The 4th Estate Thread Has Surrendered

[malchior]

Figured it was about time to document the ongoing downward spiral of the press. They did an abysmal job in the last election cycle and are now completely unprepared to deal with the awfulness ahead. I'll open up the betting on the demise of the free press with one of its fatal flaws - ambivalence.

[Grifman]

See, I reject this idea that the media did a bad job covering Trump. I read plenty of great articles in WaPo, the NYT, The Atlantic, the WSJ, etc. The problem is that a large proportion of the public just didn't care and/or considered the media hopelessly biased so they ignored it. If you think the media did such a bad job, then what should they have done differently?

[El Guapo]

See, I reject this idea that the media did a bad job covering Trump. I read plenty of great articles in WaPo, the NYT, The Atlantic, the WSJ, etc. The problem is that a large proportion of the public just didn't care and/or considered the media hopelessly biased so they ignored it. If you think the media did such a bad job, then what should they have done differently?

[El Guapo]

This is more an issue with cable news than print news, but the media generally gave an insane amount of time to covering the e-mail issue when Trump's election had the real prospect of, among other things, causing millions to lose health insurance, run away global warming, and the weakening or ending of American democracy.

But yes, there were some great Trump stories mixed in there too.

[El Guapo]

Also, false equivalency is a big problem with the media these days - the artificial need to appear balanced in all things, even when the facts don't support it:

Not long ago, another magazine asked me to recommend six books that explain something important about American politics. I chose six of my favorites that help elucidate the most important development of the last half-century in American politics: the Republican Party’s embrace of movement conservative ideology. No other major party in the advanced world rejects on principle any proposed tax-revenue increase, or denies the legitimacy of climate science, or opposes universal health care.

...


I was told my list could not be published because it was too partisan — to be suitable for publication, I would have to swap out some of the books I chose, and substitute some that made the case that the Democratic Party had also gone off the rails, for the sake of balance. I replied that I could not make this change because I don’t believe that the Democratic Party, in its current historical period, has gone off the rails. That doesn’t mean I consider the Democrats flawless, just that they are a normal party with normal problems. It contains a broad range of interest groups and politicians. Sometimes one interest group or another gains too much influence over a particular policy, and sometimes its leading politicians get greedy or make bad political decisions.

[malchior]

Exactly - they spent inordinate amounts of time talking about the email story as some sort of balance. The NY Times held off on really going after Trump for too long and still pandered for access. I am still a subscriber but I am not too happy with them. The WaPo/Atlantic did a very good job but those almost came down to individual efforts - Farenthold for example.

However at the end of the year we had to suffer as the media wondered out loud about whether they should be honest and call out lying versus protecting their access (unstated goal to be fair but most likely the motive). The argument essentially is just report facts and leave it up to the readers to ferret out the truth. The people who voted for Trump. Unbelievable. That showed that they have definitely taken shots below the water line and were starting to sink. It was an embarrassing moment for American journalism. Completely unwilling to stand up for truth or even themselves.

I also agree with El Guapo - the cable news coverage was atrocious. CNNs hire of Lewandowski for example displays such incredibly bad judgement that it begs disbelief. They failed time and time again to call out the professional liars. Instead they gave them air time and a platform to spout their lies, propaganda, and muddy the waters without much challenge. Here and there a few reporters would push back but seldom the people at the top of the game.

[Holman]

See, I reject this idea that the media did a bad job covering Trump. I read plenty of great articles in WaPo, the NYT, The Atlantic, the WSJ, etc. The problem is that a large proportion of the public just didn't care and/or considered the media hopelessly biased so they ignored it. If you think the media did such a bad job, then what should they have done differently?

The problem is that TV is Americans' main source of News, and Fox is Americans' main source of TV news.

[Grifman]

See, I reject this idea that the media did a bad job covering Trump. I read plenty of great articles in WaPo, the NYT, The Atlantic, the WSJ, etc. The problem is that a large proportion of the public just didn't care and/or considered the media hopelessly biased so they ignored it. If you think the media did such a bad job, then what should they have done differently?

Those are nifty images but they don't really tell me anything. For example what does the size mean? You stripped away all context for the sake of a cool image. I need more info

Edit: I'll also add that this says nothing about the source of this information. It could have been fake news sites, Facebook, Breitbart, all sorts of alternative media. In other words, it doesn't really necessarily tell me anything about the MSM coverage of the campaign. It only tells you what people recall from all of their media consumption - it says nothing about the nature of that consumption.

[Smoove_B]

The problem is that TV is Americans' main source of News, and Fox is Americans' main source of TV news.

Indeed. From Pew Research:

When voters were asked to write in their “main source” for election news, four-in-ten Trump voters named Fox News. The next most-common main source among Trump voters, CNN, was named by only 8% of his voters.

Clinton voters, however, did not coalesce around any one source. CNN was named more than any other, but at 18% had nowhere near the dominance that Fox News had among Trump voters. Instead, the choices of Clinton voters were more spread out. MSNBC, Facebook, local television news, NPR, ABC, The New York Times and CBS were all named by between 5% and 9% of her voters.

[Smoove_B]

Those are nifty images but they don't really tell me anything. For example what does the size mean? You stripped away all context for the sake of a cool image. I need more info

It's a form of Tag Cloud - all the kids are doing it. The size of the word represents the frequency of use. Larger = more frequent.

[El Guapo]

See, I reject this idea that the media did a bad job covering Trump. I read plenty of great articles in WaPo, the NYT, The Atlantic, the WSJ, etc. The problem is that a large proportion of the public just didn't care and/or considered the media hopelessly biased so they ignored it. If you think the media did such a bad job, then what should they have done differently?

Those are nifty images but they don't really tell me anything. For example what does the size mean? You stripped away all context for the sake of a cool image. I need more info

I though these types of word bubble charts were pretty common. Here's the explanation:

These findings are based on an ongoing research project conducted by Gallup together with the University of Michigan and Georgetown University. Gallup conducted more than 30,000 interviews with U.S. adults from July 11-Sept. 18 to measure Americans' daily recall of what they read, saw or heard about the two major party candidates.

The word maps use font size to indicate the relative frequency of which specific words appeared for each candidate over the past 10 weeks.

[Grifman]

I added this edit above but I think you posted before I got to it:

Edit: I'll also add that this says nothing about the source of this information. It could have been fake news sites, Facebook, Breitbart, all sorts of alternative media. In other words, it doesn't really necessarily tell me anything about the MSM coverage of the campaign. It only tells you what people recall from all of their media consumption - it says nothing about the nature of that consumption.

[El Guapo]

The problem is that TV is Americans' main source of News, and Fox is Americans' main source of TV news.

Indeed. From Pew Research:

When voters were asked to write in their “main source” for election news, four-in-ten Trump voters named Fox News. The next most-common main source among Trump voters, CNN, was named by only 8% of his voters.

Clinton voters, however, did not coalesce around any one source. CNN was named more than any other, but at 18% had nowhere near the dominance that Fox News had among Trump voters. Instead, the choices of Clinton voters were more spread out. MSNBC, Facebook, local television news, NPR, ABC, The New York Times and CBS were all named by between 5% and 9% of her voters.

It goes beyond just Fox News, though. Other outlets had a plague of false equivalency - the need to stick to "both sides have issues", even when that's not really the story. Clinton could make a detailed accusation of corruption against Trump, Trump fires back with "no you're corrupt" and the story is "the campaigns traded accusations of corruption."

[El Guapo]

I added this edit above but I think you posted before I got to it:

Edit: I'll also add that this says nothing about the source of this information. It could have been fake news sites, Facebook, Breitbart, all sorts of alternative media. In other words, it doesn't really necessarily tell me anything about the MSM coverage of the campaign. It only tells you what people recall from all of their media consumption - it says nothing about the nature of that consumption.

ok, don't get too hung up on the bubble charts, then. Here's more:

With the horse race portion of the Democratic primary contest behind them, party members gathered in Philadelphia last July to nominate Hillary Clinton and to hammer out the party platform. In speech after speech, including detailed primetime addresses by Michelle Obama, President Obama, and of course the nominee herself, Democrats laid out the party’s vision for the future. If ever there was a window of the campaign year when issues and policies were clearly at the forefront, it was the summer convention season.

So, how much of the news coverage from the four weeks surrounding the conventions centered on policy? For Clinton, just four percent, according to a study by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

“Not a single one of Clinton’s policy proposals accounted for even 1% of her convention-period coverage; collectively, her policy stands accounted for a mere 4% of it,” wrote Harvard professor Tom Patterson.

And this is key: During that same summertime period, Trump received three times as much policy coverage as Clinton. Why the large disparity? “A major difference between Trump and Clinton’s coverage was that she had a news category entirely of her own—the emails that she sent and received as secretary of state,” Patterson explained. And as he noted, the vast majority of Clinton email coverage was negative.

So, during the convention weeks, the press spent eight percent of its time covering Clinton emails and half that amount of time covering all of Clinton’s policy positions. CNN’s The Situation Room seemed especially obsessed: Clinton emails represented 17 percent of the program’s Clinton coverage during the four-week summertime span.

[Trent Steel]

Edit: I'll also add that this says nothing about the source of this information. It could have been fake news sites, Facebook, Breitbart, all sorts of alternative media. In other words, it doesn't really necessarily tell me anything about the MSM coverage of the campaign. It only tells you what people recall from all of their media consumption - it says nothing about the nature of that consumption.

Exactly, that's the point. Regardless of whatever altruistic media sources there are out there, this is what people are coming away with.

[Jeff V]

It goes beyond just Fox News, though. Other outlets had a plague of false equivalency - the need to stick to "both sides have issues", even when that's not really the story. Clinton could make a detailed accusation of corruption against Trump, Trump fires back with "no you're corrupt" and the story is "the campaigns traded accusations of corruption."

The Today Show did a good job exposing many of Trump's lies throughout the campaign, but then the producer in charge of ratings took over and allowed Trump to come on immediately after and completely explain away or obfuscate things (usually by doubling down on the lies). It really took away any impact they might have otherwise had.

[gilraen]

I heard a discussion panel on CNN (post-election; don't exactly remember who was there) - they basically were admitting that CNN and other cable news shouldn't have just broadcasted Trump rallies in their entirety, where they just left the camera on and would just give Trump an hour's free publicity every other day, showing the whole speech live. Whereas Hillary's (and earlier Bernie's) speeches were curated to only show the "important" parts. Certainly no other candidate got the cable networks to show not just the rally itself but literally showing an empty podium or a line outside of a venue with the caption "Waiting for rally to start", sometimes for an hour or more!

[YellowKing]

When voters were asked to write in their “main source” for election news, four-in-ten Trump voters named Fox News. The next most-common main source among Trump voters, CNN, was named by only 8% of his voters.

Clinton voters, however, did not coalesce around any one source. CNN was named more than any other, but at 18% had nowhere near the dominance that Fox News had among Trump voters. Instead, the choices of Clinton voters were more spread out. MSNBC, Facebook, local television news, NPR, ABC, The New York Times and CBS were all named by between 5% and 9% of her voters.

This is one of my primary arguments for my decision. During this election I read everything from Drudge and Fox News to Slate and Rolling Stone. So if you come to me arguing for Trump and I find out all you listened to was Fox News, then GTFO.

And yes, if you think Fox News is the only outlet that speaks "the truth" and all the other major media outlets are "fake," then you are delusional.

[malchior]

https://twitter.com/colinjones/status/8 ... 7956379648

Why do they continue to bring this person on the television! I have to say it takes a certain form of person to effortlessly pivot away from the point time and time again to unleash an attack on something unrelated. It truly is a form of black magic.

[Captain Caveman]

There is good reporting out there. It's also incredibly easy to ignore it in favor of sources that validate your already held viewpoint.

This is a problem with demand, not supply. People demand feeling good about their opinions and plenty of people are savvy at monetizing it and giving the people what they want. As long as a sizable portion of the population continues to value "feeling right" over the truth, we're going to be stuck in this predicament. I don't know what the solution is.

[tjg_marantz]

I added a bunch of right leaning podcasts to my list, I try to read right leaning publications. I feel like that's more than 99% of people will do from either side. There's a complete disconnect.

[malchior]

I added a bunch of right leaning podcasts to my list, I try to read right leaning publications. I feel like that's more than 99% of people will do from either side. There's a complete disconnect.

That is what I do - I monitor both sides. I read Drudge, the Blaze, etc.I don't unfollow anyone - and haven't been put to the test by truly empty bullshit like racist language for instance. But in general I agree there is a total disconnect on both sides. I actually am developing a very early notion of a pet theory that it is mostly information overload. Meaning humans never have been immersed in this much data and society is not coping with it very well. When people are overwhelmed they just pick the viewpoint that fits their existing social beliefs/community standards whatever you want to call them because they don't have the capacity to expand out to soak in information from the other side.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

The press secretary didn't like, he just used alternative facts..https://youtu.be/IcBblq-QOo4

I don't know how I'm going take four years of this...

[Kraken]

Facts are stubborn things. They remain true whether you believe in them or not. Reality is stubborn that way. It's why science works (and why the right has come to hate it so).

Policies built on lies and errors are ultimately doomed, but they can do great harm before "ultimately" comes along.

[malchior]

Finally. I will raise my glass anytime a media org shows some goddamn spine and tells the professional liar corps to piss off.

[malchior]

Longish video but this is Bannon's right-hand man Miller flat out lying. We are in huge trouble and all Stephanopoulos can do is say he continue to ask for evidence and say it hasn't been provided. But that isn't enough. Why do they continue to provide a platform for these liars to speak? If they have to then they need to start calling them liars. The media is acting as a mild mannered megaphone for these people. Especially when it appears they have an agenda to lie, manipulate, and undermine our democracy.

[Holman]

Look at his eyes. There's something especially soulless about lying off a teleprompter while you know we know you're lying.

[Captain Caveman]

We all knew douchebags like this in high school, but this one somehow made it to the White House.

In sum, we are so totally fucked.

[Kurth]

Read this teaser on CNN this morning: "LIVE BLOG: Kellyanne Conway's One Piece of Advice for Women"

I figured, this should be good, and dutifully clicked away and got the summary, "Kellyanne Conway's advice for women: "When in doubt, just say 'I'll have what he's having'"

Sounded backwards and non-progressive. But actually reading the article makes it clear that her advice was in reference to demanding equal pay. Not so non-progressive after all.

Another great example of fair and unbiased reporting. Wonder how many FB posts I see today retweeting this without context? Journalism is broken.

[Remus West]

Read this teaser on CNN this morning: "LIVE BLOG: Kellyanne Conway's One Piece of Advice for Women"

I figured, this should be good, and dutifully clicked away and got the summary, "Kellyanne Conway's advice for women: "When in doubt, just say 'I'll have what he's having'"

Sounded backwards and non-progressive. But actually reading the article makes it clear that her advice was in reference to demanding equal pay. Not so non-progressive after all.

Another great example of fair and unbiased reporting. Wonder how many FB posts I see today retweeting this without context? Journalism is broken.

Still stupid of her to say as it only works if the man is actually getting what the woman is worth. If I'm being paid to be a political analyst along side of KAC and she wants to be paid the same as me I'm either in for a HUGE raise or she is in for a very disappointing pay check. Value should be determined by merit of each individual not by default assumptions that someone is a better marker for your worth than you are. So no, it is not a progressive remark.

That said, yes, the headline was written with obvious intent. Doesn't make it bad. Simply makes it attract readers. Had they not gone on to provide the context of the quote then it would have been overly biased.

[Kurth]

Read this teaser on CNN this morning: "LIVE BLOG: Kellyanne Conway's One Piece of Advice for Women"

I figured, this should be good, and dutifully clicked away and got the summary, "Kellyanne Conway's advice for women: "When in doubt, just say 'I'll have what he's having'"

Sounded backwards and non-progressive. But actually reading the article makes it clear that her advice was in reference to demanding equal pay. Not so non-progressive after all.

Another great example of fair and unbiased reporting. Wonder how many FB posts I see today retweeting this without context? Journalism is broken.

Still stupid of her to say as it only works if the man is actually getting what the woman is worth. If I'm being paid to be a political analyst along side of KAC and she wants to be paid the same as me I'm either in for a HUGE raise or she is in for a very disappointing pay check. Value should be determined by merit of each individual not by default assumptions that someone is a better marker for your worth than you are. So no, it is not a progressive remark.

That said, yes, the headline was written with obvious intent. Doesn't make it bad. Simply makes it attract readers. Had they not gone on to provide the context of the quote then it would have been overly biased.

1) This was apparently when she was just starting out, so it's not really a stupid thing to say that, as a baseline, a woman should demand to be paid what a man doing the same job is getting.

2) I couldn't disagree with you more that writing headlines with obvious sensationalist and biased intent "Doesn't make it bad" as long as some context is provided somewhere in the article. Come on! I'm not saying it's a new problem, but in today's social media echo chamber environment, it's taken on much more significance.

[Remus West]

1) This was apparently when she was just starting out, so it's not really a stupid thing to say that, as a baseline, a woman should demand to be paid what a man doing the same job is getting.

It is stupid to have no idea what people in your field make. You accept a job offer you should have an idea of what that job is worth based upon how well you will be able to do said job - not based off what someone else is making unless that someone has the exact same skill set as you do. If you are much a much better speaker with stronger analysis and ability to draw an audience then your fee should be higher than their regardless of the sex of either party. Not knowing your worth in that environment is stupid, imo.

2) I couldn't disagree with you more that writing headlines with obvious sensationalist and biased intent "Doesn't make it bad" as long as some context is provided somewhere in the article. Come on! I'm not saying it's a new problem, but in today's social media echo chamber environment, it's taken on much more significance.

It takes on more significance not because of the headline but because of the lack of reading. Anyone who read that article would see the context she was saying that in. Obviously two readers are capable of having very different reactions to the quote regardless of reading it. The trouble isn't the headline. The trouble is in those who read a headline and feel they know the story rather than reading it.

Journalism has been going downhill since it became a for profit exercise. As soon as that happened it became a fight to gain readers/audience/clicks and thus you get headlines that attract attention. This is not new.

[hepcat]

Read this teaser on CNN this morning: "LIVE BLOG: Kellyanne Conway's One Piece of Advice for Women"

I figured, this should be good, and dutifully clicked away and got the summary, "Kellyanne Conway's advice for women: "When in doubt, just say 'I'll have what he's having'"

Sounded backwards and non-progressive. But actually reading the article makes it clear that her advice was in reference to demanding equal pay. Not so non-progressive after all.

Another great example of fair and unbiased reporting. Wonder how many FB posts I see today retweeting this without context? Journalism is broken.

It doesn't add context to the statement, but that also works two ways. If you're predisposed to disliking her, it can come across in a negative fashion. If you're a Trump supporter, you can read it as a call for equality.

..although with Trump, it reads negatively in any context because he hates journalism if it doesn't kiss his ass.

[Kurth]

It takes on more significance not because of the headline but because of the lack of reading. Anyone who read that article would see the context she was saying that in.

It's not bad that he took a shot at him. The problem is that the bullet found its mark.

[msteelers]

Funny. I have the complete opposite reaction to the story. I despise the Trump administration and most of the individuals in it, including Conway. But when I saw the headline I assumed it was part of a speech where she was telling women to negotiate better salaries for themselves and that they were worth just as much as their male counterparts. But the reality is that she was just telling a story of when she was clueless about how the business world works.

[msteelers]

Journalism has been going downhill since it became a for profit exercise. As soon as that happened it became a fight to gain readers/audience/clicks and thus you get headlines that attract attention. This is not new.

When did it become a for profit exercise, and what was it before?

[Paingod]

Journalism has been going downhill since it became a for profit exercise. As soon as that happened it became a fight to gain readers/audience/clicks and thus you get headlines that attract attention. This is not new.

When did it become a for profit exercise, and what was it before?

It became "For Profit" sometime back in 24,000BC, with reporting on local hunting with cave paintings. The journalists were paid in praise and respect, the only forms of currency they really had. It's been downhill ever since. It really bottomed out around 1,600BC, though, when Egyptian Journalists were paid with bread and beer and just kept reporting on "God Kings" and how many bales of wheat were harvested each year. Completely lost their demographic and should have stuck with just publishing nudes instead of trying to include articles.

[hepcat]

I think it's always been a for-profit endeavor, but the extent and breadth of the monetization of journalism is, I feel, much more pronounced in a post internet world.

[Remus West]

Journalism has been going downhill since it became a for profit exercise. As soon as that happened it became a fight to gain readers/audience/clicks and thus you get headlines that attract attention. This is not new.

When did it become a for profit exercise, and what was it before?

When they published the first newspaper I would guess. Before that? Your guess is as good as mine.

edit: too slow

[Max Peck]

I think it's always been a for-profit endeavor, but the extent and breadth of the monetization of journalism is, I feel, much more pronounced in a post internet world.

The degradation began with cable news channels and their foreshortened news cycles, which needed to hold viewers' interest 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The internet just leveled the playing field, since now everyone can conduct business just like they did. It isn't much of a coincidence that CNN is such a good example of bad behaviour, given that they pretty much invented the problem in the first place.