What should journalism be about?

[basilio]

So the greatest thread is global warming, not an ounce of doubt, and propaganda match8ng in tge guardian .
To me the greatest thread is overpopulation..ooops not PC
Can not be blamed onto the bad white male westerners so .... let's forget it, turn vegan and welcome refugees.
Population growth can be sorted in one generation, and should have been
technology is here so why not should be real journalism.

Actually Qldfrog unless global warming is somehow controlled it will take everyone down. Rich, Poor, White Brown Black or Yellow.

I wouldn't disagree that the world faces many other problems as well. In fact we need to address far more than one issue and any actions have to tackle multiple problems simultaneously.

I could easily show you many other parts of The Guardian that identify big problems and search for solutions. In fact that is one of the key points of responsible journalism - being a source of information that can drive the community to recognize and tackle issues. Trashing The Guardian for attempting to use it's influence to tackle CC makes no sense.
_____________________________________________

Think about The Age and it's investigations into the banks. How about the widespread underpayment of workers in 7/11 and other industries ? What about the rapacious way Retirement villages engage with their clients ? This is all investigative journalism which exposes wrongdoing and demands that the authorities which are answerable to the public take action to address the issue.

 

[SirRumpole]

Which "side" of CC are you talking about Rumpy ? The side that says it's all rubbish, that the scientists are lying crooks just out to line their pockets ? That the world isn't warming it's just meteorologists fudging the figures ?

Perhaps it's the side that says the Antarctic isn't warming or losing ice at a completely unprecedented rate. That the Arctic ice caps are just hunky dory folks. Nothing is happening here !

Global warming is a proven reality. It's continuation at the current rate will parboil our civilisation by the end of the century. The only intelligent story left is:

What are we going to do about it ?

I take the view that CC is a proven reality, but this thread started off being about journalism. I simply mentioned that The Guardian is taking a position and questioned whether that is the role of the media.

OK ?

 

[basilio]

I take the view that CC is a proven reality, but this thread started off being about journalism. I simply mentioned that The Guardian is taking a position and questioned whether that is the role of the media.

OK ?

My point stands Rumpy. Fox News, The Murdoch Press et al have absolutely no qualms about promoting the "other side" of global warming. Their view is, broadly speaking, the talking points I offered. A major part of the reason we are in the current situation is because of the role of these media in blurring, denying, attacking the science and reality behind global arming.

But those arguments can't change what is happening. We will still cook if we don't change.

Why not consider a less heated example. Lets say a paper does a series of investigations which show some politicians are corrupt and allowing companies to get away with serious crime. Should the paper just report this and then say nothing about what should happen ? Take no role in putting pressure on government or authorities to respond?

What about the appalling issues of child sexual abuse ? It took so many stories to get some sort of traction in the community. They were only unearthed because investigative journalists had the courage to take on some of the most powerful conservative forces in the country. But once these events are exposed I suggest you can't just say "that's it we have no position on it."

 

[rederob]

Why not consider a less heated example. Lets say a paper does a series of investigations which show some politicians are corrupt and allowing companies to get away with serious crime. Should the paper just report this and then say nothing about what should happen ? Take no role in putting pressure on government or authorities to respond?

Their job is done when their investigations are printed, and assuming their claims are backed with evidence and not just unsubstantiated ideas.
I am pretty sure we have courts for a reason.
Good journalism should serve to inform. WRT to pressure on governments, I don't see that as their role.
The media can and does influence public opinion. However, when it gets sloppy we get the "fake news" crowd out and it then does not matter how good the the work of journalists is, they remain tainted.

 

[Darc Knight]

Their job is done when their investigations are printed, and assuming their claims are backed with evidence and not just unsubstantiated ideas.
I am pretty sure we have courts for a reason.
Good journalism should serve to inform. WRT to pressure on governments, I don't see that as their role.
The media can and does influence public opinion. However, when it gets sloppy we get the "fake news" crowd out and it then does not matter how good the the work of journalists is, they remain tainted.

Not sure about that. It's the power of the Media 's reach which makes Politicians listen. So many things wouldn't get done without the Media 's pressure.
Think it's obvious a Royal Commission into the Media is needed. Why hasn't it happened? Coz the Media would kill any Politicians promoting the idea.
Politicians listen to and fear the Media.

 

[SirRumpole]

What about the appalling issues of child sexual abuse ? I

Exposing that was certainly part of investigative journalism, but the media then handed it over to a Royal Commission.

Maybe the Guardian should push for a RC into Climate Change (not joking). Let's get all the facts before an independent inquiry instead of the round the mulbery bush media circus we now have.

 

[rederob]

Not sure about that. It's the power of the Media's reach which makes Politicians listen. So many things wouldn't get done without the Media 's pressure.
Think it's obvious a Royal Commission into the Media is needed. Why hasn't it happened? Coz the Media would kill any Politicians promoting the idea.
Politicians listen to and fear the Media.

Media reach is a huge issue. However, there is a big difference between opinionated media and "reporting". For example, Alan Jones became a victim of his defamatory remarks last year and is literally paying millions for his baseless claims.
It's investigative journalism that is not lost in a fog and finds its way instead to the smoking gun, which drags politicians to act. Maintaining a line of reporting that implicates politicians as tacit supporters of bad deeds either gets them voted out of office or stirs the pot to action.
I don't share you idea about needing to investigate the media. Providing we have real competition in the many spheres of public media, the poor journalists just won't get a look in. Aside from that, as the Alan Jones example showed, we have courts to deal with truly irresponsible journalism.

 

[Darc Knight]

It's investigative journalism that is not lost in a fog and finds its way instead to the smoking gun, which drags politicians to act. Maintaining a line of reporting that implicates politicians as tacit supporters of bad deeds either gets them voted out of office or stirs the pot to action.

^ That's exactly the point I'm making. The Media provokes Politicians to action. Without the Media a lot of things wouldn't get done.

 

[basilio]

Not sure about that. It's the power of the Media 's reach which makes Politicians listen. So many things wouldn't get done without the Media 's pressure.
Think it's obvious a Royal Commission into the Media is needed. Why hasn't it happened? Coz the Media would kill any Politicians promoting the idea.
Politicians listen to and fear the Media.

One of the eras of big change in the US was the early 20th Century. The late 19th Century had seen the rise of the wealthiest tycoons and the expansion of big business into powerful areas of influence. It created huge wealth for a few but even bigger social problems for millions of others.
So how were these issues tackled? Enter the MuckRakers.

Muckraker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines. In the US, the modern term is investigative journalism—it has different and more pejorative connotations in British English—and investigative journalists in the US today are often informally called "muckrakers".

The muckrakers played a highly visible role during the Progressive Era period, 1890s–1920s.[1] Muckraking magazines—notably McClure's of the publisher S. S. McClure—took on corporate monopolies and political machines while trying to raise public awareness and anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, prostitution, and child labor.[2] Most of the muckrakers wrote nonfiction, but fictional exposes often had a major impact as well, such as those by Upton Sinclair.[3]

In contemporary American use, the term describes either a journalist who writes in the adversarial or alternative tradition, or a non-journalist whose purpose in publication is to advocate reform and change.[4] Investigative journalists view the muckrakers as early influences and a continuation of watchdog journalism. In British English the term muckraker is more likely to mean a journalist (often on a tabloid newspaper) who specialises in scandal and malicious gossip about celebrities or well-known personalities and is generally used in a derogatory sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker

 

[basilio]

Maybe the Guardian should push for a RC into Climate Change (not joking). Let's get all the facts before an independent inquiry instead of the round the mulbery bush media circus we now have.

No problems there. In fact given what we already know about the effects of CC and what needs to be done just to survive what we know to date it would make very sobering reading.
But Rumpy this has already been done many times over. The last big effort was in 2006 with the Stern Review. It was landmark piece of economically based research on the effects of CC.

It was hammered from pillar to post by the usual range of deniers. There was a Climate Change Act passed by the British Parliament but that has had mixed success.
Why do you think a Royal Commission will have any better effect ?
http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/~rmclima/pdfs/destaques/sternreview_report_complete.pdf

Nicholas Sterns views 10 years later.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...10-years-on-interview-decisive-years-humanity

 

[Smurf1976]

Comparing the media now versus 30 years ago the huge change is that reporting in 2019 is incredibly dumbed down.

30 years ago facts were facts. These days if there's technical details or indeed any numbers involved then they're routinely stripped out and replaced with vague and fuzzy motherhood statements into which rather a lot of bias is embedded.

To pick a current issue, I've seen media reports which basically say that imputation credits are an obscure concept that pretty much nobody understands and very few have ever come across and odds are you'll never see one either.

I take that as an indication that whoever wrote the story is either financially illiterate or is pushing some agenda. Neither is anything to be proud of.

Meanwhile those in the energy industry will be aware that one journalist in Vic did spot the "fake news" about power supply being sufficient only hours before the lights did indeed go out in parts of Victoria. Well done to them for being able to do maths and realise they were being fed BS.

 

[macca]

I think we need both factual news and opinionated journalism, the problems start when opinions are presented as facts.

With some electronic media sources filtering news as they do it gives people the impression that they have read the whole story but in reality have only read one side as they are in an echo chamber.

 

[basilio]

A 21st Century example of muck rating investigative journalism in the Internet age.

The Video


Youtube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children, and it's Being Monetized (2019)


... and the result.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...be-ads-amid-concerns-over-child-video-voyeurs

 

[sptrawler]

From a personal perspective, I'm enjoying the amount of litigation cases against media outlets, it is a breath of fresh air when their statements are tested.

 

[sptrawler]

You miss the point I made about there usually being many sources of information for the issue which concerns you..
If you think something does not seem right, then the internet of things usually has a lot of options for you to check what is being presented.

Well going back to what I said about pizz poor journalists, smurph posted recently that a study has found that we haven't got the gas we thought we had, like to me that is big energy news.
Yet I haven't seen it splashed in our news papers, by our on the ball journalists, no doubt you will hear all the ' normal ' experts sprouting it when it is common knowledge.
Then you have to hear all the talking heads, explaining it to you six months later, as though it is new enlightenment.
The place is full of wanker$.
If it is true and we are short on gas, we have already hit the death knell on coal, we really are a bunch of wallies. Lol

 

[qldfrog]

Comparing the media now versus 30 years ago the huge change is that reporting in 2019 is incredibly dumbed down.

And targeting an increasingly dumbed down population, the lot written by dumer journalists.Honestly, few are the ones talking about subjects they can even understand, any technical input is laughable, we do not ask journalists to be expert but at least acknowledge they are not, same for the population!;
if you even have a local facebook page dealing with local issue, the keyboard warrior outrage at anything make you wonder what is taught untill year 12, and I would even bet most of the local people where I live have uni degree.
So journalism in Australia becomes a facebook competing media when commercial: what is the next outrage, the child rapists living among us on Fox,
or
for my taxes financed media:ABC..to a lesser degree SBS
the rich bastards enjoying their millions while the poor women , gay, young, preferably of colour and non christian role models of our society are struggling .
It could be a caricature,
[and sorry Basilio but The guardian is among them,it is genuinely as bad as Fox news even if I do not expect you to ever realize/admit
I deleted my link today after reading that Europe could feed is population if not using pesticides...
and as long as we do not eat chicken or pork meat..never forget to add a vegan and GW reference
but no mention of the millions outside europe surviving on european cereal exports..
or any clue on the cost and manpower needs to implement this..or the fact this might require GM plantations
Sorry that is not journalism]
As I once said, when a newspaper is unfiltered by the Chinese internet wall, it is usually not a good sign..and the Guardian is not
China Daily is quite good..only the good news and progress of the great nation and its leaders, pure happiness for the CCP convinced...but not my preferred style of journalism...

 

[sptrawler]

Well at least the conversation has been started.
Yes I do like The Guardian as a source of factual information and also interpretation. It covers the world, it's free, and most importantly it isn't a tool of big business, big money.

You are all aware I am a teacher and in fact originally a history teacher. I'm always aware of how difficult it is to find, define and presents facts or information or whatever. Everything is complicated. Trying to say just give me "the facts" is not simple or realistic.

It is also incredibly boring and usually meaningless. Something may have happened what what does this mean and what are the implications ?

In 2019 much of mainstream journalism is under incredible pressure from the commercial interests that own the source. That pressure shows itself in many ways
1) Be real careful about stories that might make our big advertisers look bad as companies

2) Be equally careful about stories that could make the powerful/wealthy people who run these companies look bad. (After all we the Board happen to be amongst them)

3) Make sure your stories are "popular" I don't care how you do it - just get eyeballs on the story

4) We can't afford to pay you to do investigative journalism. Stick to human interest/ crime / welfare ripoffs.. "If it bleeds, it leads.."

With that mindset why would anyone follow the reported news from most of the current media ? I suggest The Guardian with it's particular non business structure and philosophy is best suited to take a wider view of the world than The Australian, Herald Sun, and now The Age/Channel 9.

By the way did anyone read the full article or just respond to the headlines ?

Your a teacher Bas, congratulations, it explains your well worded posts.
It also may make your position, on the franking credit debate, easier to understand.

 

[sptrawler]

Today in the SMH, they are quoting statements from Roger Waters' Pink Floyd' front man, he hasn't been with the band since the mid 1980's has he?

 

[Smurf1976]

Honestly, few are the ones talking about subjects they can even understand, any technical input is laughable, we do not ask journalists to be expert but at least acknowledge they are not, same for the population!

Society seems to have reached a point where some see ignorance as something to be proud of.