Don't expect everyone to feel sorry for media outlets who inflame our current divisions, destroy teenagers lives and publish gossip masquerading as journalism. And thats just this week alone!

What you describe hardly speaks for the majority of journalists. There are always exceptions to every rule, but they are just that: exceptions. Most of them are passionate, thorough journalists and writers, and it's very hard to get paid decently for that. And to the journalists that _do_ write inflammatory pieces, I'd argue that you could just as easily point to software engineers that have compromised their own ethics in exchange for large salaries from tech companies.

Depends if you include the current mob of professional bloggers in there, because they sure outnumber the real journalists. They're really just word laborers, as they constantly have to produce fresh content to draw in new clicks. Unlike real knowledge work, it's a blue collar job now, just one that requires literacy.

Passion is also a poor substitute for knowledge. Gell-Mann Amnesia is still as true as ever too. The entire profession has an undeserved reputation of accuracy and impartiality, and now they're eagerly self-destructing what remains of it.

Most of all, they always stay within the same broad lines. As I saw someone observe recently... If the French gilets jaunes were happening in a South American country, would the coverage be remotely the same? When it comes time to beat the American war drum, will the result be any different from the last couple of times?

The envy of tech, and the associated aspersions are also highly misplaced. Nobody forced the press to embed five dozen trackers on every page and chase clickbait with informational junkfood. Nobody forced them to give up their autonomy to social media, instead of building their own infrastructure. The people whose self image put them several rungs above those icky nerds are still inappropriately bitter about that inversion of status, for sure.

To me, the model for 21st century journalism seems obvious: wikipedia, except not written by the obsessed and the mentally ill. Give me an ever-updating impartial dossier on each major topic and conflict, sorting the wheat from the chaff, and providing a timeline of key events with deeper elaborations one click away.

If the profession matched its self image, they'd have succeeded at doing something like that, instead of racing buzzfeed to the bottom.

Personally I'm really waiting for the rest of that 85% to go.

> Software engineers that have compromised their own ethics in exchange for large salaries from tech companies.

Software engineers are not in a profession that is explicitly designed around seeking the truth.

No, but like journalists, they (we) have a job that gives them influence over those who use their products. We facilitate the discourse and the dispersal of news that most journalism agencies must now use. Not even 20 years ago, news agencies held this same role.

It’s so weird that out of a group of black men calling children homophobic F word, n words, a bunch of racist stuff. A Native American telling kids without provocation to go back to Europe, this is our land we don’t want you, and a bunch of kids doing a school chant, the entire left and center media went after a kid smirking.

They didn’t even cover the racist stuff said against the kids. Just some fluff about white supremacy, and MAGA hat being akin to KKK. All the headlines were inflamatory racial tensions inciting and all the corrections were STILL misleading and headlines seeming the kids were wrong. I’m talking about NYtimes, cnn, msnbc, not just the buzzfeed rags.

And then they pull up a picture from 4 years ago that’s misleading and not at all related to the kids. Get called out for fake news, and then they push another fake narrative from an out of context video and that turns out that the kid isn’t even from the school. Then finally another fake narrative about some kid not allowed to speak because he’s gay, turned out fake.

The journalists on twitter wishing for death to the kid based off a smirking clip and no rebuke for the actual racists are terrible human beings who themselves are racist. I unsubscribed from the NYTimes over this. Fox News during peak birther conspiracy wasn’t a 1/10th of this ridiculousness. Legit racists run these companies and legit racist are employed.

Oh and get this, just saw on Facebook my High School History teacher posted a bunch of basketball players holding up the “3 point shot” sign arguing how the school is racist because apparently an “ok” sign is code for white supremacy when literally every nba player makes it after a shot. That post has 35 likes. It’s like our collective IQ dropped 30 points in 2016. There’s a certain rationality you expect when you have a discussion with someone that seems to have completely dissipated into emotional tribalism.

So sad a factual post is being flagged on HN. This isn't a matter of politics - Bari Weiss from th NYT has poured through all the footage and her conclusions are the same as your own.

Oh please !! The conservative media posts and have posted thousands of explicitly racist articles about Obama. Trump was the biggest birther conspiracy theory, the root of which was unbridled racism [1] He even said that he has investigators in Hawaii finding things about his birth certificate. Trump also said Mexican judges are incompetent, white supramacists are same as counter protestors, immigrants are criminal and commit crimes, set-up a hotline for people to complain about crimes committed by immigrants, constantly retweets famous white supramacists, dog whistles on every speech, trashes death of black folks on the hands of police, should I go on ? Pardon me if I don’t feel the same amount of sympathy for teenagers wearing MAGA hats. If you align with explicit racists, be ready if the world thinks of you in that terms.

[1] https://youtu.be/OOA4ziGl5ZQ

This is the emotional response I was describing in my post. These people have this emotional outburst and have an urge to immediately demonize the other side almost as if their reputation and perhaps the world is at stake. They don’t try to understand or have any nuance. It’s done by the right and left, though more so the left lately.

The main premise of your argument is that the birther situation is racist and a big deal. In my post that’s what I clearly stated. The most racist and stupidest thing I’d seen journalists do in my lifetime was the Obama birther BS supported by Fox News and I commented that even that was 1/10th of this Covington story. They were calls for doxing minors liked hundreds of thousands of times by popular celebrities and journalists based on an innocuous clip and 10,000 plus death threats. Likely hundreds of thousands of people like you feeling no sympathy for teenagers getting death threats wearing MAGA hats and completely ignoring the blatant racism against them. The difference between us 2 is that I condemn the racism against Obama and the racism against these kids and I do feel pity for the other side. You’re quite off the deep end if you don’t.

I’m sure this individual was a very bright person pre 2016, but the collective 30 point iq drop seems to have had an unequal effect, harming some more than others as clearly demonstrated here.

It is good to read that some people are at least trying to take a measured view of things that are happening. I don't know how to handle the "news" these days other than to ignore it completely. People are just too interested in being entertained on a simplistic level I guess. It is really hard to watch.

This type of behavior is going to cause civil war in Western countries. It is beginning to reach absurd levels, even when facts change there are too many who refuse to acknowledge the situation.

My response was fairly civil until my last paragraph but I felt that emotional need to attack because I felt attacked. I kept it in there on purpose and I clearly am part of the problem here.

Today we had a white man kill a black man allegedly due to wanting to start a race war (I didn’t double check and media lies like crazy so might be misleading, but let’s assume it’s true). You have Breitbart and other far right rags basically baiting this. Inflaming racial tensions like crazy. Against blacks, Hispanics, and Asians via crime, illegal immigration, and h1b abuse. They take 3 legit problems and tie racial tensions to them to cause division and hatred.

The left which went off the deep end after Trump are doing the same thing demonizing white people, men, and the wealthy from legitimate problems of race, violence, and income inequality. You take these already serious problems and tie race divisions to them and you get the fringes to grow larger and the extremists to increase in number. More and more will do extremist things. I mean you have a poster here that doesn’t care about kids getting death threats and tries to defend it by mentioning unrelated issues and HN is way critical thinking than the average person.

There is no media or journalists, just propaganda and propagandaists.

I think Twitter is a huge problem that has really inflamed this.

> I’m sure this individual was a very bright person pre 2016, but the collective 30 point iq drop seems to have had an unequal effect, harming some more than others as clearly demonstrated here.

Do not do this on HN.

Your last line really revealed you. Didn't it ?

You can't differentiate between some twitter trolls doxing, to a major party platform working overtime to de-legitimize the first black President hand in hand with the biggest news channel in America. Are you this naive ? And the fact that our current President was the lead cheerleader of this effort. Should I point out the hundreds and thousands of stories that conservative media and politicians commented about Michelle Obama's looks. Should I point out about the massive systemic effort that conservative states create to disenfranchise minority voters ? Trump and MAGA is this whole movement in steroids. It is part of an overall effort to turn back the clock of progress in America. And you think that is 1/10th of some new story that people will forget in 2 weeks. Are you kidding me ?

So much of what you said is just plain inaccurate. For instance, Trump did not say that Mexican judges are incompetent. A case against him before the election had a Mexican judge presiding over it and he was afraid that the judge wouldn't be objective due to his wall/the perception that he's racist.

That's just one point. Most of the other points you made can be equally refuted or are just ridiculous - "dog whistles," come on. That's code for "they didn't say anything bad but I'm going to interpret bad intentions because I don't like them."

I don't like the guy but I hate the lies and misinformation about him more. Not because they're damaging to Trump but because they're harming our democracy itself.

Unoriginality isn't an response to an argument.

Not a single thing I wrote was inaccurate. From his elevating cases of immigrant crime, to his complete disregard for NFL players peaceful protests, to his calling other countries "shithole", to his pardon of Joe Arpaio, we know who he is and who his supporters are. He is the most dangerous thing to democracy and spread of democratic values in this world and must be handily defeated.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/opinion/leonh...

> we know who he is and who his supporters are

I don't think the way forward is to claim half the country is racist. Some of the Trump supporters are, but I feel like it's an easy/unfair explanation for why Trump was elected.

It's been talked to death, but Democrats made a lot of mistakes in 2016, and should look inward to try and fix things before 2020. I feel like the things they are focusing on are just making the division worse, and alienating voters they could win over.

I don't think half the country is racist in the traditional sense. But if a supporter tolerates this behavior because they like something else (e.g., tax cut), doesn't that make him or her a willing participant ?

If the Dems can’t get their shit together and the economy doesn’t tank, we’re in for another four years of Trump.

Dems just flipped 40 seats in the House and 300 in the state legislatures. So there is a strong possibility that Trump will lose. That said, Trump is just a vocal symptom of larger trends in the society. They may be subdued momentarily once Trump is defeated, but they are not going away. He has shown a path forward, and there are others willing to go further. This will be a long fight.

>They didn’t even cover the racist stuff said against the kids.

Do you seriously not understand the point of that statement being made to people wearing MAGA hats? Notice I said understand, not agree with. Because labeling statements that are designed to use the absurdity of the MAGA's hatters position on various topics as a rhetorical tool against themselves as "racist" in order to fabricate some sort of "gotchya" talking point tells me you don't.

>I unsubscribed from the NYTimes over this.

Spare me.

The saddest thing about the news industry dying is how, as it has struggled to stay relevant, it has given up any pretense of being a serious source of information (as opposed to a cheap source of outrage entertainment). Journalism is dead.

>Journalism is dead.

Last I checked the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic were all still in print, publishing good reliable content.

For the most part, unfortunately, they run unprofitably, and have required therefor the patronage of high net worth individuals to keep them running.

In an ideal world, there would be a requirement for an organization that labels itself as "journalism", "news", or "reporting" to have a measure of financial independence. ...but as it stands, it seems such independent agencies would not be able to financially sustain itself as so much "news" is free online, and people remain unwilling to pay for less-biased sources of information.

We have entered the disinformation age. If you are not paying for news, you are the product, not the consumer.

Pretty sure titles like "Pewdiepie is a Nazi" is not considered good reliable content.

Good content, sure.

Reliable, not so much.

> Publishing good reliable content.

What is your definition of “good reliable content”?

I find it funny you cite left leaning sources that masquerade as objective. NYT hiring Sarah Jeong and claiming white privilege is rampant. Give me a break.

(This is an unpopular opinion, particularly on HN.)

Is there any qualification to labeling people as "Journalists", or is it entirely a self-appointed title?

The double edged sword of having a smart phone/camera is that everyone can become a “journalist / reporter.”

Are you a journalist because you’re employed by a news organization? How are you any different than someone who writes a personal blog?

I wouldn’t want journalists to go through the hoops that doctors or lawyer needs to go through. In Journalism, like academia, you’ll encounter the problem where you accredite people who agree with you. Think of the rampant left ideology on college campuses, and the voting habits of college professors.

“A poll conducted by Ivy League professors and administrators at liberal arts and social science faculties showed that 84 percent voted for Al Gore in 2000, as opposed to 9 percent for George W. Bush. 57 percent identified themselves as Democrats while only 3 percent identified themselves as Republicans.”

Source: Robert Stacy McCain “Polls Confirm Ivy League Liberal Tilt,” Washington times. 1/15/2002

I suspect this gap has only widened and will continue to do so. (I’d love to see updated stats here.)

I wish journalists would gather some real world experience, defined as working anywhere that is not journalism, before they become “journalists”. I have more respect for these folk and I view them as more credible.

Tying this to buzzfeed, I’d be curious to see the average age and previous emoyment for these “journalists.”

I’d hope they’re not hired fresh out of university where left ideology is popular and pervasive.

Sidenote: Gaining real world experience also applies to these “lifetime academics”, particularly those in non-STEM fields on college campuses. Go experience the world before you criticize it then lay out utopian visions.

We are calling BuzzFeed “journalism” now? If a business model based on “immediacy” means that BF can rationalize publishing false, or at minimum uncorroborated news, then good riddance. Even Woodward and Bernstein didn’t rush to publish the first minute of knowing something could have been askew with Nixon. BuzzFeed posted the uncorroborated Steele dossier when even The NY Times wouldn’t. They said Trump told Cohen to lie to congress when even Muller himself has declared that false. The Cohen story could have been a bombshell, but Buzzfeed couldn’t get anyone on the record, just “two people close to the investigation.” Journalism, real journalism isn’t bombastic publishing of stories with unnamed sources. In the Berstein era, secret sources were used as background, not as the only source.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/business/media/buzzfeed-t...

As far as “tough day on the industry,” perhaps if the industry gave themselves a strong look in the mirror, they’d figure out why. The NY Times is doing pretty well, as is Reuters. It seems that perhaps the youngsters these days are interested more than listicles and might actually care about legitimate news?

The content of the dossier was extremely newsworthy.

Posting it with some false statement about it being the clear truth or whatever would be bad, but it's sort of hilarious to point to the NYT being chickenshit about it as some sort of evidence that Buzzfeed went off the rails by posting it.

> They said Trump told Cohen to lie to congress when even Muller himself has declared that false.

No, Peter Carr said “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.”

Which is a long, long way from "false".

> Which is a long, long way from "false".

No it isn't.

> "BuzzFeed’s description... are not accurate"

That is literally saying that their reports were false.

> That is literally saying that their reports were false.

Then why didn't he say "false"? Why did he choose the specific "not accurate"?

It is absolutely shameful that this comment was downvoted. Trump is a big boy, he can take it. I couldn't care less.

What of the thousands whose lives are destroyed by shoddy journalism who aren't famous enough to even be recalled? I sincerely hope all of these yellow journalism outfits go out of business. It won't happen, but one can hope.

Trump had the entire establishment, left, right and center, against him, and came out a winner. He still has the entire establishment, left, right, and center, against him. And he's still there fighting.

You can hate the guy--it is establishment policy to do so, after all--but he's a tough son-of-a-bitch. There's no way around that fact.

The man is definitely not in the running for a 'tough son-of-a-bitch.' He has previously circled photos of his hands and sent them to people to prove how big his hands are. He bragged about his penis size at a debate. Just recently it came out that he has people photoshopping his body to make him look better and his fingers to make them longer. He has thrown many a tantrum when faced with reality and has cabinet meetings where people go around the room and praise him. None of these screams thick skin or toughness.

I'm curious what 'establishment' means to you and which part of the 'establishment' and the 'right' you think are still against him. He and the republicans have literally been in control of the entire federal government for 2 years up until a couple of weeks ago and it seems that the republicans are completely behind him.

Tough in the sense that he wears the armor of the U.S. government to protect him. The man will fall very far once those protections run out.

He was so tough that he dodged the Vietnam war because of bone spurs. He is weak sauce

He's cowardly, but I think people mean tough in the sense that he does what he wants.

Trump is not tough at all. He has an extremely fragile ego. This is incredibly obvious to anyone who is paying even the tiniest bit of attention.

The only reason he has lasted all this time is because he's wealthy, and that's mostly because he inherited a couple of hundred million dollars from his father.

I wouldn't classify someone who has had six bankruptcies as a "winner". One, maybe two I can understand. But six, that's just poor business management and a great example as to why we're heading into a Trump-powered recession.

https://www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump-business-bankruptcies...

Well your classifiers aren't looking at the distribution then. 6 out of a few dozen isn't bad, that's where I'd like to be.

He's currently president of the United States. Do people think this is somehow easy to accomplish now?

Regardless of how you feel about him, attaining this office does mean a certain amount of competence.

> Do people think this is somehow easy to accomplish now?

That depends - how much external help am I allowed?

Getting support to achieve your goals is how you achieve your goals and requires the same competence. This isn't a lottery.

Does it have to be legal and ethical?

I suppose that was the implicit meaning I should have made explicit in my question.

Do you have evidence of specific competence at something?

He's a billionaire real estate magnate, who had a very successful television show, and became the President of the United States despite extreme opposition from both major parties and the media.

It's obvious from your other comments that you viscerally hate this man, it might good for you to see things with a bit more objectivity.

Until he releases his tax records, we do not know if he is a "billionaire". Hopefully, they'll be released soon.

running for president?

Unfortunately the Russian interference in the US elections & 5 of the campaign officials convicted of various election-related crimes doesn't make it look like the President had a competent, ethical and legal campaign.

Not sure if all of these downvoted comments are just spamming "liburl media" right-wing talking points like is pretty much the norm now for anything critical of Trump, or just out of ignorance, but Buzzfeed was nominated for a Pulitzer on it's Russia reporting and has many award winning reporters on staff.

https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News

Top articles of the moment: > Can You Recognize These Rectangular-Ish U.S. States? > 31 Ways To Make Traveling So Much Less Stressful > People Are Sharing The Nicest Thing A Stranger Has Done For Them, And It's Exactly What You Need Today

I mean, I'm sure they do also sometimes produce journalistic content, and it might be of great quality when they do.

As already pointed out a dozen times in these comments, buzzfeednews.com and buzzfeed.com are distinct.

Well, the news was about "BuzzFeed" in general, but fair enough.

Buzzfeed News current top articles:

Why Bryan Singer’s Latest Scandal May Not Affect Rami Malek’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” Oscar Campaign

This Photographer Captures The Emotional Final Moments Between Pets And Their Owners

Climate Change Is A Top Priority For The New Crop Of Governors — Even One Republican

A Man Allegedly Harassed Parkland Victims' Families On Instagram By Posing As The Shooter

A Woman Mistakenly Showed Up For Her Interview With Microsoft A Month Early. Her Hilarious Exchange With The Company Has Gone Viral.

Buzzfeed != Buzzfeed news

Here are some examples from buzzfeed news:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/poison-in-the-system

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/how-apps-t...

I think Buzzfeed news should rebrand itself so people stop getting the two confused

> They said Trump told Cohen to lie to congress when even Muller himself has declared that false.

The SCO's statement was _much_ narrower in scope than that.

The dossier has been almost entirely corroborated across the board. No parts of it have been proven incorrect so far. Do you have any evidence that any parts of it have been shot down as not factual?

Calling it the 'uncorroborated Steele dossier' is a talking point that has been proven to be a lie over and over. It seems that Buzzfeed New's publishing about the dossier is literally the type of 'real journalism' and 'legitimate news' that you're talking about because it has led to multiple investigations of some of the most influential people in the United States and has led to multiple indictments and guilty pleas, including the former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. I haven't seen many '10 surprise diet secrets' articles doing the same. Have you?

Reading comments like this makes me honestly entertain simulation theory. We have to be living in completely different realities, where what you’ve read and what I’ve read literally have different words on the page.

> almost entirely corroborated

Have any of the guilty pleas corresponded to a specific claim from Steele? My understanding is, few if any. For what remains of "almost entirely" the whole dossier, "corroborated" in your book seems to mean "not worth bringing before a court of law, even after 2+ years of highly empowered investigation".

> No parts of it have been proven incorrect so far. Do you have any evidence that any parts of it have been shot down as not factual?

Russell has got an orbiting teacup to sell you.

Even Mother Jones would call it mostly uncorroborated.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/an-updated-lo...

What source are you using to get "almost entirely corroborated"?

Mic went out of business last year, as well. Seems like an industry thing.

Yeah, it's those that "pivoted to video". Mic was impacted, Univision struggled with Fusion, BuzzFeed walked it back, Verzion is obviously bailing on it, etc.

Wait so that means we're seeing another paradigm shift back to text? That'd be cool.

don't forget everyone pivoted to video after facebook told them it was the future.

does it mean another paradigm shift (into what?) or just the recession/bust starts to show itself?

Verizon is a journalism company?

> With brands like Yahoo, HuffPost and TechCrunch, Verizon Media transforms how people stay informed and entertained, communicate and transact.

[0] - https://www.verizonmedia.com/

From the article: "Verizon Media Group, the portfolio of media brands that includes Yahoo, AOL and The Huffington Post"

Verizon is the parent of Oath (and therefore owns TechCrunch)

Oath is now called Verizon Media

Buzzfeed is?

They were finalists for the 2017 and 2018 Pulitzer prizes, so the answer's a pretty clear "yes".

Wasn't Pulitzer the creator of yellow journalism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

Frankly, the pulizter, oscar or any of these prizes are meaningless to me since it is apparent that they are part advertisements and part agenda pushing and any objective measure of achievement. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

If the most prestigious award in journalism doesn't count for anything, you could always read up on how they formed their investigative arm (which includes links to some pretty solid journalism): https://www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2016/how-buzzfeed-built-a...

Or you can just go "nuh uh". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They gave money to a disgruntled Guardian employee, so widely disliked employees voted against her promotion to editor, who then took her team with her?

They're a media company at the very least.

They own Huffington Post and TechCrunch.

Tricky answer.

Yes