ltbewr wrote:Modern news media has number of issues that cause mistakes and problems. Reduced revenues has meant less quality work, less editing, less proofreading and less fact checking. There is that all of media wants the 'gotcha' or be first to get the attention and thus ratings for a breaking story. Yes, there are some biases in those that work for the news media of the full range from left to right, far less neutrality but also the massive corporate ownership that wants to push pro-corporate policies, lower corporate taxes, less regulation and the biases of key owners like Rupert Murdoch. The internet with many sites without any filters, no real qualifications as to who and how to report news, that false and incorrect stories can be put out instantly and challenged in nano-seconds also are factors. We also have a lot more people willing to speak out about bias, if someone is objecting to their world view. Much of news media is far behind the curve as to technology changes. Meanwhile credibility declines and fewer will watch news programs, becoming less knowledgeable of the world leading to believing massive lairs controlling our politics.
Exactly. No matter what we may agree or disagree about, there is such a thing as professional and responsible journalism. It is NEVER perfect, much as medicine can never be perfect. Lawyering is subject to opinion too. But it can be professional.
Professional standards have fallen. Some articles today by all media outlets, including CNN, including the New York Times, are unprofessionally written. They use phrases that should never be used in journalism. Half of the "news" isn't news, it is rhetorical questions posed by editors as if it were news, or jury-rigged analysis by hand-picked "expert" friends of the editor or writer, etc. And that's sometimes legitimate, if it is done in the spirit of fairness. But people now totally disagree about what the spirit of fairness is. Is it, as a prominent journalist told me, "social justice?" Is it, as I believed, "truth?" Is it country and tradition? Is it tech worship, finance worship, celebrity worship? The purported grey area of journalism is no longer grey, it reeks of opinion.
I call it "conclusion-based journalism." First, you write your conclusion. Then, you start researching for facts and quotes to support the conclusory opinion that you started with. Around 11PM, you are done and you click Submit.
