to be sad journalism is dead?

[PoodlesOfFund]

Just that really. I was reading an article on the crisis in America where immigrant children are being seperated from their parents and all I could think was that the author of the aritcle was so spectacually bad and this is what we have to look forward to FOREVER. An article on a story that I have been following with interest and that I find completly tragic and what I am focused on is the shitness of the writing, because it is literally that bad. I'm so fed up with articles that are basically about the author, and the relationship they're trying to build with you in the article iyswim. I don't want to be his mate. Obviously, there are articles that can be written that way, but when something is about a factual tradgedy happening to children don't say "and now I'm going to really going to make you cry". that's fine on a fluff story about someone's nan passing. I'm not wrong am I?

Is there a way to get it back or have we been ruined byt the internet and it has to hit us in the feelz in under 4 minutes?

And don't try and pick apart my writing, I know it's shit, that's why I don't inflict it on others

I completely agree. Everything is ‘dumbed down’ and skewed to the point of view of the author. Even the weather forecast, e.g. ‘the weather is going to be bad in the South’ - bad for the author maybe but good for farmers etc.

There’s still good journalism around. It just depends where you look.

Unfortunately the way people read online and the demand for quick, easy reads means there’s a constant churn of light or low quality background noise.

It’s there though.

In general life as well as in journalism, we seem to have lost all sense of objectivity.

I pretty much blame capitalism and consumerism for everything, but I think it's particularly apparent.

We have been nurtured as consumers since birth. To create a successful consumer, the system must imbue a sense of entitlement and "optimum selfhood" into us. It's all about "me", and my needs must be filled (with products/services to stoke the capitalist machine). This has seeped into everything. It's why we're currently mired in identity politics.

Might have gone off on a bit of a tangent there...

Don't worry OP, there are plenty of shit journalists planting shit stories on MN.

Yes there is good journalism, eg Amelia Gentleman's series of articles about the Windrush generation.

But there's also bad journalism - eg:

relying on twitter, MN etc for "stories"

putting together a large collection of random photos taken by passers by, without any thought of whether they add anything to the story

taking press releases and regurgitating them wholesale

"live" blow by blow accounts of what's happening without any summary or analysis - OK for people who are so involved with what's happening and are constantly checking their pone for minute-by-minute updates, but those of us who read the news once a day want a summary of what's happened and some expert analysis of what it might mean.

Even the weather forecast, e.g. ‘the weather is going to be bad in the South’ - bad for the author maybe but good for farmers etc. - not only that, but there was talk a couple of years back of making the weather forecast more "relevant" by focussing it on the areas where people lived.

In other words, good forecasts for people for whom rain means "take an umbrella" and less good forecasts for people whose livelihood depends on the weather, or hill walkers, cavers whose lives may be at risk if the weather forecast is not accurate.

I really don't get this bizarre idea that we've 'lost objectivity' - when did we have it?? Was the world a lovely, objective and rational place when hotels had signs up saying 'No dogs, no blacks, no Irish'? Were were wonderfully objective about homosexuality when it was illegal? Was it a sign of magnificent objectivity when it was legal to advertise a male and female wage for a job, the female wage often being less than half of the male wage?

Yes there's a lot of shit on the internet. That's an information issue. But I can't help but feel that this endless handwringing about 'objectivity' is coming from straight white men lamenting a time when whatever they thought and felt was The Right Thing. Now that they have to listen to other people who aren't them, they're suddenly up in arms about the poor quality of information - with absolutely no thought to how women or black people felt for the many many years when, as far as the media were concerned they either didn't exist or only existed as sex objects/figures of hatred.

Things are in transition. It's a bit messy. All going well it'll straighten out into a new set up where there are standards again, but those standards aren't 'if you're not white and male we don't want to know.'

BTW there's always been crappy journalism, it's just that the nature of it has changed.

I think you need to read a different news outlet then. The writing in the Sun is a very different tone to the Telegraph because they have a different readership - maybe find one that suits you more closely?
Half the time journalists are modified in tone to suit their papers style guide, so it's not always the poor journo's fault.

Journalism is dead because you read a bad article? Ok...

You've posted this literally the day after the Paul Foot Award. Have a read:

www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award

Out of interest, how much journalism do you directly pay for in terms of subscriptions, printed media etc.? The best quality writing I read is the Economist, for which I pay over £200 a year. It's hardly surprising that if readers spend less money that there is less to invest in people.

There's certainly a lot of dumbing down out there.

Don't worry OP, there are plenty of shit journalists planting shit stories on MN.

Have you ever for your own amusement googled "mumsnet the daily mail" We only notice when a penis beaker hits the news but they steals LOADS, every day. And not just the dm, the Guardian, The Telegraph. I think the Times are the only ones that don't whole sale copy and paste MN.

But I can't help but feel that this endless handwringing about 'objectivity' is coming from straight white men lamenting a time when whatever they thought and felt was The Right Thing.

If anyone had said they want to go back to a time of "traditional values" etc you may have had a point. But we're discussing objective journalism which was more about traditionally trained journalists, those were usually the ones were exposing injustice. Was it a white sausage fest, yes. Of course, just as it is now. The difference is it seems to be a white sausage fest of naval gazing whining twenty something males who can barely spell. The "news" agencies that are meant to breaking up the stale,male, and pale are more of the same and run by men. Half the fucking feminist news sites are run by men.

I think you need to read a different news outlet then. The writing in the Sun is a very different tone to the Telegraph because they have a different readership - maybe find one that suits you more closely?

I kind of this is part of the problem though^. We've got to a situation recently where you pick a paper because it tells you what you want to hear specifically. I know that's kind of been the case for a long time but it seems to have gotten worse, do you not think? Especially with the way social media chooses the stories it knows you care about and the sort of papers you will find interesting and then force feeds you a diet of more of the same. I should be able to dip in to anything labeled news and even if I disagree with the over all tone think it seems reasonable enough.

Journalism is dead because you read a bad article? Ok...

Yes, exactly also thank you for illustrating so well why the news has had to be dumbed down for people to understand the meaning.

Out of interest, how much journalism do you directly pay for in terms of subscriptions, printed media etc.? The best quality writing I read is the Economist, for which I pay over £200 a year. It's hardly surprising that if readers spend less money that there is less to invest in people.

I did have a Times subscription until a few months ago but had some issues my student discount and I haven't had it since then. I'm a student and parent, so obviously skint. I wonder if there is a way to make it easier for people to PAYG the way you do with a broad sheet? like if you sign up for an account and you can pay per article. I'm bit confused why the content isn't paying for itself with advertising though? Like the DM is the biggest online newspaper in the English speaking world I believe. How does that not make a fortune off advertising alone?

"Journalism is dead" is a bit of a hyperbole. I was reading the nominees for Private Eye's Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism yesterday and they are all really strong. "There are a lot of shit articles/journalists out there" - well that's always been the case, we just have wider access to more stuff now

Also paying for a yearly sub forces brand loyalty. It would be nice if people get a diverse set of ideas thourgh being able to read other papers. LIke paying for a cable subscription gets you multiple channels, can you do that with online newspapers?

well that's always been the case, we just have wider access to more stuff now

It's not even wider access though, there's just tons more.

And there is a definte difference in the actual editing in the past few years. Even I Queen of the Type, Princess of Shit Spelling spot the errors all the time.