I unsubscribed to the NYTIMES about 5 years ago (after 35 years!) when it was getting wackier than ever – a propaganda sheet with terrible writing….so I don’t really care what it does now.
Last edited 2 years ago by Cathy Carron
J Bryant
2 years ago
It has often been said that the internet destroyed journalism. The continued existence of successful print organizations such as the NYT seems to contradict that simple assertion, but I think their existence provides the most compelling evidence.
The NYT still looks, at a distance, like a news organization but it’s not. It’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for the latest fad that will attract subscribers en masse. They don’t even pretend to objectively report the news.
If tomorrow a cult of tortoises arises and attracts a huge following of wild-eyed devotees willing to spend money on their new quasi- religion, the NYT will become the publication of tortoises. It will become the New York Tortoise. It will “report” on the schism between the Big Tortoises and Little Tortoises; it will denounce the non-believers and anti-tortoiseists. To expect anything more, or less, is to misunderstand what the NYT has become.
I wish them well in China. They will not have to spend money on journalists or editors. The CCP will tell them exactly what to print.
What the internet (Facebook in particular) was cause journalism to become a much more wealthy middle class affair.
Local newspapers used to provide a route into journalism for youngsters from poorer families, where the best ones could move on into the more established national papers/news. However those papers were almost wholly reliant on advertising revenue to survive. When the big tech companies started hoovering up all money from advertising many of them folded, leaving much fewer pathways into a career in journalism so now for many the only way in is through unpaid internships in expensive major cities. This for obvious reasons prevents many poorer children from getting a start, so now you have a situation whereby nearly all journalists come from the same social class and have a very uniformed outlook on life. There’s simply very little diversity in thought anymore as all journalists come from the same stock, and journalism is much poorer for it
I agree with what you say about journalism looking the same with titles on railway station news racks still being there. But in reality it has been changed changed out of all recognition by the digitisation of content (and rise of the smart phone cameras) in under two decades.
There is an unacknowledged but toxic relationship between MSM (legacy media) and social media.
It isn’t as crude as overtly chasing clicks or hiring people with big follower numbers, if it was that crude it might be better understood.
But the old editorial conferences are now little more than looking at the various trending lists to make sure they are curating them (recycling them) through feature or opinion writers and reviewing the interactions and clicks being generated.
This encourages an imperceptible movement towards refining views to try and maximise these metrics; the most forward looking they can access.
Unfortunately for them compelling breaking news is now almost entirely produced by non-professional journalists outwith the old media organisations and this means opinion journalism has taken the place of reporting.
This is inherently more likely, (even certain eventually), to create siloed-thinking in news organisation managment and newsrooms.
Coupled with the internet’s tendency toward favouring video over stills means all organisations are crowding into the online video delivery space and dying, or amalgamating, as they do, reducing plurality , just as it reduces the ability of any organisation to have that reputational clout that large, respected newspapers had half a century ago.
Ed Cameron
2 years ago
Gee, little Joey looks like a bloke you’d love to have a beer with.
I unsubscribed to the NYTIMES about 5 years ago (after 35 years!) when it was getting wackier than ever – a propaganda sheet with terrible writing….so I don’t really care what it does now.
It has often been said that the internet destroyed journalism. The continued existence of successful print organizations such as the NYT seems to contradict that simple assertion, but I think their existence provides the most compelling evidence.
The NYT still looks, at a distance, like a news organization but it’s not. It’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for the latest fad that will attract subscribers en masse. They don’t even pretend to objectively report the news.
If tomorrow a cult of tortoises arises and attracts a huge following of wild-eyed devotees willing to spend money on their new quasi- religion, the NYT will become the publication of tortoises. It will become the New York Tortoise. It will “report” on the schism between the Big Tortoises and Little Tortoises; it will denounce the non-believers and anti-tortoiseists. To expect anything more, or less, is to misunderstand what the NYT has become.
I wish them well in China. They will not have to spend money on journalists or editors. The CCP will tell them exactly what to print.
What the internet (Facebook in particular) was cause journalism to become a much more wealthy middle class affair.
Local newspapers used to provide a route into journalism for youngsters from poorer families, where the best ones could move on into the more established national papers/news. However those papers were almost wholly reliant on advertising revenue to survive. When the big tech companies started hoovering up all money from advertising many of them folded, leaving much fewer pathways into a career in journalism so now for many the only way in is through unpaid internships in expensive major cities. This for obvious reasons prevents many poorer children from getting a start, so now you have a situation whereby nearly all journalists come from the same social class and have a very uniformed outlook on life. There’s simply very little diversity in thought anymore as all journalists come from the same stock, and journalism is much poorer for it
I agree with what you say about journalism looking the same with titles on railway station news racks still being there. But in reality it has been changed changed out of all recognition by the digitisation of content (and rise of the smart phone cameras) in under two decades.
There is an unacknowledged but toxic relationship between MSM (legacy media) and social media.
It isn’t as crude as overtly chasing clicks or hiring people with big follower numbers, if it was that crude it might be better understood.
But the old editorial conferences are now little more than looking at the various trending lists to make sure they are curating them (recycling them) through feature or opinion writers and reviewing the interactions and clicks being generated.
This encourages an imperceptible movement towards refining views to try and maximise these metrics; the most forward looking they can access.
Unfortunately for them compelling breaking news is now almost entirely produced by non-professional journalists outwith the old media organisations and this means opinion journalism has taken the place of reporting.
This is inherently more likely, (even certain eventually), to create siloed-thinking in news organisation managment and newsrooms.
Coupled with the internet’s tendency toward favouring video over stills means all organisations are crowding into the online video delivery space and dying, or amalgamating, as they do, reducing plurality , just as it reduces the ability of any organisation to have that reputational clout that large, respected newspapers had half a century ago.
Gee, little Joey looks like a bloke you’d love to have a beer with.