level of intellect-- plebeian and boring. I don't think the public in general really knows how news becomes news--how this becomes a story and not that. How editors/ publishers consider factors re what goes in and what stays out based on a variety of factors which have nothing to do with newsworthiness. People who have worked in the media, like you, Elizabeth, read stories differently, see what's missing, notice the timing of a story, the angle, the lack of sources, or see how weak or extrapolated they are. When did "people familiar with the matter" become a thing? I counted that collective/anonymous/vague attribution FIVE times in an early NYTimes story on Trump and "Russia collusion" that resulted in a Pulitzers for the reporters who wrote it. (And now we know, THEY GOT IT WRONG. Has the Pulitzer org ever revoked awards?)
I remember, in All the President's Men, the Woodward & Bernstein book about breaking Watergate, Editor in Chief Ben Bradlee famously saying in the film version, "You haven't got it" and wouldn't let the story go to print until they could name two sources. I call it "smoking gun" journalism, and it has gotten much worse with electronic communications, the internet, the mad rush to publish first in a universe monetized by clicks and page views.
I think some people are simply not curious, or remain deliberately clueless because it serves the media to keep them that way. If I were a middle school administrator, I would want a course offered to 7th or 8th graders which teaches them how to be good consumers of news. It would be a fun course, and it would serve them forever if properly taught. I would make them follow an on-going news story in two different news media, say, tv and print. Or, cable tv (MSNBC) and the Wall Street Journal. I think they'd be shocked by the difference. When I worked in the media, I would actually call up AP reporters and ask them questions. They were usually happy for the call, because their editor made them edit for space considerations.
What do you think, Elizabeth. Am I dreaming? Am I a dinosaur, too?
I have a daughter who is in the news business and I am profoundly shocked by the crap that comes out of her bureau. Her corporation killed people with holding back of vaxx dangers and they are being sued for it, rightly. She used to be super sharp. I do not know what happened. It seemed to be a progressive narrowing of acceptability, and an increase in allowed hate and criticism of normals. A new media is being born right in front of our eyes. Most legacy media is shrinking by the year.