Your comment is well-received. I’m continuing to to think about it and what this means for finding reliable media sources.
My impression of journalists has always been that they would be fairly idealistic about information and communicating that information to be attracted to their profession. I also imagine that their goals are constantly antagonized by the goals of their bosses, that do want to make money, and probably it is the case that the most successful sell-out or find a good trade-off that is not entirely ideal for them or the critical reader.
I’ll link this article by Michael Volkmann, a disillusioned journalist.
My impression of journalists has always been that they would be fairly idealistic about information and communicating that information to be attracted to their profession.
Unfortunately, in practice this frequently translates to “show the world how evil those blues are even if I have to bend the literal truth a little to do it.”
My feeling is that quest is misguided. There is no such thing as a pure spring which gushes only truth—you cannot find one.
My own approach is to accept that reality is fuzzy, multilayered, multidimensional, looks very different from different angles, and is almost always folded, spindled, and mutilated for the purpose of producing a coherent and attractive story. Read lots of different (but, hopefully, smart and well-informed) sources which disagree with each other. Together they will weave a rich tapestry which might not coalesce into a simple picture but will be more “true”, in a way, than a straight narrative.
Having said this, I should point out that adding pretty clear lies to the mix is not useful and there are enough sources sufficiently tainted to just ignore.
The link is making a different argument—it says the problem isn’t with the journalists or with their bosses, it’s that the public isn’t paying attention to the stories journalists are risking their necks to get.
Your comment is well-received. I’m continuing to to think about it and what this means for finding reliable media sources.
My impression of journalists has always been that they would be fairly idealistic about information and communicating that information to be attracted to their profession. I also imagine that their goals are constantly antagonized by the goals of their bosses, that do want to make money, and probably it is the case that the most successful sell-out or find a good trade-off that is not entirely ideal for them or the critical reader.
I’ll link this article by Michael Volkmann, a disillusioned journalist.
Unfortunately, in practice this frequently translates to “show the world how evil those blues are even if I have to bend the literal truth a little to do it.”
My feeling is that quest is misguided. There is no such thing as a pure spring which gushes only truth—you cannot find one.
My own approach is to accept that reality is fuzzy, multilayered, multidimensional, looks very different from different angles, and is almost always folded, spindled, and mutilated for the purpose of producing a coherent and attractive story. Read lots of different (but, hopefully, smart and well-informed) sources which disagree with each other. Together they will weave a rich tapestry which might not coalesce into a simple picture but will be more “true”, in a way, than a straight narrative.
Having said this, I should point out that adding pretty clear lies to the mix is not useful and there are enough sources sufficiently tainted to just ignore.
The link is making a different argument—it says the problem isn’t with the journalists or with their bosses, it’s that the public isn’t paying attention to the stories journalists are risking their necks to get.
True. I linked the article as an example of the idealistic journalist, one that is disappointed that his motives are distrusted by the public.