Basically that (real) journalism will only live in exile?
The discussion of journalism in the abstract here is missing the relatively quick changes that Snowden's leaks highlighted. A journalism with ties to the established parties can still be "real journalism" if you have a strong democracy in general. American "democracy" has degenerated into a circus the permanent government uses to decide which frontman serves its interest better. As this degeneration has proceeded, journalism as a part of loyal opposition has become more or less impossible.
I mean, Obama's message of "I welcome this debate and I intend to put the person who began it in solitary for the rest of his life" is par for the cynically demagogic course on both sides of the aisle.
Thus, it seems like journalism in the sense of open debate and airing dirty laundry is mostly going to live based on the soft opposition between various states, each of which may find housing it's opponents dissents to it convenience (with the truth depending on this thin and dubious reed).
> American "democracy" has degenerated into a circus the permanent government uses to decide which frontman serves its interest better.
Can you actually point to a period of time when things were better?
Framing the problem as one of degeneration, rather than as one of inadequacy, is in my opinion one of the most critical problems with our approaches to change. It makes us look for ways to repeal implemented changes assuming that we'll regain a golden era by doing so, rather than actually looking at the situation, operating from first principles, and building something actually effective.
I wouldn't say 'exiled': it seems more like 'distributed', but still feeding off the same pool of legal/editorial/technical expertise. What Bill Keller seems to be advocating for is a central system that tries to be objective; Greenwald's system is more like a cacophony of different prejudices that users can pick and choose individually. Theoretically, the central system is better, but in practice, it has clearly been compromised. Worse is better.
Edit: isn't there a sociological theory that basically says that an organization tends to be controlled by the people who care about the continuity of the organization, instead of the goals it represents? Like any bureaucracy, or unions. Omidyar's common pool of expertise will not have the same goals and incentives as the journalists. I'm curious how they're planning to address that issue.
pretty much everything would be different in the US if it weren't for the two-party perpetual anti-motion machine and the buying of politicians through campaign finance and the revolving door. Greenwald probably thinks that to attack these things, we need real journalism, just as we need it to attack militarism and surveillance.
Basically that (real) journalism will only live in exile?
Perhaps a better way to think of this is that journalism will cut its dependence on, and allegiance to, a nation state. When the internet came along, many national newspapers tried to become global papers, but without losing their geographic ties to one location, and their connections with government in that location.
A journalism with ties to the established parties can still be "real journalism" if you have a strong democracy in general.
I think the strong ties to established parties are exactly the problem with mainstream outlets, particularly in the United States - they inevitably lead to spiked stories, damage control via official leaks off the record, and the management of the news cycle by politicians. This has been the case for a long time, in every country, and is not limited to the current state of the US (though it has perhaps reached an extreme form there). Establishment journalism simply can't afford to take on government of the nation it primarily covers.
To take a couple of examples of established news outlets - the NYT and the Guardian, despite their best efforts, are still quite parochial in their view of events across the globe. The NYT is reluctant to significantly and persistently challenge the US administration, because it would make it far more difficult for them to cover domestic news, and because for domestic consumption it's not acceptable to criticise wartime activities (for example) too heavily. The Guardian still vilifies local Conservative right-wing politicians (in the pictures they choose, in the language they use when covering them), and goes easier on those from the Labour or LibDem party - policy is actually irrelevant to this kind of partisan outlook, apparently it's simply engrained in their editorial outlook - it's like a badge of honour, an unquestioned allegiance. It is also reluctant to criticise UK forces abroad or GCHQ involvement in spying (as opposed to the US, which they're more than happy to criticise). These old labels of left and right etc don't mean much, or shouldn't mean much, to citizens, who should be looking at the actual policies. Personally I find the jingoism, nationalism and partisan reporting inherent in national news annoying and distracting.
It's far harder for these newspapers to drop their existing ties to physical space, local politics, and a nation state, than it will be for newer companies founded on the internet to ignore national affiliations and become truly global organisations. A new international news won't care what the established political parties and pundits have to say on a particular issue, but does care what reporters on the ground and citizens on the ground in that country have to say, and how it contrasts with the governing party's narrative (and often the stories our governments tell us via news organisations, presented without question or fact-checking, are clearly a constructed narrative, with bad guys and good guys, for example on the killing of 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (reported as 21 one year old terrorist), or the cruise missile strike on al-Ma'jalah (women and children reported as a terrorist training camp, cruise missiles reported as Yemeni air force)). It's very difficult to make that kind of news if you also want to be part of the White House press pool (or equivalent in other countries), have limited access, and rely on simply reporting verbatim the unreliable statements of US allies like Yemen. Compare and contrast these reports:
The lie was printed right after the events, based solely on US and Yemeni gov statements, but the truth was almost the exact opposite of the story relayed by the NYTimes here. They do not often simply relay stories from the North Korean, Russian or Chinese government without question like this.
I'm sure there will have been an nytimes article correcting this at some point when the truth came out, though I can't find it specifically, and by then it's too late. Much of the criticism of the administration in the nytimes is written by outsiders (not journalists), relegated to the op-ed pages, and labelled as 'opinion', when it in fact contains more truth than the official reporting.
Keller's version of news is one where all content in a story is generated by the two opposing sides PR firms, in which he gives both sides equal space.
To go out and find facts independent of these actors is considered "activist" and therefore unbiased.
In his world, there are no facts -- just assertions made by interested players. His job as a reporter is simply to record the stage managed argument.
This is the standard defence for a reporter who has built a career out of never offending anyone powerful.
> In his world, there are no facts -- just assertions made by interested players. His job as a reporter is simply to record the stage managed argument.
IMHO this is also why journalism has had so much trouble recently monetizing their product, they are a middlemen pushing a message from someone that wants it disseminated as widely as possible onto people whom they expect to pay for the privilege. They are asking for money to the wrong side of the equation.
The unfortunate question that keeps coming up in my head: does Glenn expect all the journalists of this new enterprise to be as good as him? If you look at his past articles, going back years before the Snowden leaks, he is clearly fluent in what he does. Being a former lawyer accounts for a good part of it. For example he never descends into "liberal vs conservative" "left vs right" semantics. He recognizes that these meaningless labels hinder discourse (even in this exchange, Keller tries to bait him into it, but Glenn doesn't budge). It also seems as if he has some kind of bank (a personal wiki? I must know!) of links to past articles and sources that he can pull from and sprinkle over his claims, a practice that makes for amazingly solid articles.
Like another user said, I've been reading most everything he writes and tweets -- starting months before the Snowden leaks. I just trust that they're relevant to me as a US citizen 99% of the time. Few journalists are worthy of such trust.
First off, I love Mr Greenwald, but I expect that other journalists will be much better than him and eventually surpass his lead.
In my opinion, GG's strength lies in his clear-mindness, research skills, and instinctual opposition to bullshit.
He has tremendous weaknesses in terms of hostility though. NOT that he calls a lie a lie, but instead he frequently both uses insults, and assumes malice.
In writing for the public, especially if you hope to convince anyone of anything, those are huge mistakes.
Glenn consistently calls things and people "stupid" (very little on earth is stupid, when it looks that way there are factors influencing the behavior you aren't accounting for, and addressing those factors has a far more persuasive effect than cursing the person who behaves under their influence as 'stupid').
Secondly, Mr Greenwald _very_ frequently implies people are behaving with malice. Malicious action is the worst thing you can accuse someone of; if a person is truly malicious they are beyond reason (because their reasoning ability tells them to hurt you.) Very few people on this planet operate with malice outside of the moments they're passionately enraged. Instead, tons of us hurt each other because we've been conditioned to do some action that has effects we don't acknowledge, because we're faced to choose between hurting ourselves or offloading it onto someone else and don't know how to do it better, or a similar reason.
I believe Glenn will end up an editor, or in some senior position where his instinct informs other journalists where to look for stories, but as for the actual research and writing? To maintain the relationships you need with sources and the public, you have to understand the points I've written above, and Mr. Greenwald doesn't seem to show any tendency to move in that direction. (As an aside, I think this might be because of his courtroom training, where it's an adversarial system, or he is incredibly stressed out)
Jeremy Scahill[1] and Laura Poitras[2] are also taking part in this proposed news enterprise. They are at least as impressive as Greenwald, if not more so, and less inclined to engage with internet trolls or petty arguments on twitter. There are many other journalists around the world who are not working in the English language but could be translated (for example Shayie[3] in Yemen).
Contrary to some other users here I don't see Greenwald's habitual hostility as a negative thing, at least in his case. What he writes about, writes against, are systems of oppression and death -- if you agree with his positions in the slightest you will agree with that. The alternative of "maybe killing American citizens with drone strikes without due process is a bad thing, I think it might be, don't you?" would not have gotten him where he was (in terms of readership, visibility, reputation, w/e etc) before Snowden, and probably would not have appealed to Snowden.
As clueless as this New York Times writer chooses to be, he at least understands that the mention of Glenn Greenwald will bring forth clicks and impressions. (Journalism about a new journalistic business model to support an old journalistic model -it's not quite irony but some other literary device I can't remember the name of)
"this NYT writer" was the executive editor of New York Times for 8 years, a period during which he headed the entire NYT newsroom. Not that it should change the way we view his opinion, but it still helps to know.
Guys like Bill Keller are a big part of what's wrong in mainstream media. In just one of many examples of Keller's flawed thinking in this article examine his logic in defending accusations of liberal bias at the NYT:
"I once saw some opinion research in which Times readers were asked whether they regarded The Times as “liberal.” A majority said yes. They were then asked whether The Times was “fair.” A larger majority said yes. I guess I can live with that." emphasis added
Excuse me but isn't this entirely consistent with the NYT in fact being biased?
Keller conveniently sets up the story painting Greenwald as a partisan.
He is the exact opposite of that. He's pro civil liberties and the rule of law -- consistently. People think he's a partisan because his writing sometimes makes Democrats look bad. His positions didn't change when Bush was in office.
I have great respect for Bill Keller, but Greenwald makes the much stronger case here. Keller suggests that news that is trivial, shallow, sensational, redundant tends to be the same as news that is ideological and polemical - I'm surprised that Greenwald did not list the many outlets that have produced seminal journalism in the past century (e.g., Orwell at Tribune, the neo-conservatives at Commentary. Hitchens at The Nation), which seem to undermine the usefulness of the correlation that Keller claims.
One passage (from Greenwald, which Keller does not argue with), sticks out: The climate of fear that has been deliberately cultivated means that, as The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer put it, the newsgathering process has come to a “standstill.” Many Times national security reporters, such as Scott Shane, have been issuing similar warnings: that sources are now afraid to use the traditional means of working with reporters because of the Obama administration’s aggression. Ubiquitous surveillance obviously compounds this problem greatly, since the collection of all metadata makes it almost impossible for a source and journalist to communicate without the government’s knowledge.
I like Glenn Greenwald because I have a bias towards his politics. I follow him on Twitter, and I read every tweet and article he writes. With that mind I still recognize that he is NOT the future of news. As mentioned he is biased and on Twitter he belittles the opposition. (I do too but the news has to be about informing the public and that includes all facets in an unbiased way.
What's the problem with belittling as long as it is made in a presentation by which you state your opponent's arguments and tear them with facts, and state clearly when you're speculating?
This is the sort of BS that's destroying journalism. You can argue for a side either honestly, presenting all you know, recognizing you opponent's valid points, but using your knowledge to debunk the other side, or you can be mischievous, ignore and distort facts, resort to fallacies, and generally achieve the effects of empty rhetoric.
Opinionated people are not the problem. Fallacious people and talking heads are.
Nah. True journalism is tearing someone a new one... as long it's ONLY facts. "Both sides of the debate" is not about ignoring facts to make you seem "unbiased". If that makes sense.
Who isn't biased? Greenwald is adversarial to the point of flaming on Twitter, yes, but he's admitted that it's more of a stress relief activity. I do hope he'll tone it down when the venture starts (and he has already toned it down for the Snowden stories afaict)
"The mainstream press has had its failures — episodes of credulousness, false equivalency, sensationalism and inattention — for which we have been deservedly flogged."
From that list, the stand-out failure of the mainstream press is unquestionably "inattention". The decay of in-depth reporting of stories that will impact society in exchange for focusing the spotlight on more-marketable content is a self-inflicted wound that shows no signs of remission. One of the most talked-about pieces of content that's come out of the NYTimes in recent years was their Snow Fall piece. It explored a new way of communicating a story, and may serve as a model for how they present some content in the future - but ultimately, a story that provided the Times with some of its greatest exposure in recent memory was just a story about an avalanche that affected an infinitesimally small percentage of the world.
Broadcast news has decided to follow a formula. Evening news dumps the real news out in a half-hour, usually capping the 24-minutes left over after their pharmaceutical or insurance commercials run to finish their show off with something to make viewers feel good about the world - maybe an inspirational story about some kid that got to score a touchdown, or a new baby animal at the zoo. But that touchdown, or that baby animal video, or the story about the royal "whatever" comes at the expense of inattention to something that impacts a whole lot more people than the puff piece.
But maybe they have no choice. If the NYTimes runs a piece on a subject on their cover every-day for a year, a majority of their readers might stop reading. If broadcast news started their evening newscast with a story about the environment every night maybe people would change the channel or turn them off completely.
Greenwald, and others have the advantage that they currently can take a story and carry it for days, weeks, months, or years if that's what it takes to tell the story. The NSA story is big enough, and apparently the source material is numerous-enough, that 5 months later there's still enormous repercussions for the revelations just-now being published. The attention he's giving to this one story must be unsettling to a business setup to cover NSA revelations in the same publication as a story about twerking. Makes you wonder how many other stories of this magnitude are just waiting to be revealed - but aren't due to lack of focus by those entrusted to report.
From that list, the stand-out failure of the mainstream press is unquestionably "inattention". The decay of in-depth reporting of stories that will impact society in exchange for focusing the spotlight on more-marketable content is a self-inflicted wound that shows no signs of remission.
But even here on Hacker News, where a lot of us count on having thoughtful readers of the comments we post and the stories we submit, the demand for shorter, less attention-demanding comments and submissions, and tl;dr summaries of blog posts that are only about five paragraphs long, still continues. So if news organizations aren't serving up stories that are based on close attention to important issues, maybe that is because the news organizations know what most news consumers are looking for.
So, same as the science thread then. Money corrupts science, and suddenly now journalism. And sport. Oh, education too. Oppps, for got health care. And war. Internet? Hmmmmmm
Isnt there a saying about money and corruption? Its been going on a bit of a while now, right?
And will we heed this and make changes? Hell no. Just as per usual small "mavericks" going up against the money, ultimately changing very little in the great scheme of things, while the interests of money roll on.
Bill Keller is defending what can't be defended. Mainstream media is dependent for survival on access. Without access to politicians and political officials who are pushing their own agendas, their material almost completely dries up. The NYT can annoy government only to a calibrated extent. And when they do so, they do it with the backing of some faction.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|12 years ago|reply
The discussion of journalism in the abstract here is missing the relatively quick changes that Snowden's leaks highlighted. A journalism with ties to the established parties can still be "real journalism" if you have a strong democracy in general. American "democracy" has degenerated into a circus the permanent government uses to decide which frontman serves its interest better. As this degeneration has proceeded, journalism as a part of loyal opposition has become more or less impossible.
I mean, Obama's message of "I welcome this debate and I intend to put the person who began it in solitary for the rest of his life" is par for the cynically demagogic course on both sides of the aisle.
Thus, it seems like journalism in the sense of open debate and airing dirty laundry is mostly going to live based on the soft opposition between various states, each of which may find housing it's opponents dissents to it convenience (with the truth depending on this thin and dubious reed).
[+] [-] saraid216|12 years ago|reply
Can you actually point to a period of time when things were better?
Framing the problem as one of degeneration, rather than as one of inadequacy, is in my opinion one of the most critical problems with our approaches to change. It makes us look for ways to repeal implemented changes assuming that we'll regain a golden era by doing so, rather than actually looking at the situation, operating from first principles, and building something actually effective.
[+] [-] magic_haze|12 years ago|reply
Edit: isn't there a sociological theory that basically says that an organization tends to be controlled by the people who care about the continuity of the organization, instead of the goals it represents? Like any bureaucracy, or unions. Omidyar's common pool of expertise will not have the same goals and incentives as the journalists. I'm curious how they're planning to address that issue.
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grey-area|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps a better way to think of this is that journalism will cut its dependence on, and allegiance to, a nation state. When the internet came along, many national newspapers tried to become global papers, but without losing their geographic ties to one location, and their connections with government in that location.
A journalism with ties to the established parties can still be "real journalism" if you have a strong democracy in general.
I think the strong ties to established parties are exactly the problem with mainstream outlets, particularly in the United States - they inevitably lead to spiked stories, damage control via official leaks off the record, and the management of the news cycle by politicians. This has been the case for a long time, in every country, and is not limited to the current state of the US (though it has perhaps reached an extreme form there). Establishment journalism simply can't afford to take on government of the nation it primarily covers.
To take a couple of examples of established news outlets - the NYT and the Guardian, despite their best efforts, are still quite parochial in their view of events across the globe. The NYT is reluctant to significantly and persistently challenge the US administration, because it would make it far more difficult for them to cover domestic news, and because for domestic consumption it's not acceptable to criticise wartime activities (for example) too heavily. The Guardian still vilifies local Conservative right-wing politicians (in the pictures they choose, in the language they use when covering them), and goes easier on those from the Labour or LibDem party - policy is actually irrelevant to this kind of partisan outlook, apparently it's simply engrained in their editorial outlook - it's like a badge of honour, an unquestioned allegiance. It is also reluctant to criticise UK forces abroad or GCHQ involvement in spying (as opposed to the US, which they're more than happy to criticise). These old labels of left and right etc don't mean much, or shouldn't mean much, to citizens, who should be looking at the actual policies. Personally I find the jingoism, nationalism and partisan reporting inherent in national news annoying and distracting.
It's far harder for these newspapers to drop their existing ties to physical space, local politics, and a nation state, than it will be for newer companies founded on the internet to ignore national affiliations and become truly global organisations. A new international news won't care what the established political parties and pundits have to say on a particular issue, but does care what reporters on the ground and citizens on the ground in that country have to say, and how it contrasts with the governing party's narrative (and often the stories our governments tell us via news organisations, presented without question or fact-checking, are clearly a constructed narrative, with bad guys and good guys, for example on the killing of 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (reported as 21 one year old terrorist), or the cruise missile strike on al-Ma'jalah (women and children reported as a terrorist training camp, cruise missiles reported as Yemeni air force)). It's very difficult to make that kind of news if you also want to be part of the White House press pool (or equivalent in other countries), have limited access, and rely on simply reporting verbatim the unreliable statements of US allies like Yemen. Compare and contrast these reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18yemen.h... http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/6/7/witness_to_a_massa...
The lie was printed right after the events, based solely on US and Yemeni gov statements, but the truth was almost the exact opposite of the story relayed by the NYTimes here. They do not often simply relay stories from the North Korean, Russian or Chinese government without question like this.
I'm sure there will have been an nytimes article correcting this at some point when the truth came out, though I can't find it specifically, and by then it's too late. Much of the criticism of the administration in the nytimes is written by outsiders (not journalists), relegated to the op-ed pages, and labelled as 'opinion', when it in fact contains more truth than the official reporting.
[+] [-] bparsons|12 years ago|reply
To go out and find facts independent of these actors is considered "activist" and therefore unbiased.
In his world, there are no facts -- just assertions made by interested players. His job as a reporter is simply to record the stage managed argument.
This is the standard defence for a reporter who has built a career out of never offending anyone powerful.
[+] [-] EdiX|12 years ago|reply
IMHO this is also why journalism has had so much trouble recently monetizing their product, they are a middlemen pushing a message from someone that wants it disseminated as widely as possible onto people whom they expect to pay for the privilege. They are asking for money to the wrong side of the equation.
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
Like another user said, I've been reading most everything he writes and tweets -- starting months before the Snowden leaks. I just trust that they're relevant to me as a US citizen 99% of the time. Few journalists are worthy of such trust.
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|12 years ago|reply
In my opinion, GG's strength lies in his clear-mindness, research skills, and instinctual opposition to bullshit.
He has tremendous weaknesses in terms of hostility though. NOT that he calls a lie a lie, but instead he frequently both uses insults, and assumes malice.
In writing for the public, especially if you hope to convince anyone of anything, those are huge mistakes.
Glenn consistently calls things and people "stupid" (very little on earth is stupid, when it looks that way there are factors influencing the behavior you aren't accounting for, and addressing those factors has a far more persuasive effect than cursing the person who behaves under their influence as 'stupid').
Secondly, Mr Greenwald _very_ frequently implies people are behaving with malice. Malicious action is the worst thing you can accuse someone of; if a person is truly malicious they are beyond reason (because their reasoning ability tells them to hurt you.) Very few people on this planet operate with malice outside of the moments they're passionately enraged. Instead, tons of us hurt each other because we've been conditioned to do some action that has effects we don't acknowledge, because we're faced to choose between hurting ourselves or offloading it onto someone else and don't know how to do it better, or a similar reason.
I believe Glenn will end up an editor, or in some senior position where his instinct informs other journalists where to look for stories, but as for the actual research and writing? To maintain the relationships you need with sources and the public, you have to understand the points I've written above, and Mr. Greenwald doesn't seem to show any tendency to move in that direction. (As an aside, I think this might be because of his courtroom training, where it's an adversarial system, or he is incredibly stressed out)
[+] [-] grey-area|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a3sAet_dQA [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-sno... [3] http://news.yahoo.com/us-disappointed-yemen-journalists-rele...
[+] [-] pavs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|12 years ago|reply
Do I get a Pulitzer now?
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r0h1n|12 years ago|reply
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped...
[+] [-] spikels|12 years ago|reply
"I once saw some opinion research in which Times readers were asked whether they regarded The Times as “liberal.” A majority said yes. They were then asked whether The Times was “fair.” A larger majority said yes. I guess I can live with that." emphasis added
Excuse me but isn't this entirely consistent with the NYT in fact being biased?
[+] [-] lurchpop|12 years ago|reply
He is the exact opposite of that. He's pro civil liberties and the rule of law -- consistently. People think he's a partisan because his writing sometimes makes Democrats look bad. His positions didn't change when Bush was in office.
[+] [-] chalst|12 years ago|reply
One passage (from Greenwald, which Keller does not argue with), sticks out: The climate of fear that has been deliberately cultivated means that, as The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer put it, the newsgathering process has come to a “standstill.” Many Times national security reporters, such as Scott Shane, have been issuing similar warnings: that sources are now afraid to use the traditional means of working with reporters because of the Obama administration’s aggression. Ubiquitous surveillance obviously compounds this problem greatly, since the collection of all metadata makes it almost impossible for a source and journalist to communicate without the government’s knowledge.
[+] [-] SCAQTony|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daishiman|12 years ago|reply
This is the sort of BS that's destroying journalism. You can argue for a side either honestly, presenting all you know, recognizing you opponent's valid points, but using your knowledge to debunk the other side, or you can be mischievous, ignore and distort facts, resort to fallacies, and generally achieve the effects of empty rhetoric.
Opinionated people are not the problem. Fallacious people and talking heads are.
[+] [-] girvo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|12 years ago|reply
From that list, the stand-out failure of the mainstream press is unquestionably "inattention". The decay of in-depth reporting of stories that will impact society in exchange for focusing the spotlight on more-marketable content is a self-inflicted wound that shows no signs of remission. One of the most talked-about pieces of content that's come out of the NYTimes in recent years was their Snow Fall piece. It explored a new way of communicating a story, and may serve as a model for how they present some content in the future - but ultimately, a story that provided the Times with some of its greatest exposure in recent memory was just a story about an avalanche that affected an infinitesimally small percentage of the world.
Broadcast news has decided to follow a formula. Evening news dumps the real news out in a half-hour, usually capping the 24-minutes left over after their pharmaceutical or insurance commercials run to finish their show off with something to make viewers feel good about the world - maybe an inspirational story about some kid that got to score a touchdown, or a new baby animal at the zoo. But that touchdown, or that baby animal video, or the story about the royal "whatever" comes at the expense of inattention to something that impacts a whole lot more people than the puff piece.
But maybe they have no choice. If the NYTimes runs a piece on a subject on their cover every-day for a year, a majority of their readers might stop reading. If broadcast news started their evening newscast with a story about the environment every night maybe people would change the channel or turn them off completely.
Greenwald, and others have the advantage that they currently can take a story and carry it for days, weeks, months, or years if that's what it takes to tell the story. The NSA story is big enough, and apparently the source material is numerous-enough, that 5 months later there's still enormous repercussions for the revelations just-now being published. The attention he's giving to this one story must be unsettling to a business setup to cover NSA revelations in the same publication as a story about twerking. Makes you wonder how many other stories of this magnitude are just waiting to be revealed - but aren't due to lack of focus by those entrusted to report.
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
But even here on Hacker News, where a lot of us count on having thoughtful readers of the comments we post and the stories we submit, the demand for shorter, less attention-demanding comments and submissions, and tl;dr summaries of blog posts that are only about five paragraphs long, still continues. So if news organizations aren't serving up stories that are based on close attention to important issues, maybe that is because the news organizations know what most news consumers are looking for.
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alan_cx|12 years ago|reply
Isnt there a saying about money and corruption? Its been going on a bit of a while now, right?
And will we heed this and make changes? Hell no. Just as per usual small "mavericks" going up against the money, ultimately changing very little in the great scheme of things, while the interests of money roll on.
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
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