To protect democracy, journalists need to learn to think like hackers and spies | Hacker News Reader

To protect democracy, journalists need to learn to think like hackers and spies

thecorrespondent.com

60 pointsdredmorbius55 comments

It feels insanely presumptuous to hear this stuff.

Democracy? Since when are we a democracy? Oh, because it's a popular term used in media and vernacular? So are Fruit Loops, who cares?

Let me try an alternate framing: democracy is a brand, a feel-good term for political rhetoric. This is what democracy looks like: https://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/Components/ArtAndPhoto-...

What is actually (though unpopularly) valuable in our society is not democracy, but the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law. Democracy gets the applause, but they do the heavy lifting.

By all means, cover elections, blow the whistle on crap. But if you're scratching your head wondering why the media's popularity is at an all-time low, maybe it's because there's this onanistic self-regard that places the media above the citizen.

Tucker Carlson just broke the record for most-watched month of any cable news show ever. If that offends you as a journalist, it's probably time for some introspection.

How is “the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law” doing any lifting? You have to vote for people to implement those things.

Ideally you’d have a well educated populace and a functional media to make sure the best people get elected though... Is there a better system for making politicians accountable to citizens?

> You have to vote for people to implement those things.

Not really. We didn't vote for Amy Coney Barrett, or anyone else on the supreme court, but ultimately, they -- and the myriad other judges -- are the ones who protect the populace, via rule of law, from a government of any political party interfering in the fundamental rights -- as outlined in the Constitution -- over which the government has no authority to legislate over.

EDIT: That is to say, I am not someone who feels super-well-represented by any political party or candidate. Despite the fact that I prefer Trump over Biden, I don't like everything about the man, by any means. But honestly, whether he wins or not, I don't really care, because I trust our Constitution via the judiciary (and legislation, when necessary) to guarantee to me what I care most about... the freedom to practice my religion and to speak what I think.

The Supreme Court and what army/purse? Brown v Board wouldn't have had teeth if Wallace was the president, for example.

"What is actually (though unpopularly) valuable in our society is not democracy, but the Bill of Rights, high trust, and rule of law"

All of these mean nothing if the people in charge are not held accountable for their actions/policies. And people who stay in power for long periods of time, tend to not be huge fans of accountability when it comes to their practices.

47 years is pretty long.

Those things you mentioned are pieces of paper and phantasms. Only an engaged populace can hold elites in check. Why would they do anything except what benefits them otherwise?

I'm not sure I understand what changes you are advocating. Can you explain?

It seems to me that people like Tucker Carlson are precisely those who are a threat to rights and trust.

? Sure, america isn't very democratic compared to other democracies, but what are you actually saying?

That since the american democracy is already weak, it should be abandoned?

Sure, more people watch some crazy person on fox rather than actual news, but is that a reason to stop with news altogether?

The TLDR of this would be: this is a call to action for people who value democracy to stand up for it. If you dislike democracy, then this is obviously not for you...

Election of representatives via an accurate count of cast ballots is the Law of the land. Undermining that would erode both the rule of law and societal trust. And without those two things, your bill of rights is just a scrap of paper and your court is just a set of 9 frail people with no army to back them.

Small-d democracy -- the orderly selection of representatives via a vote of the enfranchised citizens -- is absolutely the bedrock of the American political system and its best bulwark against political violence.

Tbh I thought the article's autocratic fear-mongering was overblown bullshit, but the top comment on this story lauds a pro-Trump commentary show and insists that ending democracy isn't really such a big deal after all. So, here we are, I guess.

Journalists need to learn the basic ethics. Take sides when you analyze, don't take sides when you seek facts. Edit to write sharper articles, don't edit to take people's words out of context. Be creative to find truth, don't be creative to fit everything into your own narrative, and certainly don't fabricate history to win Pulitzer.

Not only is learning ethics essential for them but also we have to pay journalists in ways other than having them work for media organizations whose income is based on ratings. Chasing ratings has ruined many news organizations over the past 50 or so years.

Given the structure of reporting today, I don't see how that can be achieved in any easy way.

We have journalists. Then we have sponsored news outlets. We have websites sponsored by different groups. What about an average person? he is not equipped with money and technology to publish his opinion in a very meaningful and informative way. We can solve this problem. I am looking to have something like a WordPress for news, where we can use open source technology to curate news, do news analytics and publish. If you believe the majority of people are kind and trustworthy, and if they are able to express themselves to compete with sponsored outlets, we may be able to do it.

I've always thought hackers/security folks have better politics (in both directions) because they're used to thinking in terms of systems.

I would love if journalists also took the time to think about how the parties use the equivalent of social engineering to control the news cycle and bring about changes that aren't healthy for journalism or democracy

On the other hand, if journalists thought more about how the news cycle/public is nefariously manipulated, journalists might just get better at nefariously manipulating it. It's certainly within their economic interest.

I think they already do.

But they have to convince management to publish important stories instead of the stories that pay their bills. Is it really that surprising that it's an uphill battle?

The question we need to answer is "how are we going to pay the salaries of investigative journalists?"

Or they could become journalist again, because if you look at the trust in this journalist lately they are at a alltime low and these arrogant articles are why.

Are you willing to pay them for that?

Nope and I guess this why they changed business tactics

Market-based solutions to news and journalism are the problem and always have been.

What journalism is actually for, and how capitalism actually works, are completely at odds.

I have no answers on how this can be squared.

Seems to me there's much discussion not related at all to the substance of the article. I was hoping for better than this.

The recommendation: the big national news providers – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post – should have threat modelling teams, just as they all have pollsters. These teams would try to identify the most serious threats to a free and fair election and to US democracy over the next three months, so that their newsrooms can take appropriate action.

I'm assuming it's because of the time the article was posted. Comments are always pretty garbage in the early morning on anything remotely political. They will get better and upvotes will adjust to represent substantive discussion as we enter the waking hours in the USA.

Same here...

But what can you do when a large part of commenters are arguing against democracy?

Fwiw at the time this article was posted it was like 3am in the us. Comments on optical stories are always low-quality flame bait this time of day, either because they're from non-Americans because of the sort of people who tend to comment in the early morning in their own time zone. Give it a few more hours.

Great point. The recommendation of the article seems pretty straightforward and uncontentious.

Not that I'm a fan of the major national news media but anything they can do to up their game I'd not be against.

I'm too young to recall the past in rose tinted glasses, but recently I've started to be more skeptical by day if "objective journalism" or even "journalism", as the third check of balance of power that is usually taught in schools, was ever a thing.

On another HN post about fast.ai CoC debacle someone pointed out that media before the 20th century was not much more different than twitter today; a lot of rumours, unchecked facts, misinformation, you name it.

More and more it seems like the high paragon of journalism that most journalists claims as an excuse is just that; an idealized excuse. It reminds me of old religious zealots shoving some holy texts in front of you to show how "good" they are, but if you dare peek behind their back, you'd see a mountain of bodies. Point that out and you can see truly how remarkably fast an human brain can compute hundreds of excuses.

Studying media history and theory is useful, all the more so when you realise that a major component of the high (information) technology sector is really just the current leading edge of a long history of media and communications.[1] I've compiled a bibliography (and am still working through it myself):

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...

The technology both affects and interoperates with social and individual dynamics --- characteristics and limitations of understanding and processing information, distortions and manipulations.

The era of principled professional journalism began afteer Walter Lippmann published Public Opinion in 1922 and arguably peaked in the 1970s in the U.S. Its decline has been accelerating through the Internet era, notably following the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis, and possibly facing its death knell with the Covid Depression.

Humans are story-generating systems. Some stories are simple entertainment, some tribe-building, some sense-making, some rationalisation, the last often including denial.

________________________________

Notes:

1. Other major divisions are control systems, business and financial systems, and scientific sensing and processing.

Title should read “To protect a republic ...”

But then again, pure democracy is a tyranny over minority so it could also be that instead.

As long as journalists continue to pretend the entire Steele dossier wasn’t fabricated, as long as they continue to push false narratives about Russian interference, I’m willing to turn a blind eye should anything bad happen to them.

I first only saw part of the title until the word "think" and it made perfect sense to me without the rest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com