I understand what they're trying to do here, but beyond the problem of "fake news" there appears to be a deep crisis within the profession of Journalism itself. Wales is correct, in my opinion, that the proximate cause of this crisis is indeed social media. (If you don't agree just ask yourself how often you visit the masthead of whatever newspaper you typically read, and why that might be the case.) But I just don't see crowd-sourcing as the solution to this problem. I'm inclined to agree with @intended's diagnosis, and I feel like the solution has to come from the profession of Journalism itself.
So, in attempt to not be "that guy" that just complains here's what I'd suggest as a start.
- Institutions need to drop their relationship with Facebook et al (The Guardian has just done this [1]).
- There's a few places (and in the interest of avoiding starting a flame war, I'll forgo naming them explicitly) that parade themselves as "objective" sources of news by telling you they're explaining "complicated" concepts in digestible ways. In my view, that's just a rhetorical tactic to disguise what is actually just advocacy journalism. It's not objective at all, and seeks to form your opinion rather than present you with data from which you form your own. These places need to either be shut down, or pivot back to what we'd traditionally consider actual reporting.
- I consider myself reasonably well read, and read the actual, physical paper daily (when I can, I suppose). There is a distinct difference between the content I see pushed on the internet and what's in the traditional paper and it's this: increasingly articles that belong on the opinion pages are pushed elsewhere, probably because they know it'll generate more clicks elsewhere on the site because it makes either a controversial or marginally supported claim. In my view this directly contributes to the loss of faith people have in the Journalistic profession because it's just so damn easy to point out instances of bias. So, hire some old school editors and fire the "social media" guy and put content where it belongs.
That's just what I can think of off the top of my head right now, but I'm pretty convinced that "crowd-sourcing" is not the answer to this problem.
> Wales is correct, in my opinion, that the proximate cause of this crisis is indeed social media.
I don't think social media has much to do with it. I think the confusion between the professions of journalist, entertainer and partisan political operative has much more to do with it.
> If you don't agree just ask yourself how often you visit the masthead of whatever newspaper
Why would it be important if I visit the masthead? That's like saying libraries are in crisis because people don't spend enough time in the lobby. That's not why one visits the library! The frontpage is an utilitarian tool, and if people can do without it, nobody cares.
> These places need to either be shut down
I don't think they should be shut down. If there's an audience for them, why not? Nothing "should be shut down" - if it has no audience, it will die off, it it does have one - it should serve it. The problem here is the audience of "give us facts and let us form opinion" is woefully underserved. This is solved by creating, not shutting down.
> So, hire some old school editors and fire the "social media" guy
Social media guy didn't write that awfully biased article. Some "journalist" did, the social media guy just posted the link on twitter. So why the social media guy should suffer? "Journalists" that do bad job should be called out and shamed, and social media is not where the blame should go. Hard to believe, but twitter can be used for good too, if only people would want to...
Source of funding is the key. Social media enabled the idea that news could be free, and that's where the dominoes started falling. The signal to the news company is that they need to keep pushing out articles which people click on or share. The incentive of reputation and prestige got replaced by click-baity and virtue signalling.
True to some measure, but not completely - there are still degrees of click-baity-ness and not all media companies are like buzzfeed or gawker and publish exclusively in the style of "15 reasons why your biases are completely justified and anybody who disagrees with you are evil, #8 will shock you!". There are media companies that make conscious effort to do better - it's just they think that doing better means shaping the news to help the audience to arrive to "right" conclusions. They think this is their social responsibility, not to inform, but to form "good" opinions and to destroy "bad" ones. Combined with natural grouthink that arises in organizations having no focus on thought diversity (which are pretty much all news orgs) it produces a very distinctive mindset, which, as I noted in other place, is not just about money - it's about doing what they genuinely perceive as the right thing.
In essence, they think the masses are too stupid to be fed bare truth, and need to be put on a carefully selected diet of curated truths, half-truths and sometimes outright lies, in service of a noble goal. I'd like to have the informers back instead.
It's obvious to me that in the search for more clicks, driven by social media, the lines between those professions you pointed out have gotten blurred. I think the masthead is a good touch point because it shows that few organically go to nyt.com (or wsj, or whatever) and then choose articles to read anymore...they just wind up on the article site from links through social media.
The masthead is much different than a lobby. It used to be method to signal what was important to know about what's going on in the world right now. Now we get those signals through the algorithms on Facebook. That's a problem.
Shut down might be harsh, but at a minimum they need to drop the pretense of objectivity.
You don't think the quest for clicks has come from the social media side of the house, and that that has influenced both the content and headlines that journalists write? People respond to incentives, and if the flashy and click-baity article is getting pushed journalists will respond with more flashy and click-baity articles.
> Now we get those signals through the algorithms on Facebook. That's a problem.
You are assuming that the person doing NYT frontpage must do a better job, at least in regard to giving me an accurate, complete and informative picture of the world. But what if it's not true? What if that person has an agenda to sway my opinion and bring me to a conclusion that person needs? What if that person's goal is not to inform me but to make me vote for certain candidate or support certain law or hate certain person? Why would I then trust that person and use the frontpage as my gateway to the world?
The signal is only good if it's signaling what I want. But I don't think it's the case nowadays.
> a minimum they need to drop the pretense of objectivity.
They are pretty much already done with it. At least nobody believes such claims anymore.
> You don't think the quest for clicks has come from the social media side of the house
It's certainly not from social media - everybody loves clicks. The thing is, the rise of sites like Snopes or Politifact showed there are clicks in trying to be unbiased and informative too. Maybe a bit less clicks, but there definitely are some. Yet, those clicks do not seem to be all that attractive.
I think it has to do much more with journalistic mindset shifting from duty to inform and disseminate the truth, to some kind of paternalistic mindset of making people form the "right" opinions, where truth that may "mislead" people into a "wrong" opinion is ok to hide, and a falsity that helps the "right" cause is ok to promote. I think it's much more an ideological motive than pecuniary one.
I can't really disagree with anything you wrote here, though I'd say that with Snopes and Politifact the clicks are in people thinking you're trying to be unbiased.
>I think it has to do much more with journalistic mindset shifting from duty to inform and disseminate the truth, to some kind of paternalistic mindset of making people form the "right" opinions...
Yeah that's what I'm getting at by criticizing the "explainers". That's exactly what they do...try to get you to have the right opinions. I'm probably giving people too much credit by only referencing the incentive structures, and ignoring or not acknowledging that they are also ideological motives at play.
Social media gives the partisan political operatives you start off with a platform to gain an audience. Then they can confuse themselves with journalists and entertainers.
But sure, let's talk about social media as another place where news orgs post things.
> In my view this directly contributes to the loss of faith people have in the Journalistic profession
I'd add that your second point also contributes to loss of faith: When propagandists call their publications journalism, and when other journalists treat them seriously, it brings down the credibility of all journalism. If any quack could call themself a heart surgeon then it would hurt the credibility of real heart surgeons.
Also, when people see their side publishing propaganda, they assume that all journalism is propaganda: One side says this, the other says that, it's all the same (that thinking is an explicit goal of propaganda - not to persuade but to discredit everyone, leaving no source of truth). But it's not the same; truth has real meaning and value, an only liars say 'well, everyone lies'.
> If any quack could call themself a heart surgeon then it would hurt the credibility of real heart surgeons.
I'm afraid here we have a different situation - where heart surgeon behaves as a quack because she thinks it would convince you to do things that she things are right for you. You, of course, can say "well, she's a surgeon, so she always knows better and I should not ever doubt her, even if what she says sounds like complete quackery". But many people are not ready to surrender their autonomy so readily.
So, in attempt to not be "that guy" that just complains here's what I'd suggest as a start.
- Institutions need to drop their relationship with Facebook et al (The Guardian has just done this [1]).
- There's a few places (and in the interest of avoiding starting a flame war, I'll forgo naming them explicitly) that parade themselves as "objective" sources of news by telling you they're explaining "complicated" concepts in digestible ways. In my view, that's just a rhetorical tactic to disguise what is actually just advocacy journalism. It's not objective at all, and seeks to form your opinion rather than present you with data from which you form your own. These places need to either be shut down, or pivot back to what we'd traditionally consider actual reporting.
- I consider myself reasonably well read, and read the actual, physical paper daily (when I can, I suppose). There is a distinct difference between the content I see pushed on the internet and what's in the traditional paper and it's this: increasingly articles that belong on the opinion pages are pushed elsewhere, probably because they know it'll generate more clicks elsewhere on the site because it makes either a controversial or marginally supported claim. In my view this directly contributes to the loss of faith people have in the Journalistic profession because it's just so damn easy to point out instances of bias. So, hire some old school editors and fire the "social media" guy and put content where it belongs.
That's just what I can think of off the top of my head right now, but I'm pretty convinced that "crowd-sourcing" is not the answer to this problem.
[1] http://digiday.com/media/guardian-pulls-facebooks-instant-ar...