[Winstonm]

This article expands a point I have made and continue to believe - that journalism has the responsibility to challenge falsehoods rather than presenting them as genuine alternatives. I believe it to be so important that to lose the adversarial aspect of journalism is a direct challenge to the long range health of democracy itself.

Quote

It is the opposite of journalism to call something “controversial” when in fact it is demonstrably false. Now more than ever, when so much fiction and hoax is passed off as truth on the campaign trail, journalists have a professional responsibility, if not a moral obligation, to set the record straight, loudly and quickly, before the myth these politicians seek to perpetuate takes public hold. There is no room today for any sort of cheesy false equivalence, for pretending that one idea or thought or theory is equal to every other.

What are your views on this subject?

[billw55]

I think that journalism in the old sense of the profession is almost dead. Now it's just a mad grab for ratings, clicks, and ad revenue, with a healthy side order of ideology.

Still, sometimes they try. I am amused by the media's befuddlement with Trump. He spouts total nonsense right and left, gets called on it, and .. incurs no effect. He just ignores, denies, and adds more BS. And his supporters don't care. The media just don't know what to do, they keep expecting him to be busted and brought down but it isn't happening. Hah.

[mike777]

"Now more than ever, when so much fiction and hoax is passed off as truth on the campaign trail, journalists have a professional responsibility, if not a moral obligation, to set the record straight, loudly and quickly, before the myth these politicians seek to perpetuate takes public hold. There is no room today for any sort of cheesy false equivalence, for pretending that one idea or thought or theory is equal to every other"

Yet another poorly written piece of journalism. The author states "Now more than ever", but does not provide any evidence in the article of why now more than ever. Why is today worse or more important than the past several hundred years?

See Yellow journalism for starters. Read the coverage of past campaign trails and the vicious lies/fiction and hoaxs told. Read how for decades and decades black or brown news was not "real news" to be reported on.

[barmar]

mike777, on 2015-November-25, 11:24, said:

Yet another poorly written piece of journalism. The author states "Now more than ever", but does not provide any evidence in the article of why now more than ever. Why is today worse or more important than the past several hundred years?

Probably because of the Internet. Never has it been so easy for everyone to get on a soapbox and communicate to millions of people. They all spout their personal opinions as if it's truth.

Journalism's role in this media ecosystem should be to do more fact-checking, and call these people on their nonsense.

[barmar]

Note that I'm not suggesting that the Internet needs censorship. It's wonderful that the media has been so democratized, and regimes that limit their citizens' right to spout their nonsense are wrong.

But there needs to be a credible group that calls "bullshit" when appropriate. To some extent that can also be distributed -- we have sites like Snopes.com. But for the most important topics, I think we need professionals, and the name we give to that profession is journalism.

[PhantomSac]

barmar, on 2015-November-25, 15:01, said:

Note that I'm not suggesting that the Internet needs censorship. It's wonderful that the media has been so democratized, and regimes that limit their citizens' right to spout their nonsense are wrong.

But there needs to be a credible group that calls "bullshit" when appropriate. To some extent that can also be distributed -- we have sites like Snopes.com. But for the most important topics, I think we need professionals, and the name we give to that profession is journalism.

If you haven't watched newsroom I'd give it a shot. Very good show that basically tackles this issue.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2015-November-25, 11:24, said:

"Now more than ever, when so much fiction and hoax is passed off as truth on the campaign trail, journalists have a professional responsibility, if not a moral obligation, to set the record straight, loudly and quickly, before the myth these politicians seek to perpetuate takes public hold. There is no room today for any sort of cheesy false equivalence, for pretending that one idea or thought or theory is equal to every other"

Yet another poorly written piece of journalism. The author states "Now more than ever", but does not provide any evidence in the article of why now more than ever. Why is today worse or more important than the past several hundred years?

See Yellow journalism for starters. Read the coverage of past campaign trails and the vicious lies/fiction and hoaxs told. Read how for decades and decades black or brown news was not "real news" to be reported on.

Seeing how the author's point is not about timing, what would your views be about the actual content of the article, that journalism has a professional responsibility to challenge false statements and false claims?

[mike777]

Sure Winston. I would just rate a higher priority is to challenge power, to challenge those who have power. Much less important is correcting every false fact on twitter but sure.

This guys claim again is "now more than ever" which he provides zero evidence. This stuff has been going on forever.

A bit off topic but this quote from Bill James caught my eye:

"There are two kinds of debate: partisan debate, in which one characterizes the beliefs of the opposition in the darkest and most sinister terms, and productive debate, in which one takes the beliefs of the opposition in the best light"

I do think some of these things said by candidates are taken in the most darkest and sinister terms making the discussion and debate much more partisan.

[kenberg]

The Washington Post runs a fact checker column and I imagine many other papers do as well. Checking claims to see if they are factually true or false is of course worthwhile, I think that it gets done. I think the problem lies elsewhere. Often there are many facts, more than can be placed in a story. So somene selects. This is inevitable. But it can cause problems.


Many (maybe fifty) years ago I was to go to court to testify in a divorce hearing on behalf of a friend. I had a before the hearing conversation with his lawyer, and he explained that there are many ways of telling the truth. Indeed there are.

And I agree with BillW above. I find much of the news basically unwatchable. Some of it is due to laziness, some from ideology, a lot of it from chasing ratings. Yuk.

[Winstonm]

I would say that stories like this story shows the critical nature of active journalism.

Quote

The shocking police dashcam video that shows a Chicago teen gunned down by a city cop came to light because a couple of dogged independent journalists and a lawyer pried open government records.

Chicago's mainstream media barely flinched when police and union officials claimed Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot after lunging at officers with a knife. But journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith, and University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, dutifully dug in. For months, they looked for hard evidence about what happened the night of Oct. 20, 2014

[mike777]

Sigh yet another bit of shoddy journalism on the internet. Yes these guys deserve credit much credit but the local media such as the local nbc station did go after the story. They went after the burger king video and the missing dash cam from at least 3 cop cars that were at the scene. To say the local media barely flinched is just biased reporting.

It would be nice if they bothered to source Carol Marin as just one example. But if the author did that I guess it would ruin his story. As Winston points out it is tough when you need to fact check the fact checkers in a piece.

[barmar]

mike777, on 2015-November-25, 16:11, said:

This guys claim again is "now more than ever" which he provides zero evidence. This stuff has been going on forever.

I think you're going overboard interpreting that phrase so literally. It's often just a rhetorical way to say that you think something is really important. It's also typically based on subjective feelings that things are worse than ever, rather than hard evidence.

It's like when adults claim that teenagers these days are ruining the language, or are more unruly than ever before. There's a similar quote from ancient Greece or Rome.

Nostalgia always makes it seem like things were better in the "good ol' days"

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2015-November-26, 08:44, said:

Sigh yet another bit of shoddy journalism on the internet. Yes these guys deserve credit much credit but the local media such as the local nbc station did go after the story. They went after the burger king video and the missing dash cam from at least 3 cop cars that were at the scene. To say the local media barely flinched is just biased reporting.

It would be nice if they bothered to source Carol Marin as just one example. But if the author did that I guess it would ruin his story. As Winston points out it is tough when you need to fact check the fact checkers in a piece.

Quote

It was just about a year ago that a city whistleblower came to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman out of concern that Laquan McDonald’s shooting a few weeks earlier “wasn’t being vigorously investigated,” as Kalven recalls. The source told them “that there was a video and that it was horrific,” he said.

Without that whistleblower—and without that video—it’s highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today

I wonder, if the local media had a history of vigorously challenging the official police statements, why this whistle-blower chose to leak to people outside that realm?

[mike777]

Winstonm, on 2015-November-26, 15:07, said:

I wonder, if the local media had a history of vigorously challenging the official police statements, why this whistle-blower chose to leak to people outside that realm?

Great question Winston but I think you know the answer...NO

No in Chicago no in fact the vast majority of the world or usa


Vigorously challenging the local official police statements is a sure way to bore the public/local taxpayers and go bankrupt local media. Pick and choose. it is tough for local media to produce a profit and stay in business.

--


I am afraid Chicago is getting close to being Detroit....a bankrupt city with a grand but old old history.


the few people I know who live in the city are single or very rich....no young children. ( all north side)

See my posts on Roseland...Pullman where I grew up. (far south side)