American News Lost Its Nerve | Hacker News Reader

American News Lost Its Nerve

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34 pointssharkweek16 comments

I think the frame here is just off. There are two things happening:

1) It is so cheap to communicate there is no point going through the media. Wikileaks maintained their own website to get information out, the interaction with journalists seemed to be a little bit of a nod to a world that is rapidly disappearing. In Australia, we've had some very hard-hitting investigative work done by some random YouTuber called friendlyjordies who poked a bear that the media would never touch and got himself firebombed, twice. We don't seem to need the media to be bold to get big stories out there now; people with big stories can just tell them directly to the world.

2) I think it is highly suspect that the media have ever really been bold storytellers. It is much more likely that they've been playing defence for the rich and powerful pretty much forever. Since the internet has become a serious force we've discovered that the corporate media are not only remarkably homogeneous, but also dumber and more willing to suppress stories than might reasonably anticipated in the 90s and also highly entrenched with the existing political elite. Their death at the hands of the swarm of podcasters and influences is much deserved and will hopefully play out.

There is a bit more nuance in the "playing defence for the rich and powerful" that has been somewhat lost over the last few years.

For starters, I don't think print/broadcast journalism has ever been truly independent. As an example, to work for the BBC in the past you had to have the "right" background so naturally they protected their own. That attitude was pervasive in print journalism (even the so called "red tops" did that). It was less a conspiracy and more of the expression of the class system, even in the US.

Point (2) though I think is largely correct. There seems to be no "golden age" of bold journalism. Certainly we have waxing and waning yellow journalism but that's about it.

What has been truly lost is the ability of the 4th estate to establish a single narrative. Thanks to the algorithms of our search barons, each of us is trapped in an individual cone of narrative and none of us really share one any more. That to me is the biggest problem with the modern news cycle. It fosters extremism.

The moderate position in the US appears to be building Chinese manufacturing excellence, forever wars and a path to some sort of bankruptcy-style debt monetisation crisis. That has been the consensus position across both major US parties for around 50 years.

The moderate path in Europe has been to push software dominance to the US and manufacturing excellence to China. They appear to have failed to keep the peace in Europe to the point where there is a major and apparently escalating war afoot on the continent. The energy crisis is ongoing too.

What are the extremists going to threaten us with?

Random acts of grievance related violence if the US is anything to go by. It won't be a coordinated threat, more of a disturbing side effect of being able to cocoon yourself in wild conspiracies combined with the general rage that comes with billionaires telling us it's our fault all the manufacturing jobs went to China. Look what you made me do!

> lost is the ability of the 4th estate to establish a single narrative

For a brief while, radio and then television reigned. They were a tight little oligopoly. The only other news came from periodicals that "weird uncles" might read. That was the era of the single narrative.

Then there was the rise of cable and in the US, the loosening of rules that led to the talk radio boom, then finally the Internet. The carefully-groomed narrative gave way to cacophony.

Today the fingerprints of government are all over main news sources, be that "ex-" spooks actually on camera on network broadcasts or active government interference with Internet feeds. We've always had government trying to stop reporting and censor, but this seems like a different magnitude of involvement. I'm more concerned about that, frankly.

> It fosters extremism.

Disagree. I think it fosters quarrels. Everyone being encouraged to conform fosters extremism, from the fascist movements of the 20th century to the red scare to the cold war, people were required to salute and stop thinking or else they're not "one of us."

This is a considered response and it raises a good point. What fostered extremism and then conformance in fascism (or Stalinism): The threat of violence and a surveillance state.

We certainly have the ingredients for authoritarian takeover in much of what are democracies, All it will take is somebody to harness them together.

It's interesting to me that the examples mentioned as milestones against free journalism are also cases in which I sided with those doing the accusations. If the fall of Gawker and the judgements against Fox News is what it takes to take down journalism, and/or if our hopes for salvation rest on the shoulders of Axel Springer, then maybe journalism has been doomed for a while?

I'm optimistic there are other, better examples for the points the author is making. I just found it odd that they would choose those specific ones.

I like Breaking News (Youtube, et al). Supposedly, the founders left WaPo to start it. I wouldn't know about that. They focus on political issues and sensationalize to a degree, but I think it's watchable for some topics.

They rarely push back against hate, lies, or nonsense because it's a for-profit endeavor all about cultivating access to celebrities and outrage.

All else aside I love the color palette

Make Journalists Well-Paid Again

“Balls = Unemployment”

A small price to pay. :)

What?

I'm disappointed that this was a partisan piece. The behavior described is bi-partisan. The news agencies described as "gutted" behaved in abusive manners against ordinary people of the opposite political perspective.

When one partisan side blames the other side for something. It's reasonable to expect the blame is cover for the same actions in reverse. Some sort of projection. I'm about to break out my nano violin for the unemployed hatchet "journalists". Anyone who wants to claim the moral high ground should at least take a broader analysis of the rules. And apply the same rules to everyone.

As far as I'm concerned, it's time for these slander propagandists to pay the piper. They should live with the the same consequences they preached a few years ago. When they had more power.

But we live with rules, so they are free to form their own independent channels.

The article is kind of all over the place. Let's see ..

- It says one of the reasons is that people (Trump) threatened to "open up libel laws". Which, didn't happen, but even if it did .. they "lost their nerve" because someone threatened that they'll actually be liable if they lie? Maybe if they didn't constantly lie they wouldn't have to worry about consequences for lying?

- It makes vague claims about how the news fears to say bad things about people/companies because they'll pull their support .. as if that wasn't always a thing? How about if they just do fair, impartial journalism, rather than biased political hit pieces? Then people wouldn't get so outraged and pull out of your platform?

- I like how it swaps around cause and effect. It argues that lawyers suing media organizations have become more common, and so they've "lost their nerve" as an effect. No ... it's the other way around .. media organizations becoming absolute trash, biased, profit seeking, propaganda peddlers have resulted in them being sued more often.

>someone threatened that they'll actually be liable if they lie? Maybe if they didn't constantly lie they wouldn't have to worry about consequences for lying?

The libel laws are already such that they're liable for damages caused by lying. "Opening up the libel laws" would presumably entail incurring liability for printing inconvenient truths.

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