Half of Americans now believe that news organizations deliberately mislead them

Re:Half of Americans now believe that news organizations del... by cm2187 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @11:22AM (#34820736)

None of the reasons you mention cover what I observe every day in news (tv and printed) from all sides: stories not fitting the narrative being sinkholed, hit pieces on political opponents, puff pieces on friendly political figures, half of the truth always being presented (never both sides of an argument). The ideological bias is obvious and I don't believe this is honest journalists being coerced into this behaviour. In fact things like the various NYT drama spread over twitter when someone writes anything that deviates from the dogma shows this seems to be coming from the newsroom, not the editors or advertisers.

Journalists are welcome to burn their own reputation, it is theirs. But don't blame others.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Half of Americans now believe that news organizations del... by joe_the_user on Thursday February 16, 2023 @04:16PM (#34826347)

The OP's bullet points are a real "softball" picture of the dynamics of the press and journalism (though the press is not necessarily more corrupt than a lot of institutions, it just claims more).

Notably, the OP doesn't mention "cultivating sources" in their bullet points and that's a big source of corruption of individual journalists.

In more detail: one of the most valuable thing a given political reporter on either a local or national level can get is "scoop", the opportunity to break a story first. The valuable source of scoops is ... the very people in power at whatever level the reporter is operating on. So a reporter wants to have these powerful people like them. And that effort to be liked can easily result in the reporter spinning a story to the liking of these people.

This dynamic is discussed fairly often in analyses of the press I think.

[ Parent | on HN ]