In a dramatic departure from my usual, I signed up for the New York Daily News on-line. Every AM, (5:34 today), there is an e-mail: "Your e-newspaper has arrive." What has arrived is the front page mostly made up of The Headline. A week ago: Cuomo: Stay Away with your germs! to states with a Corona virus upswing. Today, we get this:
Here is the story, "Worst Year. Ever."
Having read the News headline, I turn to the Times, whose lecturing has turned to all-section hectoring, except "news," which simply lectures. Today Dowd and Douthat are MIA from the Sunday Review and we have: "What the Economy Needs?" Worst Year Ever, indeed.
I hadn't been familiar with the New York Daily News. I assume it has a different editorial alignment than the NYT? The picture of the dumpster fire does grab one's attention.
ReplyDeleteHectoring and lecturing, Huff Post is also pretty bad about that. The only reason I sometimes read it is because it's free.
I recently bit on a $29 special for a year of the WaPo, because I was always maxing out my free articles. I'll just have to remember to opt out when the year is up because next time it's $100.
The Medium is always popping up in my email, I briefly considered subscribing. But it doesn't seem like they do any quality control or fact checking, and a lot of the stuff they curate is old.
Katherine: The NY Daily News is one of two New York tabloids. The other is the New York Post.
Delete(Tabloid: a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs, and sensational stories.)
As a practical matter, tabloids are much easier to read on the subway, because you can turn the pages without bumping your neighbor (unlike the NY Times).
Once upon a time the NY Post was leftish and aucourant and the NY Daily News, owned by the Chicago Tribune was conservative. They both probably have good sports sections and better local coverage than the Times. They have more or less changed places and the Post is now a pretty rabid supporter of Trump et al... Don't quite remember how that happened.
Yeah. 1862 was just a day at the beach. 1968 had a whole lot going for it, too, "Hey, Jude" and all that. Killed the Democratic Party too, but no one noticed. I do have to admit that in 1862 nealy everybody knew there was a war on.
ReplyDeleteYeah 1862, reading Chernow's "Grant." I know he's going to emerge as the top general, but the battles flash by and tens of thousands are mowed down, by ignorant other generals (many of them also West Point grads), you have to ask: Compared to what?
ReplyDelete"I turn to the Times, whose lecturing has turned to all-section hectoring, except "news," which simply lectures. "
ReplyDeleteIf Biden wins, I don't know what they're going to do. All of their editors and about 9/10s of their writers will have to find other jobs or think of something else to write about.
No. You will be surprised when you see it, but they will write about what's going on in the country and in the world. It's what we used to call news until a circus clown figured out a way to suck all the air out of the news and fill the paper with his own overfilled self.
DeleteTom, do you think Trump will have no lasting effect on serious professional journalism?
DeleteI think covering Trump has been maddening, but also exciting and lucrative, especially for young journalists (e.g. Rucker and Leonnig's book, "A Very Stable Genius"), and has put some in the spotlight when Trump singled them out for scorn (e.g. Yamiche Alcindor, Weijia Jiang, Paula Reid). I wonder if these experiences will affect their reporting.
I also think there was a growing tendency to characterize stories with adjectives and analysis or even opinion words even before Trump. Has Trump increased this tendency, and will it continue?
We'll see ...
It used to be that opinion writing and news reporting were more separated from each other. I won't say they were completely separated. But since Trump the blur has become much worse. It would be nice post Trump if we would see the media pull back from being propaganda machines, but I'm not holding my breath.
DeleteJean, Do you think increasing numbers of younger women reporters and newscasters has made "reporting" more adjective and opinion-prone?
DeleteHow much real reporting, news gathering, is going on in any medium?
Tom, do you think Trump will have no lasting effect on serious professional journalism?
DeleteHe will have very little effect. When he is well and truly buried with a stake through his heart, the great and good of the profession will assemble in solemn assembly and discuss: Lessons to Be Learned So We Don't Do It Again. Just as they did after they projected Joe McCarthy from his chicken coops into Grand Censor of the Nation. Their firm purposes of amendment will last until next time they can't help themselves.
Trump does present something entirely novel to the newsbeat. He lies. Most politicians do that. He repeats his lies after they have been proven to be lies. Not many politicians do that. He acts on his lies as if they were truth. We have never had a president who does that. Other presidents have lied to protect policies; this makes policy on the basis of his lies. That is new. And it is hard to cover because his lies can't be allowed to pass as truth (nobody is dying of COVID 19 anymore), and they can't be ignored because the next step (throw off you masks) is disaster.
Ever since the dawn of TV news, the media have been creeping back toward the 18th Century when most of what they printed was opinion, and the news was what kept the opinion columns from bumping into each other. There is more and more comment based on less and less reporting. But that is not fruit of the Trump; that is an ongoing trend exacerbated by CNN and the 24-hour news cycle.
Margaret, I'd say all younger people are doing it. Most of them also have Twitter accounts, which I find unsettling.
DeleteWhen I left the J-school faculty at Michigan State, they were hard up for funding and looking to hire younger instructors who had experience "broadcasting messages across a variety of electronic platforms in real time."
The gatekeeping structures of traditional broadcast and print journalism are crumbling in the crush to keep up with Tweet storms, social media, and the 24/7 news cycle--all on a shoestring budget.
There was quite a good story in the WaPo that involved real reporting on some right-wingers who descended on Gettysburg in hopes of stopping a flag-burning event supposedly sponsored by Antifa on social media, which turned out to be a hoax.
Sadly, the story noted that some of the social media announcements bordered on "farcical," which cast those who showed up to protest it as credulous boobs. That apparently precluded reporters from having to sit down with any of the boobs in a serious way to understand what motivates them, how they found out about the supposed event, why they brought guns, etc.
Back to my science fiction books. Ah, yes, that's better. Time and space travel is an anodyne to the here and now.
Jean: One interesting contrast among the "youngers" is Johnathan Swan..I don't follow Axios where he is a reporter, but now and again he is on Washington Week or Chris Wallace Sunday. He is an Australian. Among the interesting features of his responses are: he stops for a minute as if thinking about the question, he then answers it carefully, sometimes in three parts, and stops when he has finished; doesn't run on with tid bits. He never smiles. Refreshing.
DeleteI will have to check out Jonathan Swan.
DeleteTom said "...a circus clown figured out a way to suck all the air out of the news and fill the paper with his own overfilled self." That, and the constant lies, are how he plays the media like a Mattel jack-in-the-box. He makes them look, every single time.
"Most of them also have Twitter accounts, which I find unsettling." Me, too, and why do they have them? They are apparently encouraged to Tweet by their employers. Why? Vaguely it keeps them and their employer "before the public." How much of the Twitter public reads or even watches legacy media? And here is the real question:
DeleteAre they supposed to post a) news before it appears on their employers platform (ugh word) so the employer's product is unnecessary? b) Just snap off opinions, which is the way to get eyeballs? c) Put sources on hold while they finish entertaining their followers (ugh word)?
Whatever they are doing with their flying thumbs, it seems to be distracting them from doing what they are paid for.
Tom - I don't follow Twitter, at all, so I'm not the best person to answer your question. However, from what I can tell, journalists frequently use Twitter to get news tidbits out as quickly as possible - before they have had a chance to take the time to turn it into an actual news story and run it through the editorial filters. What I have in mind are reporters covering a news conference; they will tweet out a statement that strikes them as significant, e.g. that the president misstated something about the coronavirus. I guess the 2-3 sentences on the twitter machine convey the essential (in this example, a direct quote), and there is not a pressing need for editorial oversight to simply relay to the public a quote directly from the president's lips.
DeleteI see this sort of thing in the world of sports journalism. If a baseball team's media relations operation lets the beat reporters know that a pitcher has been placed on the disabled list, all of them immediately tweet out the news. Who needs to know that information so urgently that they can't wait for a proper story to appear on a website? Gamblers? But from the news organization's point of view, surely one of the functions of Twitter in this case is to drive additional traffic to the org's website for more information which presumably will be appearing shortly.
2020 is probably not the worst year ever. But it's one of those exciting confluences of calamitous events that illustrates how unwilling people are to absorb bad news, adapt quickly to changing circumstances, or learn from past mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that 9/11 was worse for fear and anger, and starting a war. The death toll was less, but it stirred up some of the emotions that are still on display, and are making the present situation worse.
ReplyDelete9/11 reminds me that New Yorkers are at their best in a crisis. During the current crisis, with our governer's daily sermon/pep talks, I was reminded of 9/11. In many ways I think New Yorkers are at their best again...of course, at this point slipping off the wagon a bit.
DeleteIf Trump wins again, 2021 will be the year I literally headed for the hills. America, with its vast unpopulated areas, is still the best place to get away from Americans. While they make America great again, Sasquatch and I will be playing horseshoes in the wilderness.
ReplyDeleteIf any of the NYT readers follow David Brooks, you might want to check out the homily he gave yesterday at the Washington National Cathedral- online Sunday liturgy.
ReplyDeleteThe homily is on YouTube also. I thought it was good. I didn't realize that his background was Jewish.
DeleteA few years ago I went to a panel discussion at Georgetown about Pope Francis. David Brooks was one of several panelists, along with Michael Sean Winters, Emma Green, Kim Daniels and one or two others. Cardinal Wuerl also swept in and was seated front and center. I learned then that Brooks was raised in a Jewish family. Emma Green had graduated from Georgetown only a few years earlier. She was genuinely impressive and I’m not surprised at her career success. I see that America just gave her an award also. I believe that she may also have a Jewish background. Brooks and Emma Green were the two best panelists by far. Michael Sean Winters seemed uncomfortable and didn’t say much. I think he prefers writing to speaking. Kim Daniels was totally forgettable - there, presumably, because of her association with the USCCB.
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