On News

Journalism is a good thing. I'm just gonna come out and say it up front, since I think "the media" gets a bad rap, and sometimes it's true that they're not doing their jobs as well as they should. But I think that correct criticism of journalists is always pointing in the direction of:

• You should have researched this more.
• You shouldn't only choose stories that confirm existing biases of your readers.
• You should have high standards for your writing.
• You shouldn't parrot official positions as news, whether of governments or of your owners.

So I'm sure you've noticed the trend, namely that these are all urging journalists to hold more closely to the ideals of journalism, which is why I can call it a "good thing." It is the one case where poking your nose where it's not wanted is actually worthwhile. To want to get to the heart of a matter, and seek truth, is noble. And to speak out when you see cases of corruption, hypocrisy, or just plain callousness on the part of governments or corporations is important for a healthy society.

Thus of course I'm saddened when it doesn't work out that way. I'm old enough to remember when Murdoch bought the WSJ, and guaranteed its standards would not change, and his biases wouldn't affect it - so much for that - and so if he buys the L.A. Times that'll be a tragedy. And now Bezos has picked up the Post, so we'll see where that goes. I'm not old enough to remember Hearst, but I gather he started this particular trend, and I'm against it wholeheartedly. I like my news without an agenda or cult of personality behind it, and would rather not be caught in-between huge Jaeger and Kaiju news organizations duking it out, each just trying to elect their set of candidates. That's "balanced" in the same way a society in which everyone had guns would be "safe," or in the way MAD kept the Cold War "peaceful." My essential point is that two untruths don't make a truth.

Nowadays, each individual citizen has to put in their own legwork to find out whose money and bias are behind each news story they read; that's the new normal. But don't get me wrong, though - I'm definitely not arguing equivalence between more liberal and more conservative media in this particular time and country. I mean, it's gotten bad enough that I prefer getting my news from foreign or international news agencies just because they're more likely to tell the plain facts - but these prove more similar to the stories you'd hear on the "liberal" side of the news, rather than the conservative, which I don't think is a coincidence. And at its root, I think the "two-party news" we have in the US is very much just a case of one news organization setting itself up as the "conservative" voice, opposed to... everybody else, which is a bit of a manufactured dilemma. I hate those.

So journalists! Take heart, go out there, and find the real stories. You probably don't have much longer before some combination of corporations and the government decide that there is still too much truth going around, and the internet is too free. Come to think of it, that might be as good a story to start with as any...