Chicago Tribune Reporters Don't Want Readers' Pre-Approval 176
theodp writes "Irked by the Marketing department's solicitation of subscribers' opinions on stories before they were published, 55 reporters and editors at the Chicago Tribune signed an e-mail demanding the practice be stopped. 'It is a fundamental principle of journalism that we do not give people outside the newspaper the option of deciding whether or not we should publish a story, whether they be advertisers, politicians or just regular readers,' the e-mail read."
Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not just having your readers decide the content. It's a stupid marketing idea from people who don't understand the Internet.
Let's say there is some public corruption by a popular political figure. Should an organized group of partisan poll voters be able to spike the story just because they don't want to hear something bad?
If you remember the purpose of newspapers, and journalists generally is to "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" you'll understand why you really don't want readers to be able to choose which stories get published any more than you want some multi-national corporation that owns the media outlet to squash a story that shows one of its cronies in a bad light.
Can we agree that not all "Social Network" ideas are worthwhile just because they happen to involve the Internet?
Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you remember the purpose of newspapers, and journalists generally is to "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"
Goodness, you have a long memory! For as long as I can remember, the purpose of newspapers has been "Make as much money as you can, by any means you can get away with".
Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Remember BlagoJockoffovich? The chicago tribune spiked stories at his request.
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I disagree. Newspapers have sometimes been propaganda driven instead.
Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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I'd go even further and say a 1940-1970 (maybe 1980) affectation.
Nonsense. (Score:2)
Newspapers all around the world have a long tradition of bringing the powerful to account, very often when the rule of law doesn't.
No question that there are plenty of newspapers whose only reason to exist is to make money, but saying that all newspapers are like that is showing monumental ignorance and intellectual laziness.
Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you remember the purpose of newspapers, and journalists generally is to "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"
And here I was thinking it was to "Report the news."
I guess that's why my newspaper subscription expired last week.
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Let's say there is some public corruption by a popular political figure. Should an organized group of partisan poll voters be able to spike the story just because they don't want to hear something bad?
No, that should be left up to the partisan editors of the media, such as in the Monica Lewinsky scandal [drudgereportarchives.com].
Now of course the media should be free to publish what they like, but don't fool yourself into thinking their only agenda is getting the truth out.
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Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want Fair and Balanced (tm), get two newspapers with diametrally different interests and orientations. Read them both. Then make up your mind, based on two conflicting lies.
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Re:Can't figure out who else might do this .. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, of course, the Monica Lewinsky scandal was worse than torture and phony wars.
I'll see your "Isikoff" and raise you one Robert Novak doing the bidding of Vice President Cheney in outing a CIA officer because her husband dared to criticize the Bush Administration.
Or Judith Miller acting on behalf of that same Bush Administration in printing Bush Administration press releases as "breaking news", leading to the War in Iraq.
You wanna wave a president's adultery around after eight years of Bush? A significant majority of Americans would rather have a President getting blowjobs every day from a different woman rather than having to live through the last eight years again.
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Somethings fishy here... (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh the irony of this comment & the story editor being timothy...
Publish and be damned! (Score:2)
Their marketing people are idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF do they think a newspaper is for? The minute you try to "democratize" is, politicians and PR types will try to game the system to make sure that only stories beneficial to them will get published.
Re:Their marketing people are idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there many non-PR types in "journalism" these days anyway?
Re:Their marketing people are idiots. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are there many non-PR types in "journalism" these days anyway?
Yes! Actual journalists - as in the people who write the news stories that you read in a newspaper or online, hear on the radio or ... maybe ... see on TV - are actually highly dedicated professionals who (for the most part) care deeply about truth and accuracy. Spokespeople, flacks, talking heads and gibbering mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann etc. are not journalists and represent a very tiny fraction of the "journalism" industry; they are just more visible, especially if you only watch TV news and don't read a newspaper.
Don't let the fact that FOX News is 99% eye candy or asinine talking heads fool you, since 99% of actual news published comes from real professional journalists. And these selfsame people you disparage are among the very best guarantors of your constitutional liberties and right to know what your government is up to.
Re:Their marketing people are idiots. (Score:4, Insightful)
> The minute you try to "democratize" is, politicians and PR types will try to game the system...
Too late, the politicians and PR types are already gaming the system.
Do I think stories in newspapers should be blindly moderated like slashdot comments? Oh hell no. But getting some outside feedback into the editorial loop certainly can't hurt a system to obviously broken. So yes, if the editors see a very negative reaction to a story they should take a look at WHY teh readers are saying ixnay on it, take a look into their complaint and see if they have a point. There should be a human editor in the loop though, if nothing else to stop the Colbert troll army, the 4chan troll army, etc.
Which of course brings me back to something I have said many times on many forums including this one. This is all moot because for the most part human editors NO LONGER EXIST. We all have this mental picture of the grizzled old editor ruthlessly marking up the poor reporter's copy and throwing it back to him for a rewrite. But they went out during the rounds of endless belt tightening in the MSM over the past decades. Look at the NYT, CNN, any major news website. Don't look at their blogs, look only at the real news copy. Bet you find a groaner spelling or grammer error within ten minutes even if you read at a below average speed. And if you read an article in a area where you know poo from shinola you will find a factual error in almost every story these days. And everyone interviewed will say at least one of their quotes got mangled between their mouth and the final copy. So much for the fresh faced right out college interns doing fact checking and following up on double checking the quotes. All that is gone. The average newspaper or TV network journalism is about as accurate as the better blogs. And increasingly the blogs are doing a better job because the blogs will mercilessly fact check each other.
If somebody could get a real old fashioned news organization back in the game I can't help but believe there is enough pent up demand for real journalism that it would find a revenue stream somehow. Ya know, journalism: where you report who did what, where and why they did it. Reported in depth, with extensive quotes and background and every quote and fact checked with a high enough accuracy rate to quickly gain a reputation as the fracking Voice of God. Then leave the opinions and analysis to the talking heads on cable news shows and blogs.
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Hate to break it to you, but for the most part reporters no longer exist. Give you an example (and you'll quickly see why I'm posting anonymously): if a company I own wants to have an article about it in run in a newspaper or magazine, I call my PR person and have them write the story. That's right, WE write the stories about OUR company. We then "shop" them to reporters. Sometimes they'll "buy" because they find the content genuinely interesting (this actually happens), sometimes we resort to incentives. T
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"There are other reasons, of course - dead tree format can't keep up with our favorite series of tubes, nor with the highly partisan and more entertainment-driven cable news channels."
The truth is we really don't care about the truth and we aren't willing to pay the money, that and too many people are too ignorant and uninformed to be even opening their mouth let alone giving such people 'equal time' or a voice that spreads misinformation, propaganda, and all other sort of socially toxic BS via the media.
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>politicians and PR types will try to game the system to make sure that only stories beneficial to them will get published.
Its already gamed by the ownership and editors. The trib runs right-wing in Chicago and endorsed Bush in 2004. Their slant and editorial is a force of its own. Adding a democractic element will off-set this.
the journalists, however, aren't stupid--at all (Score:2)
The journalists aren't idiots, however: they are going to continue to trade stories and (un)favorable coverage for benefits, like access to the rich and powerful, power trips, and book deals.
If you think that journalists at commercial newspapers have your best interests at heart, or that they give you unbiased coverage, you're a fool.
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WTF do they think a newspaper is for?
Journalists and the press are for uncovering and delivering news to the populace.
Newspapers are for making money.
They want to spin the news they way THEY want (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, they want to spin the news they way THEY want - both by how they report and what they choose to report or not. How could they stand it if people wanted them to report negative stories about Obama and positive stories about Bush?
A Democratic Press Might Well Favor Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
How could they stand it if people wanted them to report negative stories about Obama and positive stories about Bush?
Suppose all press outlets were run democratically, plurality vote, right now.
Given the current popularity of Obama [yahoo.com] and unpopularity of Bush, how many news outlets do you think would be publishing stories critical of Obama and positively reviewing the policies of the Bush era?
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How many are?
Generally, a newspaper writes what its readers want to read. For obvious reasons: If it didn't write what they want to read, they wouldn't buy it.
So, essentially, what this stunt is about is taking out the guesswork: I.e. finding out what your readers want to read before putting it into the paper. And it's all covered up by making the news "more democratic". Kinda clever move, if you ask me. Instead of racking your brain over the question what your readers want to read so they buy your newspape
Essentially a choice of two equal evils. (Score:2)
On one hand, you have the reporter's (note I do not refer to them as journalists) bias.
On the other hand, you could have them deep-sixed by someone else's biases.
In a case like this, there just isn't a "lesser" of two evils.
In Other News (Score:4, Funny)
Trust in Editorial Decisions Must Be Rebuilt (Score:5, Insightful)
This "review" process is already taking place -- it's why subscriptions are falling off a cliff. The product is crap, the readers know it's crap, which is why they're not buying it. Solution: Stop printing crap.
Clearly, their feedback mechanism has gotten seriously out of tune. I think also that they recognize this, and that the idea of allowing direct reader feedback on stories in the queue was born out of some desperation to correct their editorial priorities.
Here's a hint: Try to keep ideology at bay, and follow the facts wherever they take you. Yes, it's often uncomfortable. I imagine Woodward and Bernstein had many sleepless nights. Yet we are the better for their work. Emulate that. Oh, and spike any "story" about Paris Hilton.
Schwab
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Yep, everybody thinks the press is biased. I happen to think it's biased in a conservative direction. I also think that the reason newspapers and magazines are in trouble is not because their product is "crap." I think it's more because there is such a plethora of stuff to read on the internet that coincides precisely with readers' own biases that they gravitate towards that. Why bother with real news when you can fulfill your sense of outrage by reading Drudge?
Also, your first sentence doesn't make any
Trust comes with displays of good judgment. (Score:2)
I wish news organizations were failing because the most important issues to cover were covered so poorly. How many news agencies collaborated with the US government to sell us lies about the invasion and occupation of Iraq? We saw the multi-page spread mea culpa for Jayson Blair's lies but how about the far more important lies from the front pages of The New York Times by Judith Miller [counterpunch.org] (included planted stories referenced by Vice President Cheney on the Sunday morning talk shows: "There's a story in The N
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Wrong, subscriptions are falling off because it's much easier and convenient to read the paper on-line; and on-line papers are free and generate 1/10 the advertising rates.
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Read that again. It has nothing to do whatsoever with reporting, and everything to do with control. You see, editors control the news, by picking which stories get covered and how much. These editors allow their personal political feelings dictate this process, leading to a great be
And it's been so successful, too... (Score:2)
AP, April 22: "The Chicago Tribune cut 53 jobs on Wednesday as part of a newsroom reorganization designed to help it weather an economic downturn that has forced its parent company to seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors..."
What a "popular" newspaper would look like (Score:5, Interesting)
What a democratically decided newspaper would put on the front page today (via Yahoo search traffic):
Swine Flu
Christina Applegate
American Idol
Kristie Alley
Jon and Kate Plus Eight
Sarah Jessica Parker
Twitter
Hi-5
Lady Gaga
NBA
Source: http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/ [yahoo.com]
Three observations:
1) There are media outlets that cover pretty much exactly this list. Good for them. I don't read those and never will. I question their contribution to democracy.
2) I get news from a variety of social media filters, and almost none of the information I get from these very useful selection processes are from this list (the flu outbreak is the exception). That's not to say that my information is better than yours - just that it's what I happen to want.
3) Therefore: A more useful "democracy" strategy might be to help readers select from the vast array of information coming out of organizations like the Tribune and put that on the "front page" akin to Amazon's personalized homepage metrics.
As a journalist, I will say that allowing anyone outside the organization to spike a story pre-publication opens to the door wide open to self-censorship. Critical journalism requires independence, or it becomes PR. Critical journalism is rare enough as it is without this.
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What do you mean with "would"?
That is pretty much what a newspaper looks like today: Hype over some catastrophe that wouldn't be one without the hype, some celebrities that wouldn't be any without the media, some freaks, some lifestyle and sports.
Cheater (Score:2)
anyone can copy CNN's top stories!
On the serious side, you should have seen the number of pages devoted in the AJC to some RAP star's problems with the law and handguns. You would have sworn he was the most important person in the country.
What about censorship by owner? (Score:2)
Maybe those reporters and editors should also send the letter up the chain to their owners. How many times has a Murdoch or Packer dictated what can & can't be published?
It doesn't take much effort to determine the bias of the reporting source and adjust accordingly to the news being presented (*coff* Fox News *coff*). We shouldn't have to, but it's the way it is.
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Actually, I was just using Fox News as an example so people would understand what was being meant by a "slant" on reporting. I don't watch TV and the news sources I know about are from down here in Australia (News Corp vs FairFax vs ABC vs others :)
Figured I'd use Fox 'cos most of you lot are yanks - don't want to have people going "What's Fairfax????" :) :)
Or that Fox is indeed biased and hides it. (Score:2)
They try to hide a slant and call it "fair reporting".
Bias fail on your part.
My view on comments (Score:2)
With so many comments already posted, I doubt this will see the light of day, but in the hopes someone will read it:
I read Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] pretty regularly and its author has stated he doesn't want comments on his site because he feels it distracts from his own articles.
When I read a newspaper article, I am looking for a reporter's writing. While there is a lot wrong with journalism today, reading the comments on any newspaper website is like mucking through the dregs of human society. The anonymous natur
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It has less to do with the nature of the internet and more to do with the nature of the people on the internet. For the most part they post stupid comments because that is the best they can do.
I would especially like to thank AOL for its many years of contribution in this area.
Underestimating the reader (Score:2)
But This Is Chicago (Score:2)
I'm OK with their concern (Score:2)
I'm not a populist and wouldn't necessarily want community standards censoring publication.
The internet is the thing anyway by now. Just make sure there is a blog specifically designated as the "Wall of Shame" where readers can ridicule the stupidest, laziest, and fluffiest work. Not just the usual comments to editorial essays. All stories, as in, "Oh, Geez. The thousand-and-first story on the perfect cherry pie. Nothing important happened in the world today?"
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
"As long as they get to over-hype whatever story they want"
Isn't the idea of overhyping based on whoring out integrity to whatever sells, which would be the opposite of what is going on here? Just why are they overhyping if they aren't doing it for ratings?
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
I read it the other way. Basically, if we just follow what the majority want, then many stories that appeal to minority groups will be snuffed out. I can't speak for this newspaper, as I have never read it. If they are already just trying to provide sensational titles, with very little actual content, then sure, they don't care about the stories and are just about lining their wallets.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Interesting)
And I read it as the reporters using the idea that you just said to accomplish what the parent suspects. They're smart enough to know that that is a very real drawback to the plan, but they ought to be smart enough to take the feedback and do something with it.
It might be a case of readers collectively wanting to suppress something, but it might also be a case of readers wanting information about something else and wanting resources to be freed to get that information.
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the problem most reporters have is that they have a big struggle to get their editors to let them cover almost *anything* beyond a 3 column inch piece about something on the police blotter. The idea of adding yet another layer of `approval' to any story they're interested in doing real work on is enough to make them want to shoot themselves. ``I'm sorry Jane, the plebs have voted down your investigative report on the financial links between city council members and that corporation currently seeking exemption from planning processes - you'll need to toss the last two months work you've been doing on it. They voted up more stories about Britney.''
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Being preempted by Britney is a bitch in any world but what makes you think that preemption doesn't happen in the standard way because that is what sells? Fluff will always trump substance and is far safer / cheaper to produce. You don't piss off local advertisers (the real ones paying for the paper) that way.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the reporters care what you think of their stories? They're here to report, not to butter you up.
If I want news report that aims to please the masses, I'll go watch Fox News.
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everyone knows that "fair and balanced" means balancing out the other side.
You know, that is the first time anyone has ever explained that phrase to me in a way that made sense. Taken from that vantage point, FOX News actually is healthily supporting balance by being a counterpart to other networks.
The problem is that your suggested context is not what FOX claims to be. Remember their other tagline, "We report. You decide?" That strongly implies impartiality on their part, which, come on - nobody can claim with a straight face. FOX is so blatant in their bias that they are general
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"Reality has a well known liberal bias." -- Stephen Colbert
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It's the evil liberal media conspiracy, trying to suppress the truth of Obama's evil! Where can I sign up for your newsletter?
In other votes. (Score:4, Insightful)
"In other words, the reporters don't care what the readers think of their stories."
The readers indicate their care by either purchasing or not purchasing the newspaper.
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Bit difficult to un-purchase a newspaper after you have read the story.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the reporters don't care what the readers think of their stories. As long as they get to over-hype whatever story they want (a brown nose Obama story, or a effusive global warming rant), they don't care if nobody wants to buy the paper.
I read it as the reporters wanting to publish news, rather that was fits best with the marketing.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps they have things to say that people don't necessarily want to hear or believe.
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Exactly!
Now, I'm sure the Tribune's marketeers will whine like crazy that their subscription readership numbers are declining. I'm sure they are - I'm a subscriber to their South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose overall page count has been dropping like a rock the last 2 years. Comic strips have been dropped to save space, the financial pages are now a single page of pure drivel, and the list goes on.
What they need to realize is that, yes, we the computer-literate can read the same AP or Reuters articles to our
Democracy in Publishing isn't... (Score:3, Insightful)
... vote by approval for a story. It's the ability to have multiple perspectives on a topic published. Ideally, by anyone, but failing that, a fairly representative set of perspectives.
Being able to vote stories up or down could be disastrous when popular opinion and the truth of the content aren't relevant. Are you worried about brown-nosing Obama stories? Obama's pretty popular right now. A press run via democracy might be less likely to publish stories critical of him (or of climate change, for that matt
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Objective reporting would attract readers of all stripes since the who, what, where, when and why, AKA facts (not opinions) are what we, the news consumers, are looking for.
If I want opinion I will read Ann Landers.
Good riddance Boston Globe!
Re:Reason #9883459 (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not selling the newspaper, they're selling ad space. The paper isn't the product, you're the product.
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That's a short-sighted way to look at it. The readers are customers as well. Especially if they pay for the news paper. But even if it is free they will cease to read the paper if it fails to provide them with valuable reading material.
In other words, the news paper provides a service and has two customers: the readers and the advertisers. If either one goes away the paper fails. It must continuously service both. Therefore they are both customers.
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They're not selling the newspaper, they're selling ad space. The paper isn't the product, you're the product.
Readers are customers - it's just that the currency is eyeballs, not dollars.
That is utter bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they are selling ad space, then why don't they stop publishing anything at all and sell a publication with ads only?
The newspaper lives and dies by its content, no content, no readers, no readers, no sales and no ads.
Newspapers should look for a business model that takes them back to their original roots: people paying for opinion. When they gave so much prominence to advertisement as the main tool for their survival they moved into the territory of marketing people and all kind of varied snake oil peddl
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I disagree with you pretty much completely. Your premise seems to be that the reporters' job is to do whatever pleases the public regardless of whether or not it's journalism. Wrong. As long as they're selling a newspaper it will be assumed that they're doing it with journalistic integrity. If readers understood that the stories were being targeted at their "preferences" (read biases), they would quit reading it and go someplace else for their news. Even Fox News understands this -- why do you think th
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My local paper tried to match the product they sold to the market demand several years ago. They did a study, found out what the market thought it wanted, implemented the changes. The result sucks and it hasn't helped the company financials one bit. Sorry, but the market is lousy at communicating what it wants. If you give customers what they want, they'll buy it, but if you give them what they ask for, most of the time (the 'most' is to allow for that tiny portion of customers who really do know what they
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You hit the nail on the head harder than you know. What you're asking for there is exactly what people who responded to the study I mentioned said. As a result, the world section over the years since then went from a full section down to (checks recent paper) about half the size of a post card (the rest of the page is ads, so it's easy to miss that it still exists). We got plenty of coverage when our mayor turned out to be a pedophile (we still have a couple more days before a new mayor gets elected, so we'
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Kudos to the editors for attempting something different -- trying to match the product they sell to the market demand.
I don't think you understand what's going on at all. The marketing department were the ones trying to adjust the news to meet "market demand" (apparently -- it wasn't clear just what they were trying to do). The editors were the ones raising the red flag.
News that is "sold" as an entertainment product designed to match "market demand" is inherently corrupt. Any organization that is attempting to foist off that kind of insidious manipulation as information should be destroyed.
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To my experience, I don't recall any major source dropping a presidential address in favor of any particular show -- most often the most favored shows are cancelled for crap like presidential addresses and debates. I'm not saying it has never happened before, but it is the first time I have ever seen that.
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Oy! Fox taking sides.
Fox is NOT the only one takings sides. At least with Fox, if a politician is caught in a bathroom with someone, the word "Democrat" or "Republican" is used in the first sentence.
All the other major TV and Newspaper outlets will feature the word "Republican" in the first paragraph but will not use the word "Democrat" till the 4th or 5th paragraph
As in "Vermont Sentator So and So (Republican) was caught doing something. Is right up front. But "Utah Senator So and So was caught doing somet
Re:"The News" is supposed to be a historical recor (Score:5, Informative)
I once worked for the Dallas Observer, a largely editorial news weekly rag. The music editor wrote an opinion piece that stated things largely as he saw them. It insulted, in some way, one of the paper's advertisers. The music editor lost his job as the advertiser would accept nothing less.
This is a true tragedy in the world of journalism. The editorial and sales sides are always at odds with one another, but I have never seen editorial win... not ever.
To their credit, the journalists at that paper truly work in the spirit that the press is supposed to work under. I have witnessed the animosity first-hand. But too often, money wins.
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Correction, "money TODAY wins".
Any business that relies on 'Sales' making business decisions about other departments is one of the first signs the business is starting to fail.
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God, so many right wingers have a delusional persecution complex, making up these false generalizations which are just BS you pulled out of your ass. Care to b
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"Stupidity" is not contained by racial lines. The investment brokers needed a "new product" to market and sell because the new products give the highest and quickest returns... usually because people don't know what they are getting into yet. (That's why the dot-com bubble occurred.) They got lending rules relaxed even more than Clinton did and suddenly people who weren't qualified could buy things they couldn't afford. Smart people never buy things they can't afford. Stupid people do it all the time.
Re:Arrogant Out of Touch Dolts (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, are an idiot.
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So, you want to subscribe to each other's newsletters. Get a room, you two!
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Problem is.... parent is correct (bad form not withstanding). OP is pure over-generalized rhetorical spewage.
There's a reason they call it the Fourth Estate (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1st Amendment was first for a reason. Ever wonder why?
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Newspapers worked and they worked f
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"Science does not emerge from party politics or public debate" - the same is true of good journalism. Journalism, like academia, has a long tradition of having its own standards and practices. These traditions have served society well when they have been allowed to operate - the values taught in journalism schools lead to better news than those that would emerge from the crowd, just as peer review, the scientific method, and other academic traditions lead to better science.
You may take joy in being one of t
in bed with power (Score:2)
With few exceptions, journalists are in bed with whoever is in power and whoever has money.
What media organization defended "lies in news"? (Score:2)
Fox.
When they were challenged for truth in reporting, they dismissed it as entertainment that didn't need fact checking.
It's not dissent as much as it's a far right-wing pulpit with token elements of opposition. Never mind that they frequently harass Turner & Cox as if Atlanta was made of evil.
No, I don't work for either of them. I just know that CNN isn't the only one who crosses the line of journalistic integrity.