And then I would describe the motivation more as “career success” than “political benefit”. As in getting a big scoop or writing a successful story, more than pushing a particular agenda.
This gets subtle. I can think of several cases where journalists sat on what would have been delicious scandals that should be good for a career, for what look like political reasons. That said, if one looks closer, it’s plausible that, in each case, they reasoned (plausibly correctly) that it would not have actually been good for their career to publish it, because they would have faced backlash (for political/tribal reasons), and possibly their editors (if applicable) would have refused to allow it. I imagine there is partial but incomplete equivalence between this kind of “externally imposed political motivation” versus “internalized political motivation”, and it may be worth tracking the difference.
That’s for omitting stories. For lying… On priors, that difference of external vs internal political motivation would be important: the latter would encourage a journalist to come up with new lies and use them, while the former would mostly just make them go along with lies that the rest of their tribe is already telling. I do see plenty of “going along with lies” and not much innovative mendacity; I’ll note that the “lies” I refer to are usually “not technically false, but cherry-picked and/or misleadingly phrased, which a normal person will hear and predictably come away believing a statement that is false; and which a journalist who felt a strong duty to tell the truth as best they could would not say absent stronger external pressure”. (See Zvi on bounded distrust.)
This gets subtle. I can think of several cases where journalists sat on what would have been delicious scandals that should be good for a career, for what look like political reasons. That said, if one looks closer, it’s plausible that, in each case, they reasoned (plausibly correctly) that it would not have actually been good for their career to publish it, because they would have faced backlash (for political/tribal reasons), and possibly their editors (if applicable) would have refused to allow it. I imagine there is partial but incomplete equivalence between this kind of “externally imposed political motivation” versus “internalized political motivation”, and it may be worth tracking the difference.
That’s for omitting stories. For lying… On priors, that difference of external vs internal political motivation would be important: the latter would encourage a journalist to come up with new lies and use them, while the former would mostly just make them go along with lies that the rest of their tribe is already telling. I do see plenty of “going along with lies” and not much innovative mendacity; I’ll note that the “lies” I refer to are usually “not technically false, but cherry-picked and/or misleadingly phrased, which a normal person will hear and predictably come away believing a statement that is false; and which a journalist who felt a strong duty to tell the truth as best they could would not say absent stronger external pressure”. (See Zvi on bounded distrust.)
Re going along with lies—Yeah, I think the coverage of data center water usage has been an example of that at its worst :/
Re journalists sitting on scoops—I’m curious if you’re able to share any examples? I don’t doubt that it happens.