Decent reporting: does it exist any more?

[Greyson]

Hey Linus, spot on observation and a reasonable question. In answer to your question, "Decent reporting: does it exist anymore?" Mostly No. I say mostly because well researched news and unbiased news/journalism is hard to find. I know you know this already but much of the population gives no thought to the "news" they are being fed or not.

With the event of the internet news or what is labeled news/journalism can be found with the magic search engine. As like all news the key is some critical analysis but what I see happening is people take in the news, images react with some sort of emotional response, form an opinion without much critical and honest analysis. Can you tell I have got a bee in my bonnet? (Using that last phrase, I am showing my age.)

Back to journalism and the internet.... I am concerned that journalism is really in danger of disappearing altogether. People can get their "news" for free on the internet. Why buy a newspaper, magazine, journal? I like getting information/news for free and from all over the world. But how is real journalism, real researched news going to be sustained?

Thanks for the question.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by Greyson

Hey Linus, spot on observation and a reasonable question. In answer to your question, "Decent reporting: does it exist anymore?" Mostly No. I say mostly because well researched news and unbiased news/journalism is hard to find. I know you know this already but much of the population gives no thought to the "news" they are being fed or not.

With the event of the internet news or what is labeled news/journalism can be found with the magic search engine. As like all news the key is some critical analysis but what I see happening is people take in the news, images react with some sort of emotional response, form an opinion without much critical and honest analysis. Can you tell I have got a bee in my bonnet? (Using that last phrase, I am showing my age.)

Back to journalism and the internet.... I am concerned that journalism is really in danger of disappearing altogether. People can get their "news" for free on the internet. Why buy a newspaper, magazine, journal? I like getting information/news for free and from all over the world. But how is real journalism, real researched news going to be sustained?

Thanks for the question.

See, that's one of the things that bugged me when I was a professor. The internet is a tool that can be used for effective research. Just because the news is online (although a good, hefty Sunday edition with oodles of comics is something I still miss -- I do remember reading the Toronto Star front to back on Sundays) doesn't excuse it, IMO, from being done well.

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Linus

See, that's one of the things that bugged me when I was a professor. The internet is a tool that can be used for effective research. Just because the news is online (although a good, hefty Sunday edition with oodles of comics is something I still miss -- I do remember reading the Toronto Star front to back on Sundays) doesn't excuse it, IMO, from being done well.

Linus, I agree. It does not excuse it. You were a professor of Journalism? I am not surprised. Many times I have told my gf, if I knew what I know now, I would have majored in Journalism. I sold newspapers standing on the corner when I was in Junior High. Now I am really showing my age.

Linus, I remember when I first started to see you in cyberland. I think we are very fortunate that you found us and participate with us.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by Greyson

Linus, I agree. It does not excuse it. You were a professor of Journalism? I am not surprised. Many times I have told my gf, if I knew what I know now, I would have majored in Journalism. I sold newspapers standing on the corner when I was in Junior High. Now I am really showing my age.

Linus, I remember when I first started to see you in cyberland. I think we are very fortunate that you found us and participate with us.

LOL. No. I was a Professor of Computer and Network Security. When I saw the papers submitted by students it was there that I saw a degradation of research abilities. It was rather shocking and eye-opening but indicative of the nature of education and expectations that have changed over the years.

[SuperFemme]

Linus, great thread. I recently watched Rachel Maddow speaking about why Fox is *just* a news organization. Thoughts?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3LUid0IZ2w"]YouTube- Why Fox News isn't news[/ame]

[Linus]

A lot of what she said is right. I'm trying to remember when Bush was in power if MSNBC or other "liberal" outlets did the same thing as Beck et al have done and for the life of me, I cannot. I don't mind news stations having opinions and being vocal about their opinion but I dislike it when they mask that opinion as "news". (e.g., FoxNews promoting Tea Parties and the like). It smacks, to me, of nothing less than what gov't controlled media is like in nations like China, North Korea, etc.

[SuperFemme]

For the life of me I don't understand how Fox gets away with it. IMO they are creating the "perfect storm" and we could very well end up with an assassination. They are using racism SO overtly it frightens me. Deeply. They prey on the fears of the people in the worst possible ways.

[little man]

like so many other things, the "news" has come down to entertainment. advertisers, politicos, station owners are looking for more bang for the buck. or perhaps, more accurately, more buck for the bang.

while the days of yellow journalism are behind us, we've taken yet another turn on the truth spectrum. i've long held that the truth is subjective, and generally it's what you want to believe.

i think the type/level of reporting we see is indicative of the general malaise of society as a whole. if we didn't buy this tripe, they wouldn't be selling it. seems the standards for truth have fallen a bit. perhaps more people are willing to do less thinking for themselves right now.

[SuperFemme]

I agree with you LM. I watch BBC news to find out what is going on here because they report all the stuff our media squashes.

Balloon Boy was the perfect example of how "news" has turned into a dog and pony show that is akin to 24/7 reality t.v.

In winter of 2004 I was not sleeping much due to medical issues. I had the tv on and at about 3 a.m. up pops a report of a 1.5 mile mushroom cloud over North Korea. A few minutes later Condeleeza Rice is on saying that yes it was a huge mushroom cloud (you could see it on satellite) but she was confident it was NOT a nuclear testing incident.

I fell asleep and woke back up at around 7 a.m. and no mention of the mushroom cloud anywhere. I searched online and found ONE reference to it, but that site was closed for maintenance when I refreshed the page. I watched every channel I could for three days and it was like the whole thing never happened. It was a huge moment of clarity for me that a one and half mile wide mushroom cloud over a country that was illegally making nukes could disappear into the abyss and be covered.

[little man]

call me paranoid, but i have to wonder if the overabundance of conservative news programs is a way to get us inured to violence and wars and power struggles. conservative parties tend to me more hawkish than liberal parties and one of the best ways to get people to agree to things they might not is to scare the bejesus out of them.

point in case: the news after 9/11. like most everyone else, i was glued to the television, watching the same footage over and over. unlike most everyone else, i wasn't hugely surprised, nor was i of a mind that we were innocent victims. after all the governments we've installed and toppled, after all the collateral damage we've done....well, we had it coming. we'd been damned lucky that it never happened here before. i'm also of a mind that our government allowed this to happen. yes, conspiracy theory.

what i saw play out on the news made my skin crawl. i recall seeing all our legislators, walking into some building with lights strategically placed, flags flying...it smacked of the nuremburg rallies, at least visually. and what happened after that? the american public willingly gave away some of their civil liberties...to feel safer.

i see the slant and presentation of current news to be a further extension of that. while the republicans are no longer in power, they still wield a mighty hand behind the scenes. things being what they are, i won't be shocked if obama ends up being a single term president. hard to say what we'll end up with next.