A cruxy thing for me is “Is the current regime of journalism representative of all eras of journalism?”. Was there a time when journalism was more in touch with object-level reality, even if it was still largely or primarily about social reality?
On one hand, I can think of examples of yellow journalism and other social-reality-oriented writing from Awhile Ago. On other hand, the current news cycle seems much worse than the new cycle from 50 years ago. I have stories in my head about how the first TV broadcast presidential debate shifted the focus from “who could speak better” to “who looked better”, and various other increases in partisanship and soundbyteness.
I think I agree with Wentworth elsethread that it’s best not to get distracted by politics when you’re interested in policy. But still seems worth at least briefly noting that politics could be better than it is.
A cruxy thing for me is “Is the current regime of journalism representative of all eras of journalism?”. Was there a time when journalism was more in touch with object-level reality, even if it was still largely or primarily about social reality?
On one hand, I can think of examples of yellow journalism and other social-reality-oriented writing from Awhile Ago. On other hand, the current news cycle seems much worse than the new cycle from 50 years ago. I have stories in my head about how the first TV broadcast presidential debate shifted the focus from “who could speak better” to “who looked better”, and various other increases in partisanship and soundbyteness.
I think I agree with Wentworth elsethread that it’s best not to get distracted by politics when you’re interested in policy. But still seems worth at least briefly noting that politics could be better than it is.
Paul Graham’s The Refragmentation argues that mainstream media 50 years ago in the US was a rare and fragile historical anomaly.