# Award Winning Journalist admits to writing Fake News



## supersonicwaffle (Dec 20, 2018)

German Journalist Claas Relotius of "Der Spiegel" who previously won awards such as "CNN-Journalist of the Year" has admitted to falsifying and making up large parts of his pieces. This all came to light when his co-author, working with him on a piece an Arizona militia, started investigating him for making up facts as he went.

I'm currently trying to find english news sources on this, the story broke just a few hours ago.

EDIT: Der Spiegel has published an english version of their writeup regarding the case. http://www.spiegel.de/international...o-the-most-important-questions-a-1244653.html
EDIT2: Posted a bit prematurely, it's not the full writeup, I hope it will be translated as well

From his Wikipedia Page:


> On 19 December 2018, _Der Spiegel_ made public that Relotius had admitted that he had "falsified his articles on a grand scale", inventing facts, persons and quotations in no fewer than 14 of the stories that it had published.[4][5] _Der Spiegel_ uncovered the fraud after a co-author of one of Relotius's stories, Juan Moreno, became suspicious of the veracity of Relotius's contributions and gathered evidence against him.[5] Relotius resigned from the magazine, telling _Der Spiegel_ that he was "sick" and needed to get help. _Der Spiegel_ left his articles accessible, with a notice referring to the magazine's ongoing investigation into the fraud.[4]



For context (from my perception):

"Der Spiegel" is a left leaning magazine, I read a bunch of its online content and political bias seems to depend heavily on the author, more moderate Authors tend to get a lot of flack in the comments, their feminist writers definitely went off the deep end years ago and they also get flack in the comments
it may be worth noting that I get the feeling that whenever they publish articles that are clearly biased they disable comments, but that may just be my perception

During the 2016 Democratic Primaries my perception was that their publications were heavily biased towards Hilary Clinton, all the criticism of the media wrt disadvantaging Bernie Sanders applied to spiegel.de as well
I would say their youth magazine "bento" is definitely far left publishing articles trying to explain away that 31,4% of all convicted criminals in 2016 in Germany have been non German.
The co-author who investigated the fraud was made out to be a villian at his workplace leading up to the uncovering because no one believed him (according to the Article published on spiegel.de)


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## notimp (Dec 20, 2018)

On the positive side:

- this is a story the Spiegel broke
- hes also fired by now
- his motives where more in accordance with those of a typical youtuber, than "hoodwinking society at large"

- its a horrible story nevertheless.

Then - journalists are no angels either, but at least they have a code of conduct and a reputation to loose. Which is why this guy got fired by now.
I'll link the Seymour Hersh Interview in here again, where he talks about his early years as a local reporter in Chicago.

Where he got told not to push a story about police corruption in a murder case, "write down a death" of a black family, ... and in the end he still became one of the most important journalistic figuereheads of the country.



This gets worse, not better - If you only find one journalistic outlet that you trust wholeheartedly (lets see, in germany currently that would be Deutschlandfunk Hintergrund and WDR/ARD Monitor on the center/left..  ).

Also - newspapers/regional news, and then vetting - is still the model you get all your news from. Everyone is copying them at a certain point. (If they arent making up a story from a twitter feed, or out of thin air...)

Now the Spiegel was a weekly, and maybe the most prestigious one germany had (or so old people think..  ), so this is bad still.

Whats worse though is to seek a "deeper truth" in the "fake news" meme. Fake news always were there, fake news always happen, stories get redacted, corrected, pulled, denounced... with blogs and facebook its just gotten worse, because no one has an idea where the thing they are taking as truth is coming from - and they'll also never read the redaction, because they are get fed with clickbait by feeds and by chance. Alternative media also hasnt got "the truth" in their pocket for grated, they usually are worse informed. And everyone has one thing in common, they rely on newspaper work to get checked upon stories at all. And it still would be great if this gets financed by the public en large.

Because the advertising market has crumbled, since Facebook and Google can make their users "buy stuff" much more efficiently. And you all like it.


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## DBlaze (Dec 20, 2018)

I wish I could be surprised about any of this, but in the end everyone has an agenda they want to push, even those that say they don't.
Some are just more obvious than others.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 20, 2018)

Oh don't get my wrong, there's definitely positive sides to it.

Regarding funding for news outlets, I agree that a publicly funded model is favorable to ensure independency although I would say that the way it's run in Germany is deeply flawed and is currently failing hard for multiple reasons.

The scale is too broad it's not only there to ensure funding for programs wrt tradition, education or arts that struggle to fund themselves. There's heavy investment into entertainment and reruns that have no need for public funding.
WRT to news you would have to question its independency from gorvernment as a lot of the power within those stations lies with politicians (Fernsehrat). This has been critzied quite often.
The publicly funded Youtube MCN "Funk" has been under constant fire for having a lot of channels that:
Are massively left leaning to the point you would have to say they're radical
Channels that are pretty much just entertainment in massively popular industries such as gaming that just don't need public funding


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## notimp (Dec 20, 2018)

Read the writeup in Die WELT (Springer) - which is also affected (same guy). Its bad.

One of his journalistic colleagues researched his research and brought the scandal to light. Hes not even named in the reporting of the story - and of course at first he was dismissed, ignored, ... It was a darling reporter that he confronted. A "hero" of his generation and the editorial office of the Spiegel... 33 years old.

It concerns 55 articles (reports mostly) some of which were rewarded with "journalistic prices" for their authenticity...

It basically was tearjerky, poetic meaning in human interest stories stuff he made up. Together with the entire rest of the story. Talked to a doctor about two suicide bombers. Nope. Interviewed a young orphan women in Aleppo. Nope. Reported from the frontlines of an american paramilitary group in Arizona. Nope.

Was a gifted writer though.. 

This is bad.

Also - those journalistic price committes in germany. Apparently do no fact checking either..


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 20, 2018)

notimp said:


> Read the writeup in Die WELT (Springer) - which is also affected (same guy). Its bad.
> 
> One of his journalistic colleagues researched his research and brought the scandal to light. Hes not even named in the reporting of the story - and of course at first he was dismissed, ignored, ... It was a darling reporter that he confronted. A "hero" of his generation and the editorial office of the Spiegel... 33 years old.
> 
> ...



The colleague is named by Spiegel in their piece, it's Juan Moreno ( http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesell...t-betrug-im-eigenen-haus-offen-a-1244579.html )

They also talk about a suspicious story about him just wandering into a turkish underground sweatshop with a girl who fled from syria.

Implications are huge, people have been alleging mainstream media made up stories like this to further acceptance of immigration for a long time, now they're proven right. Mainstream media in general has lost a lot of trust, now stuff like this comes to light.

I'm really unsure what to make of this. I don't have time to fact check every article I read but at the same time it's hard to trust any outlets at the moment and this is just the tip of the iceberg, we haven't even touched on deliberate framing by omitting parts of the story which is also rampant in German mainstream media.


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## notimp (Dec 20, 2018)

Thank you.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 21, 2018)

Thank you @notimp for sharing the Seymour Hersh interview. A bit off topic but theres some things that personally spoke to me


Working as a freelancer to be able to do what you think is right. I have so much respect for people who do this, it's tough but at least you'll be able to look in the mirror.
He mentioned young people outside of America being much more interested in news. I've worked on a project with Americans for a few years and whenever we were on a roadtrip we would ask our American colleague to be quiet for a few minutes every hour so we can listen to the news on radio. He was aboslutely fascinated by young people to be that interested in news, to us it was the most normal thing in the world.


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## notimp (Dec 21, 2018)

Thats an overgeneralization at least to some extent.

I'd say, that most people dont especially care about the news-news and that if you'd take the "its part of the next days water cooler talks" aspect away (that could be netflix now), and the "you pay for at least one newspaper if you reached a certain social class", and its not needed for entertainment anymore...

In my case I recall a moment when a program director from a "partly publicly financed" (öffentlich rechtlich) TV station let students pitch in on his momentary quarrels with having to decide, if he should keep the same "big" daily newscast at 8pm on two channels, or if he should go for different audiences, and split them into that, and a "news light" version, and an additional headlines only variant on one channel, because it would reach more viewers. And it did. So the shortlist version won. 

Also - at least in past years, there was the programming done for the stay at home house wives, that were the only ones watching before noon, and the audience flow that never quite managed, to get people to stay for in depth stories - and those notable german news outlets I mentioned above - one is a radio program (öffentlich rechtlich), the other one is basically the "media watchdog" organization within the biggest TV network in the country. (Watched by hardly anyone.) 

People always wanted to spend maybe their 20 minutes a day listening to a newscaster, and then they had their fill.  (Usually they dont remember 90% of the stuff that got reported 5 minutes after the format ended, but thats just the format. (Usually lack of context.))


And to be extremely honest - I can look at an RT clip of Mrs Clinton and John Kerry "smile for the camera" haming it up at a billionaire donors wedding and have a rough understanding of what this is, without resorting to "narrative shortcuts" (conspiracy theories). But does that really benefit me in my life? Not much, particularly. 

I even might be a more somber and maybe even blue person because of it, and if I write my best guess version of what the heck those "strange" green social movements are supposed to achieve - in their view, in societies view - pick a viewpoint...  I might loose a potential retreat to a "I havent really thought about that - aspect" standpoint. 

It is what you do with it. And if you can make a small amount of difference - as a reporter, hey its worth it. People always want to listen to stories. And some of them really are worth to be told. And there the right person can make a difference.

Its not black/white not in media, not in life.  Americans, other nationalities, .. doesnt matter much. (From my experience.)

Media that at least is primarily publicly financed (öffentlich rechtlich, NPR, ...) helps.


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## the_randomizer (Dec 21, 2018)

Wow, what a dumbass. Got everything he deserved.


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## Flame (Dec 21, 2018)

you are telling when trump shouts fake news, he might be telling the truth. 

*mind blown*

in other news. Santa Claus is real.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 21, 2018)

notimp said:


> Thats an overgeneralization at least to some extent.



Of course it is, I was just sharing a personal experience 



> Also - at least in past years, there was the programming done for the stay at home house wives, that were the only ones watching before noon, and the audience flow that never quite managed, to get people to stay for in depth stories - and those notable german news outlets I mentioned above



ZDF has an entire channel that in large parts does nothing but put on reruns all day but when the olympic games are on all public TV stations only broadcast on a single station and tell you to use live streams which are barely able to keep up, buffer all the time and make you watch at terrible bitrate for most of it even though nation wide public TV has a combined total of 6! stations. You have to question their spending at some point.



> It is what you do with it. And if you can make a small amount of difference - as a reporter, hey its worth it. People always want to listen to stories. And some of them really are worth to be told. And there the right person can make a difference.
> 
> Its not black/white not in media, not in life.  Americans, other nationalities, .. doesnt matter much. (From my experience.)



Sure but as you said yourself, they do hold responsibility. I'm even fine with some political bias. What I don't like is deliberately taking things out of context, suggesting alternative facts by omission, etc. And this does happen. In other words: There's a difference between being a journalst or reporter and being an activist. I'm fine with either from all over the political spectrum just don't masquerade your activism as journalism or reporting.



> Media that at least is primarily publicly financed (öffentlich rechtlich, NPR, ...) helps.



We're in agreement here. Although I do think we need some sort of reform over how things work here in Germany.

Any Youth Formats just need to be killed with fire. I would say I understand comedy but publically calling for doxxing campaigns on NEO MAGAZIN ROYAL that is funded by everyone is just a step to far for my taste. Funk does have a few channels I enjoy like MrWissen2Go or Kurzgesagt but Game Two has no place there and I won’t even touch on the number of radical left channels.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Flame said:


> you are telling when trump shouts fake news, he might be telling the truth.
> 
> *mind blown*
> 
> in other news. Santa Claus is real.



Yes, I specifically mentioned the prize awarded by CNN because of the irony.


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## Xzi (Dec 21, 2018)

Flame said:


> you are telling when trump shouts fake news, he might be telling the truth.


Oh fake news exists, he's just never honest about where the majority of it comes from.  The vast majority of network and paper news outlets will issue a retraction whenever they've published something false.  For Fox and talk radio, the entire point is publishing falsehoods in order to muddy the waters for real news, so you'll never hear them retract anything.


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## notimp (Dec 21, 2018)

Flame said:


> you are telling when trump shouts fake news, he might be telling the truth.
> 
> *mind blown*
> 
> in other news. Santa Claus is real.


Funny thing - the first thing the Spiegel did (ok, about the fifth - in the second third of the article..) is to look up other cases where that happened before. They arent common. But they found two.  One of them american, if my memory serves me well.. 

The thing with fake news is not that they dont exist - its rather their narrative (I'm using this word too much..  ) framing.

First and foremost. If you are in the business of reporting stories, and your "best" tool of the trade is to "have at least two independent sources that are congruent on a story" - which you also don't always adhere to in some cases - because that thing was made up by an american news outlet decades in the past. You are also reporting false stories.

In other astonishing news, youtubers almost never know what they are talking about.

Set aside - that in this version of the story fake news - that are actually entirely imagined - from a journalist (!!) nonetheless is different and more problematic in nature--

- what "fake news" actually transports is almost a sense of betrayal - that strangely enough I've never seen from people towards commercial influencers, who do that every freaking day, because its their "not really a job".  (Where is the outrage against "Hey - I bought this product because of fake news?" - oh it doesnt exist. How strange...)

Journalists are actually supposed to tell their perspective of the truth, if the circumstances permit it. They are supposed to research a story, they are supposed to fact check, they are supposed to pick up the telephone or get out there and talk to people.

They also didn't betray anyone "in bulk" "in general" at least not as far as I've seen.  The worst things that you could accuse them of doing - is underreporting rightwing sentiments of people in Europe (in the US they weren rectified in the least, so I'd not call them sentiments, I'd call them something different.. ) towards migration. Being too close and too cosy to established power structures (thats why you read different media outlets - but not "everything"), which (feeding them exclusivity for tameness) is pretty much the entire relationship of people in power with the press since - idk, the french courtsystem? (I picked something..  ) - And not telling people what they wanted to hear, mostly politically. Also because you've gotten political shifts that media wasnt anticipating.

And now - every second word out of everyones mouth, when talking to a - or about a journalist is "fake news". Boy - you all learned a new word, didn't you.

Also the far right uses it distinctly to discredit almost the entire media system. Which people already weakened, by thinking, that social media would "replace it anyhow", because they didnt know what they were talking about, and their days were long.

So if you some how can - please dont use this phrase lightly. You are certainly doing no one a favor - and probably are only doing it to feel better about you not caring much about media at all. And no, youtube doesnt count. Podcasts maybe. But only If I'm having a good day.  (Mostly commentary, not research.)

In this specific case - use it, because this needs "embelishment" and overdrawn analogies - and also for once, the fake news sentiment actually fits.. 


But then at least think further. In science reporting, for example you had the problem for years, that journalists didn't understand the actual studies (almost regardless of field), and if they did - in many cases they embellished the findings for a good headline. No one knows how to tackle that (they are now teaching actual "press relations for scientists" in high profile universities.  ). And your question, if this is also "fake news" doesnt help either.

The question if "fake news" journalism is responsible for the current status quo - or can be seen as a big structural issue in society - still gets an emphatic and all encompassing - NO. Not at all, not even in the slightest.

Its just that most people - for the first time ever - noticed on facebook, that there is more than the major channels newsanchors perspective to the world out there. And it probably scared them. But then they thought, that now they "were in the know", because of some outlet of questionable repute - and that all journalists where lying to them. Or most of them. Whatever. 

And because journalism thanks to your advertising platforms of your choice, had a little bit of a financing problem by then (what craigslist is not in "the papers" anymore?), they couldnt tell people that they didn't care about you if you thought that way. You had them by the balls. And now you will "fake news" comment on or question them until they are dead. (Overembellished image..  )


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## Saiyan Lusitano (Dec 22, 2018)

As the saying goes; Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. And that he did.


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## WiiUBricker (Dec 22, 2018)

Fake News are a thing, no matter the reputation of the author. That’s why it’s important to not always believe what’s written and always pay attention to the provided (or not provided) sources.


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## notimp (Dec 22, 2018)

Here is another good analogy. People crying "wolf" all the time, so when something actually happens, they are "not surprised" anymore.

What a wonderful crisis prevention strategy.

Although this time, you should actually care. Because this was a reputable source. And they had a fact checking department. But it happened anyhow. Until someone within the magazine researched more.

Now if you could all please stop armchair coaching, or do your "I always knew it" bit (Funny thing, that "dont let get facts in the way" story? Google lists irishamericanmoms.com as the top web source for that quote.) - the actual impact of this could be felt a little more.


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## Glyptofane (Dec 22, 2018)

Xzi said:


> Oh fake news exists, he's just never honest about where the majority of it comes from.  The vast majority of network and paper news outlets will issue a retraction whenever they've published something false.  For Fox and talk radio, the entire point is publishing falsehoods in order to muddy the waters for real news, so you'll never hear them retract anything.


Faux News is a fake conservative operation designed by liberals to appeal to conservative boomers. With the exception of Tucker Carlson, who is under attack by advertisers, it's a total shitshow front.


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## Xzi (Dec 22, 2018)

Glyptofane said:


> Faux News is a fake conservative operation designed by liberals to appeal to conservative boomers. With the exception of Tucker Carlson, who is under attack by advertisers, it's a total shitshow front.


Unfortunately there's no good alternative for conservative news, either.  It has all lost completely lost touch with reality in order to protect the fragile egos of its consumers.  There will have to be a reckoning eventually of course, and I imagine they'll try to distance themselves from Trump when all is said and done, just as they did with GWB in the later years.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 22, 2018)

Thanks for you post. We're in agreement over a lot of things but I'd like to get your perspective on some of it.



notimp said:


> Funny thing - the first thing the Spiegel did (ok, about the fifth - in the second third of the article..) is to look up other cases where that happened before. They arent common. But they found two.  One of them american, if my memory serves me well..
> 
> The thing with fake news is not that they dont exist - its rather their narrative (I'm using this word too much..  ) framing.



I guess it would be worthwhile to try to define fake news. I would agree that making up entire stories like it is the case with Relotius is not all too common but I would also classify extreme framing as a type of fake news.
I would say framing is VERY commonplace in mainstream media. I tried laying out examples but it was way too long. Copypasta may have something to do with it but at best it's extremely sloppy reporting.

Here's an article that I take particular issue with. https://www.bento.de/politik/sind-e...utsche-a-f34e6279-e321-4d88-ab22-68204994eec8
It basically drops the truth bomb that 11% of the population is convicted for 33% of the crimes and then does the mental gymnastics to say when it comes to sexual violence that the problem is males not migrants. No shit Bento, how about mentioning that migrant males are still extremely overrepresented going so far as to make up the absolute majority (not just overrepresentation) in gang rape suspects?



> In other astonishing news, youtubers almost never know what they are talking about.



Hmm, do you have any examples? I found some youtubers to be quite reliable for fact checking. Others (some  of them publicly funded) are outright fabricating stuff like Rayk Anders for example (Lösch Dich documentation is in large parts nothing but a misrepresentation, )



> They also didn't betray anyone "in bulk" "in general" at least not as far as I've seen.  The worst things that you could accuse them of doing - is underreporting rightwing sentiments of people in Europe (in the US they weren rectified in the least, so I'd not call them sentiments, I'd call them something different.. ) towards migration.



Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Are you saying that media IS underreporting on rightwing sentiments? Would you have examples or arguments for it, because I have a completely different impression.
They're very much overreporting on stuff like Chemnitz to the point where they just run with things (hunts / Hetzsjagden of migrants) that could never be corroborated on the ground and driving guilt by association for everyone at the protest, yet OTOH they're always mentioning that a violent left wing minority at protests is an insult to all the peaceful protestors and their cause.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 22, 2018)

@notimp this may be interesting to you

Journalismus im Neutralitätswahn - Warum wir endlich damit auhören sollten, nur abbilden zu wollen, "was ist". Mein Plädoyer für einen werteorientierten Journalismus in der aktuellen Ausgabe von "WDR Print".@WDR_Presse pic.twitter.com/3EHkip2mJn— Georg Restle (@georgrestle) July 3, 2018


Georg Restle, editor in chief for WDR Monitor which you previously described as "the media watchdog" and publicly funded, writing a piece for WDR print making the case for journalism driven by values and against neutral reporting.

Edit: Looking into this a bit further because I was unaware of this. Reading his replies to tweets helps understanding his mindset. Here's what I take from this

It's impossible to be neutral because the mere selection on which news to report on will already show bias.
Forced neutrality will be nothing but regurgitating PR campaign unchecked. He says opinions should be marked as such but I it doesn't seems as if he would support a clear separation between reporting and opninion pieces.
He says that the values that should drive reporting are constitutional such as humanism and free speech. I have a big problem with this! If you want to apply any sort of objective measure for this you would have to go by what the Federal Constitunional Court rules by whose measure the NPD is in accordance with the constitution given that attempts to ban it have failed. Restle clearly positions himself opposite to values held by AfD which is a party to the left of NPD. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it but in this context his piece clearly comes off as him wanting journalists to be the moral arbiters.
He makes the case for non-neutral but unbiased reporting. Is it reasonable to assume this is even possible? Is he making the case for partisan, echo-chamber like media here? Does this have ANY place in publicly funded media?


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## notimp (Dec 22, 2018)

Same stuff got mentioned in the Hersh Interview (do we need more straight shooters, or crusaders). I think its bogus. Not because it wouldnt work - but because it wouldnt make things better.

My position always was and will be not to pay into the following: That you are paying a cut to social networks for attention - and that that as a business model will work - because everything scales amazingly. And that this basically is bogus and that social media currently gets money for about as low effort stuff as you can get. They are the "we arent responsible for anything" part of what in the future will be the entire attention economy and most of the advertising market. And maybe the new form of democracy as well. (The social score stuff.)

Now journalists are supposed to do jumping jacks for a little bit of that market.

You see the EXACT same argument in the Forum Alpbach video I posted in the "asocial media" thread in the offtopic forum. That ticked me off.

"Everyone has to learn a little bit more how to "dance monkey, dance" - so they can matter again." Super personal, opinion instread of fact... Matter to the irrational.

Regardless of how you put it - this is a dumbing down of the whole thing.

That way you'll end with entities, that will pivot based on perceived trends.

The people with a university diploma will not parttake and read "privately financed" (usually Stiftungen) newspapers instead, which is the only other model that will be out there - afaik.

This I wrote based on the headline - now, let me actually read the article. 

The entire thing is based around the fact, that people arent actively looking for you anymore - and now you try to find a way around that. The position of the google sponsored journalism Professors always was "do the monkey dance, pay my sponsors 30%".

But at least the privately financed outlets will then have the time for reporting again, people tell me. Thats the other part thats missing and that you cant easily fix - there is such a high "incentive" to breaking a story first now - that journalism as a whole has suffered. Hardly anyone has the two days anymore to "go after" a story. That was also the excuse of our pathological liar at the Spiegel btw. "fear of not being able to keep up". That guy already did "human interest" stories. The social commentary for the casual reader.

edit: Read the article. Not much more to add. Can journalism be objective? Of course not. But the notion that it is, is an important part of the selfimages within the business. If you set that aside, I dont know if stuff gets better. Thats the whole self imposed morals (Selbseverpflichtung) thing. It never quite works, but as an ideal it keeps stuff on track. Objectivism (as far as its possible) you get by comparing limited, but diverse points of view - not popular opinions.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 22, 2018)

notimp said:


> Same stuff got mentioned in the Hersh Interview (do we need more straight shooters, or crusaders). I think its bogus. Not because it wouldnt work - but because it wouldnt make things better.
> 
> My position always was and will be not to pay into the following: That you are paying a cut to social networks for attention - and that that as a business model will work - because everything scales amazingly. And that this basically is bogus and that social media currently gets money for about as low effort stuff as you can get. They are the "we arent responsible for anything" part of what in the future will be the entire attention economy and most of the advertising market. And maybe the new form of democracy as well. (The social score stuff.)
> 
> ...




Dude. I tried replying but I don't think I understandstand what you're saying :/


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## Jayro (Dec 22, 2018)

Imagine having the name "Der".


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## notimp (Dec 22, 2018)

supersonicwaffle said:


> Dude. I tried replying but I don't think I understandstand what you're saying :/


I've just added the "logic of social media" to the mix.

Hyper personal, emotional, congregating people, creating content thats always wow and and look at my personality. If you read Jeff Jarvis (journalism professor whose research is sponsored by f.e. google) - he's basically on the forefront of "having people do journalism on a Twitch stream" - and was so for the past five years.

The thing is, that people came to journalistic outlets (a paper for example), because they were interested in what they had to offer - but now they mostly stay on social media and get emotional click bait - when an algo surfaces it.

More "opinion" stuff will fit into this model - but it doesnt confront the crisis journalism is having - namely that people consume all kind of media content these days that isnt produced by journalism at all - and they find it hard to see the difference.

Georg Restle in the artiicle above basically tells everyone to grow a hipster beard, and get their emojis on - for the sake of journalism. "Become a personal brand."

The "loss of trust" in journalism was not that people where not told the truth all the time - it was "they never talk about the stories I like" - which were russian models telling them "deutsche Welle" stories from RTs perspective...  And fear the immigrant.

If you are producing more "journalistic opinion leaders", what is really gained? I mean  you stroke some egos. You can stay happening on facebook. People might be more entertained... You follow the "what works on facebook" model, and therefore get more societal influence. Great.

Cant wait for the Twitter fudes and follower battles.

Donald Trump vs my favorite subjective journalist.

Tilo Jung and Stefan Schulz (of one of the biggest political alternative Podcasts in Germany) were just "congratulated by their fans" for finally having also embraced the "green economy". Set aside, that I have my personal difficulties with it (if you are a sociopolitical initiative, and I ask you what is your goal, and you say "to safe the planet", ...) - is that really what we want?


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 22, 2018)

notimp said:


> I've just added the "logic of social media" to the mix.
> 
> Hyper personal, emotional, congregating people, creating content thats always wow and and look at my personality. If you read Jeff Jarvis (journalism professor whose research is sponsored by f.e. google) - he's basically on the forefront of "having people do journalism on a Twitch stream" - and was so for the past five years.



This type of content is not unique to social media, this type of content has existed before.



> The thing is, that people came to journalistic outlets (a paper for example), because they were interested in what they had to offer - but now they mostly stay on social media and get emotional click bait - when an algo surfaces it.



I'd be interested in numbers to back that up. It doesn't make sense to me. If I have an interest in what news outlets have to offer, I follow them on social media, any algorithm will try to serve types of content that I've previously shown interest in including news outlets, to maximize my time on the platform.
You're either grossly misrepresenting how the algorithms work or you're trying to make an argument that people previously interested in news outlets are not anymore and jump to the conclusion that they just aren't served what they're interested in by an algorithm.



> More "opinion" stuff will fit into this model - but it doesnt confront the crisis journalism is having - namely that people consume all kind of media content these days that isnt produced by journalism at all.



I don't agree with you AT ALL here. People have always been consuming non journalistic content, but I take it you want to discredit independent journalists writing on their own blogs or covering news on YouTube as not being journalists simply because they aren't published in traditional media.
I'm sorry but that's more indicative of someone that doesn't understand the market anymore, maybe because they're stuck in old ways. This way of thinking has been the downfall of many an enterprise tech, media and otherwise.
The crisis *mainstream* journalism is having is that they have lost trust and a lot of that trust was lost because independent journalists fact checked their BS.



> Georg Restle in the artiicle above basically tells everyone to grow a hipster beard, and get their emojis on - for the sake of journalism. "Become a personal brand."



And in my opinion he's completely out of touch with his audience, he's mostly facing criticism for it in his twitter replies as well. More indication that he just doesn't understand the market or his job anymore.
He literally states that journalism should not be neutral because the political center may drift to the right and therefor be stupid. He's like a little child that wants to take his toys home because people don't want to put up with BS. It's utterly ridiculous.



> The "loss of trust" in journalism was not that people where not told the truth all the time - it was "they never talk about the stories I like" - which were russian models telling them "deutsche Welle" stories from RTs perspective...  And fear the immigrant.



These are pretty wild assertions. As a matter of fact Tagesschau had record breaking numbers last year even without counting online views from Mediathek, Alexa skills, Podcasts or other ways the show is distributed.
I don't buy into that people are less interested in news, sorry. 



> If you are producing more "journalistic opinion leaders", what is really gained? I mean  you stroke some egos. You can stay happening on facebook. People might be more entertained... You follow the "what works on facebook" model, and therefore get more societal influence. Great.



It's exactly what they're doing with Funk on YouTube and it has backfired massively. One of their channels (Jäger & Sammler) was basically laughed off the platform and are now concentrating on Facebook as their main platform. More indication that people in charge don't understand the new market situation.


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## Saiyan Lusitano (Dec 22, 2018)

notimp said:


> Google lists


That's your mistake. Don't rely just on one search engine.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/807622-never-let-the-truth-get-in-the-way-of-a



Xzi said:


> there's no good alternative for conservative news



Facts can be manipulated easily and twisted so it's better to do your own research.

Even popular known beliefs/history portrayed as facts were made up. Just because the majority thinks it's true, it doesn't mean that it actually is.


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## Xzi (Dec 22, 2018)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> Facts can be manipulated easily and twisted so it's better to do your own research.
> 
> Even popular known beliefs/history portrayed as facts were made up. Just because the majority thinks it's true, it doesn't mean that it actually is.


Yeah but we're talking about instances of a person saying one thing, then completely contradicting themselves hours or a day later.  Then lying about their original statement.  Then conservative media pretends the first part never happened and go along with the obvious (objective) lie.

That's entirely different from typical whitewashing of history and other typical factual inaccuracies.


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## D34DL1N3R (Dec 22, 2018)

What blows my mind is righties acting like POS Trump and Fox News have never delivered any "fake news" a day in their life. They go above and beyond fake on a daily basis. Any one of them who wants to point a finger at CNN in front of me & try to act holier than thou, and I'll break it right off their hand. There's nothing most people hate more than a hypocrite.


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## FierceDeityLinkMask (Dec 22, 2018)

D34DL1N3R said:


> What blows my mind is righties acting like POS Trump and Fox News have never delivered any "fake news" a day in their life. They go above and beyond fake on a daily basis. Any one of them who wants to point a finger at CNN in front of me & try to act holier than thou, and I'll break it right off their hand. There's nothing most people hate more than a hypocrite.


How dare you say that about Fox News? It's one of the most reliable news outlets in the world. Almost as reliable as InfoWars. Also, the GOD EMPEROR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP never lies. YOU are FAKE NEWS!


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## burial (Dec 22, 2018)

Surprised?

Some american news channels are nothing but fake news......one in particular.


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

burial said:


> Surprised?
> 
> Some american news channels are nothing but fake news......one in particular.


Why is no one commenting on this? You all have given up right. This is just stuff you turn your head at, when you see it on Facebook.

*ts*

Der Spiegel now released an entire "we so sorry" issue - "for free" (*smirk*): http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-43950.pdf

This one is actually sickening. Its the Spiegel saying, we so bad, but others also were affected, but less badly, and we immediatly reacted, and our bad reporter he so smart and criminal, he even faked an email, that technical genius, and our other reporter that brought this to light, he such a smart investigative guy - and here is your human interest story about when he first had doubts, and then he voiced , them - but then bad reporter said this to him...

Just shut up and take the blame for gods sake. Is my immediate gut reaction. This is written in a way to "best rectify" everything that happened. Here, have it for free.

edit: Stuff like this


> Misstrauisch betrachtet Geicke auch den Schlussabsatz der Geschichte, in dem die Hauptfigur Jaeger angeblich einen Schuss in die Nacht abfeuert, womöglich auf einen Migranten. Relotius erwidert laut Geicke, der Mann ballere häufiger in der Gegend herum. »Ich habe ihm dann geglaubt«, sagt Geicke.
> 
> (Translation: Leerily Geiker [the factchecker] looks at the final paragraph of the story, where the main protagonist Jaeger - allegedly - fires a shot into the night, perhaps at a migrant. Relotius [bad guy journalist] responds - so Geike - that the man would quite often fire randomly into the surroundings. "I believed him", says Geike [the factchecker].)





> Die meisten Kollegen reagieren erschüttert. Bei einigen fließen Tränen.
> 
> (Translation "Most colleagues are astonished [by the reveal]. Some even shed tears.")





> Juan Moreno ist dieser Co-Autor, seit 2007 als Reporter für den SPIEGEL in aller Welt unterwegs. Im Streit mit und über Relotius riskiert Moreno seinen eigenen Job, zwischenzeitlich *recherchiert* er dem Kollegen, verzweifelt, *auf eigene Kosten* hinterher. Drei, vier Wochen lang geht Moreno durch die Hölle, weil Kolleginnen und Vorgesetzte in Hamburg seine Vorwürfe anfangs gar nicht glauben können. Relotius? Ein Fälscher? Der bescheidene Claas? Ausgerechnet?
> 
> (Translation: Juan Moreno is this co-author [good guy journalist], as a reporter for Der Spiegel since 2007 working all around the world. In his conflict with Relotius, Moreno risks his own job, while in the meantime *researching* after the story of his colleague, desperatly - *on his own dime*. Three, four weeks Moreno struts through hell, because his associates and superiors in Hamburg at first cant believe his accusations. Relotius? A forger? The humble Claas guy? He of all people?
> 
> Emphasis (bold text) set by Der Spiegel.


- is just manipulative.

Thats bad journalism.

(But works well on social media.)


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 23, 2018)

notimp said:


> Why is no one commenting on this? You all have given up right. This is just stuff you turn your head at, when you see it on Facebook.
> 
> *ts*
> 
> ...



Thanks for sharing it. Will read it later today. Read somewhere the piece on the fraud is supposedly 23 pages long.

What's also interesting is that he apparently went off and asked for donations via email. Donations were sent to his private bank account, at this time it's still unsure what happened with it.


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## ItsMetaKnight (Dec 23, 2018)

Just the tip of the iceberg.


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

Here is the vilification in prosa (Der Spiegel, see link above):


> "Ich glaube", sagte Relotius vergangene Woche, "ein normaler Mensch würde sagen, hör' mal, Chef, das funktioniert hier nicht, ich sitze fest, wir können die Geschichte nicht machen." Aber Relotius zählt offenbar nicht zu den normalen Menschen. "Ich neige dazu", sagt er, "die Kontrolle haben zu wollen. Und ich habe diesen Drang, diesen Trieb, es doch irgendwie zu schaffen. Man schafft es natürlich nicht. Man schafft eine Fälschung."
> 
> (Translation: "I think", says Relotius last week, "a normal human would say, listen boss, this doesnt work here, I'm stuck, we cant make that story" But Relotius seemingly isnt part of those normal people. "I have the tendency", he says, "wanting to have control. And I have this tendency, this - urge - to somehow make it work. Of course you dont. You then create a fake.")



Yes, thank you for this speech out of "the villains" mouth. Excusing his superior of all wrongdoing. 

Boy, I hope I'm up to the part where the good guy journalist kisses the female love interest soon...


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

ItsMetaKnight said:


> Just the tip of the iceberg.


You go ahead and only read facebook newsfeeds from now on.

His statement by the way is whats called a trueism. Something that you never can quite deny. Its the same as "the dark figure is higher" thats emotional outrage bait as well.

Media literacy ftw.

You are not adding to this story, by stating how you feel about it in ten words or less, or that you'd had always known. If you do that - you are just drawing a straight line from something you were emotional about in the past - to this.

I know that this is freaking common on social media, but please give your impressions or thoughts more substance if you can. To stuff this story with gossip doesnt help. Its bad enough already.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 23, 2018)

Oh boy just started reading. Amateur hour at its finest.

The guy had no recordings, no photographs, no documentation, no nothing. A co-worker tasked with examining pieces for authenticity or plausibility had his doubts but ultimately went "¯\_(ツ)_/¯, guess he's telling the truth, really hard to verify things"

Am I crazy to expect certain deliverables from research such as photographs, recordings, journals or even just receipts that show the journalist was anywhere near where he's saying he was?
Am I crazy to expect stuff like this be set up to automatically sync to the headquarter's IT infrastructure for preservation? What happens in case this guys device is lost or damaged?
Am I crazy to expect that the person verifying this story should look at this stuff?

I'm only two pages in but I'm already infuriated at how simple it really was for relotius to slip through.

EDIT:

Oh boy


> Di Lorenzo: Vielleicht ist es in dieser Ausnahmesituation erlaubt, aus dem Nähkästchen zu plaudern. Nach meiner Erinnerung waren in den letzten Jahren mindestens zwei Geschichten von Claas Relotius in der Diskussion für die beste Reportage des Jahres. Aber in der Jury gab es Zweifel an den Geschichten.



Di Lorenzo, editor in chief at "Zeit" is saying that multiple members of a prize committee had significant doubt about the veracity of Relotius' stories. According to Wikipedia the committee almost always had the current editor in chief from SPIEGEL as a member. Now they have the nerve to write as if they were completely oblivious to the fact his pieces may be fabricated. If Di Lorenzo is to be taken by his word, this means SPIEGEL actively fostered a culture to allow for frauds and didn't allow doubt about Relotius to seep into their minds.


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## FAST6191 (Dec 23, 2018)

supersonicwaffle said:


> The guy had no recordings, no photographs, no documentation, no nothing. A co-worker tasked with examining pieces for authenticity or plausibility had his doubts but ultimately went "¯\_(ツ)_/¯, guess he's telling the truth, really hard to verify things"
> 
> Am I crazy to expect certain deliverables from research such as photographs, recordings, journals or even just receipts that show the journalist was anywhere near where he's saying he was?
> Am I crazy to expect stuff like this be set up to automatically sync to the headquarter's IT infrastructure for preservation? What happens in case this guys device is lost or damaged?
> ...



Not that it excuses anything but I imagine the first thing to be cut as things feel the squeeze (not like newspaper has been the most lucrative of industries these last few decades) is the department that routinely says "all good" and starts to look more and more like an expense, especially if those they look at are considered upstanding members of society doing their bit. Actually you say IT is your game so you probably have sat there with people seeing the money fly out into your department and not generate any income per se aka you are an expense, however in the middle of their clueless rant you start to ponder how long it would take for things to fall over if you all vanished tomorrow.

I don't know what the journalistic equivalent is but spies call them paper mills. When your checking department goes skeleton crew you probably get them as the first thing to slip through the net.


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

> These are pretty wild assertions. As a matter of fact Tagesschau had record breaking numbers last year even without counting online views from Mediathek, Alexa skills, Podcasts or other ways the show is distributed.
> I don't buy into that people are less interested in news, sorry.


Not what I meant. 

People are less interested in the news outlet itself (the "source"). Two examples: 1. People stopped "clicking through" to the original webpage on facebook anymore, to them they get their news "from facebook" (Their videos are autoplaying, why leave the stream..  Thats design.) 2. The google news story about "we dont permit you to use our stories, oops - our reader numbers fell by 50+%".

People are still interested in stories - but they can get them "where they already are" (talking to their friends on facebook), and therefore are less interested in news outlets. (Also, if you make them choose between facebook and lets say The Guardian, ... )

Same thing with the short ads stuff (the thing people are now using craigslist for, or facebook auctions). Same thing with the advertisers telling them - look, facebook knows more about my potential customer, than you do.

I dont see how adhering to facebook logic ("become a personal brand") fixes that. It just strokes peoples egos and plays into the "only whats popular is important" narrative (you dont have a medium any more that can "subsidise" the important story with some popular ones - everything is now optimized for popularity (algorithm)).

From my perspective, this harms journalism more, than it benefits it. You end up with those guys:





(Image stolen from youtube - where it belongs...  )

But then my main issue here is "facebook", or "google news", or the aggregators...

Taking a 30% (usually) cut of the income, while having ruined the advertising market for conventional media (they know much more about their "customer").

Replacing agenda setting with popularity algorithms (I like).

But then thats not a very profound relization as well. I simply want the old system back.  Which is never going to happen either. 

Also - I dont see this getting "fixed" by journalists becoming more "personal" (presenting people with opinions instead of something you intentionaly try to take commentary or perspective out of (=not quite fact, but..  )).

Thats also why I dont see this as the great new future of media. If it happens, the "educated" people will still rather flock to outlets that follow a different standard - which currently some believe will then be mostly those run by people who are willing to loose money and still dont downsize the editorial staff (Bezos, ...).


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## CORE (Dec 23, 2018)

This is nothing new most shit nowadays is Biased and Fake News or Scare Mongering about something just to get a response whether it be anger or compassion etc either way they succeed because they got the response. This Winter will be the worst because it is going to snow and gale force winds or blizzards etc Fear Mongering Crap It is the Winter after all they over hype what is obvious Because it is Story Telling.

It is like this nonsense with CNN or MSNBC and all the crap about Trump Stop Spreading Fake News and Report the Bloody News.


OVER DRAMATIC OVER HYPED.


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 23, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Not that it excuses anything but I imagine the first thing to be cut as things feel the squeeze (not like newspaper has been the most lucrative of industries these last few decades) is the department that routinely says "all good" and starts to look more and more like an expense, especially if those they look at are considered upstanding members of society doing their bit. Actually you say IT is your game so you probably have sat there with people seeing the money fly out into your department and not generate any income per se aka you are an expense, however in the middle of their clueless rant you start to ponder how long it would take for things to fall over if you all vanished tomorrow.
> 
> I don't know what the journalistic equivalent is but spies call them paper mills. When your checking department goes skeleton crew you probably get them as the first thing to slip through the net.



I will admit that I've only worked as an outside contractor, people come to me because they have a need or a problem. This is pretty uncommon to me. OTOH I work fully transparent and have automation in place to create statistics, which is what I would expect from a department that fact checks.

While fact checking a piece, make notes of what can't be corroborated, keep statistics of what is a usual number of unverifiable facts for different departments (harder to verify facts from a reporter on the ground in a war than someone researching a border militia in the US), create reports that show some reporters tend to have significantly higher numbers in these areas, create reports that show trends some reporters became less verifiable over time. You know, the bare minimum.

--



> People are less interested in the news outlet itself (the "source"). Two examples: 1. People stopped "clicking through" to the original webpage on facebook anymore, to them they get their news "from facebook" (Their videos are autoplaying, why leave the stream..  Thats design.) 2. The google news story about "we dont permit you to use our stories, ups - our reader numbers fell by 50+%".



You're saying people went from reading articles to reading headlines, it's exactly what I meant. Your example regarding google as a news aggregator is literally saying people DO "click through" and it has a massive impact on the site if they don't advertise properly (i.e. be present at aggregators and in social media).



> People are still interested in stories - but they can get them "where they already are" (talking to their friends on facebook), and therefor are less interested in news outlets.



The only thing I get from your argument is that people may not be as interested in a specific outlet because they are provided tools to get a better overview over many outlets. This does not constitute less interest in news but may indicate less interest in news of a certain political bias.



> I dont see how adhering to facebook logic ("become a personal brand") fixes that. It just strokes peoples egos and plays into the "only whats popular is important" narrative (you dont have a medium any more that can "subsidise" the important story with some popular ones - everything is now optimized for popularity (algorithm)).



Again, I think you're barking up the wrong tree and have a false assessment of the issue at hand. It's true that it won't fix things, it will make it worse. You said yourself Restle is advocating for this, if you look for the immediate feedback that he got for this (twitter responses), it's overwhelmingly negative, are we just ignoring this?



> From my perspective, this harms journalism more, than it benefits it. You end up with those guys:



Exactly, from what I hear Relotius was a proponent of value driven journalism as proposed by Restle (I may be wrong of this). This is exactly what it breeds, because the whole premise of it is BS.
I will say again that "amateurs" have been given tools to self publish easily (social media, blogs, etc.) and are in the proccess of overtaking traditional news outlets because outlets will ignore how to play the new game properly, make wrong assumptions and ultimately fall flat on their face while trying to turn things around, it's literally how a lot of big players in various industries have fallen in the past.



> But then my main issue here is "facebook", or "google news", or (the aggregators)...



Why? They're a tool for consumers to get a better overview over different outlets. People have done this manually for ages with RSS feeds, remember the outcry when google cancelled their RSS reader application?



> Taking a 30% (usually) cut of the income, while having ruined the addvertising market for conventional media (they know much more about their "customer").



I think that's way too simplistic, while what you describe is a problem for big outlets, it's a godsend for smaller outlets and independents. Funny enough, when adpocalypse struck and things became harder for smaller outlets and independants they found a way to generate income through other means like subscriptions, while bigger outlets basically did nothing but take ad block creators to court and trying to make their content inaccessible with an activated ad blocker, recently they started to put certain content behind paywalls which does seem to work better given that it's become more commonplace.



> Replacing agenda setting with popularity algorithms (I like).



I don't know if I understand correctly but if you're saying that journalists following an agenda is replaced, than that's a good thing in my book because journalists have no business doing that.



> But then thats not a very profound relization as well. I simple want the old system back.  Which is never going to happen either.



You want an old system, where it was significantly more time consuming to take in multiple sources to aid in forming an opinion, back?



> Thats also why I dont see this as the great new future of media. If it happens, the "educated" people will still rather flock to outlets that follow a different standard - which currently some believe will then be mostly those run by people who are willing to loose money and still dont downsize the editorial staff (Bezos, ...).



The new media landscape and quality journalism are not mutually exclusive. Assumptions made by traditional media of what it would take to transition are misguided.
Funny you mention Bezos. Here's an article of an outlet with "different standards" https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...creator/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0e4eefe92207


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## TotalInsanity4 (Dec 23, 2018)

Glyptofane said:


> Faux News is a fake conservative operation designed by liberals to appeal to conservative boomers. With the exception of Tucker Carlson, who is under attack by advertisers, it's a total shitshow front.


Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

supersonicwaffle said:


> I don't know if I understand correctly but if you're saying that journalists following an agenda is replaced, than that's a good thing in my book because journalists have no business doing that.


No, not saying that - literally just saying, that "most popular" leads to youtuber culture and bubbles culture.

Splicing in a "less popular" news item is called the feuilleton for example, or the culture section, or even "reporting that took three months - where the costs where offset by the rest of the paper, bringing you sports news".

Today you have those formats financed on Patreon. Maybe. If they ought to be "selfsustaining".
--

But then you are asking more about the "agenda setting" principal I believe.

There we actually diverge. Because "non-yellow press" media always had an editorial focus (Gatekeeper, Influencers, emplying an editorial philosophy (Blattlinie)). Yellow press did also, but they were playing closer to the popularity side of things.

Now here is the controversial part. Have five different opinions/papers, know where they are leaning. And you get a balanced opinion on some stories as a result.

Have an algorithm picking the most popular stories for your specific bubble - you dont.

This still presumes, that you have to go through social media to reach an audience, because thats where the people are, and you want to make (far less than in the past) ad money. The new positive - you might scale better than in the past (the whole world is your market) if you are an english language medium.
--

I've also touched on rich people basically cross financing media outlets, as a model. If you've looked at journalism in the past, this was the model for most of its time. Parties had their papers, the Church had their papers, ... And it is still part of the current media ecosystem. (Look at the media concentration in the US, then look at trusts running newspapers in Germany.)

I dont particularly like this model. Especially not, if papers get the impression, that their audiences have left them and their businessmodel is not viable without outside support. (Springer diverged and now runs car auction platforms for example, or did so on the past...)

But I still believe, that they will end up with more journalistic capacity (ability to bring me storys that matter), than anything that goes the "lets try to appeal as many people as possible - via facebook" route.

Now - the good news is, that those are not the only viable models.  If you are a newspaper, and you can get paying subscribers ("Do you have a youtube video of that?"), you are still golden. Its just thtat advertising wont coup your costs as it did in the past.

if you are a documentarian, and build a brand, and go with Patreon, or doners, great as well.

And if you are partly state financed (öffentlich rechtlich), you are starting to look like you are living in a bubble yourself - but actually a positive one. 

Its just, that I doubt that playing the social media game, to regain peoples attentions will work - without sacrificing quality to a large extent. Thats basically it. I'm weary of that.
-

There is also the "psychological barrier" of "no - we have to write up a story neutrally" that falls with the "lets make opinion journalism" model. And despite what happened at the Spiegel, it should make more people try to get "popular influencer" status a result. You read some journalists Twitter accounts, you should have a feel for where that goes. If thats now part of the paper as well... What do you do on a slow news week, for example... 

Also if you really reached the status of a "popular newsinterpreteur" and you've done so because of your opinion. You've really breached into politics by then.  And if you can do that "alone" - whats really holding you back to be part of a newspaper any longer...? (We've had examples in the past, where Columnists could dictate 80% of a papers sale on any given day, I think in the UK. If they switched papers, ...  )


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## Kigiru (Dec 23, 2018)

I mean... >CNN awards.
From liars for liars. That award was worth as much as a bunch of used toilet paper for people that know how it works so ehhh...


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## SonyUSA (Dec 23, 2018)

Fake news


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 23, 2018)

notimp said:


> There we actually diverge. Because "non-yellow press" media always had an editorial focus (Gatekeeper, Influencers, emplying an editorial philosophy (Blattlinie)). Yellow press did also, but they were playing closer to the popularity side of things.



I understand that and am fine with "some" political bias. There's two seperate issues I was commenting regarding this earlier.

When publicly funded this goes out the window, it's forcefully funded buy everyone and therefor must be balanced, not a single show per se but overall it does.
Restle's perversion of an idea of what journalism is takes arbitrary moral standards, tries to apply it to facts and will ultimately devolve into an argument between his side and wrongthinkers. He's already trying to justify going against the political center if it drifts to the right on certain issues because it may be stupid according to him.



> Now here is the controversial part. Have five different opinions/papers, know where they are leaning. And you get a balanced opinion on some stories as a result.
> 
> Have an algorithm picking the most popular stories for your specific bubble - you dont.



With all due respect, I think you're using popular wrong.
Popular in terms of politics (and news thereof) would represent the political center and be inherently balanced.
You're saying an algorithm is serving up content that a user has previously shown interest in and thus it's building bubbles. Have you ever entertained the possibility that these people never showed interest in the other side of the story and only consumed media with a certain political bias beforehand thus having lived in a pre-social-media bubble? This seems more plausible to me than algorithms radicalizing people.



> But I still believe, that they will end up with more journalistic capacity (ability to bring me storys that matter), than anything that goes the "lets try to appeal as many people as possible - via facebook" route.



People may surprise you! No one thought stretching talk formats out to multiple hours so guests can be heard out would be popular but it's massive right now.



> Also if you are really reached the status of a "popular newsinterpreteur" and you've done so because of your opinion. You've really breached into politics by then.  And if you can do that "alone" - whats really holding you back to be part of a newspaper any longer...? (We've had examples in the past, where Columnists could dictate 80% of a papers sale on any given day, I think in the UK. If they switched papers, ...  )



What would be desirable about being part of a newspaper and potentially compromising independence, possibly forcing the outlets bias on you even?
Journalists work as freelancers all the time, what would be wrong about self-publishing? Why would you assume a journalists couldn't work like this?


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## kuwanger (Dec 23, 2018)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?



Because it makes good money.  Money trumps politics.  Besides, they can always tell themselves that liberalism will ultimately prevail.  Or when the time comes they'll just buy those nice killer robots when they, as members of the 1%, are faced with the anger of the 99% horde.


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

supersonicwaffle said:


> People may surprise you! No one thought stretching talk formats out to multiple hours so guests can be heard out would be popular but it's massive right now.


See this discussion and original article:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075333




supersonicwaffle said:


> What would be desirable about being part of a newspaper and potentially compromising independence, possibly forcing the outlets bias on you even?
> Journalists work as freelancers all the time, what would be wrong about self-publishing? Why would you assume a journalists couldn't work like this?


Hmm, lets see - why pay 6USD a week for 260 people working for a news medium, when I could pay 5USD a month for one journalist telling me his opinion. Millennials obsession with finding one guy, that will be their like... Alexa. 

(Why cant I have like - good News anymore? Because it doesnt pay. But like why cant I then have less people giving me better news, like - for less? Because it doesnt work. But If I like have a really great news guy, and he also gives me opinions, and...  )

The Georg Restle article above I believe made the rounds several months ago, after this weeks Spiegel thing, the new trope is "lets have reports that are made by several people" (four eyes principle) and not just one star reporter.  Something along those lines should answer your question. 

Why cant independent, crowdfunded journalism be the solution? Why do you have to tell every millennial that his dreams of becoming a youtube star are overblown..  If you dont want to pay taxes - on youtube (higher ad-revenue than print) you need about 60.000 subscribers to make living wage in the west. Go!  You'd need about the same amount of subscribers to get maybe 1.000 people spending 1-5 USD a month on you on patreon.

Theres not much to be said against freelancing (despite that it is precarious work (prekäre Arbeit)), but for whom.  Also, people get older and need more dependable, sustainable income.


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## notimp (Dec 23, 2018)

Hey the "bad journalist guy" also did "like and donate" call outs for his fictional characters. Onto his private bank account.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesell...ser-offenbar-mit-spendenaufruf-a-1245226.html
(article in german)

Called it in my first posting. That guy did behave like a youtuber.. 

edit: Because I linked to the Seymour Hersh interview on page one. Reporters without borders now lists the US amongst the top five most dangerous countries for journalists.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...rous-countries-journalists-first-time-n949676



> "The hatred of journalists that is voiced ... by unscrupulous politicians, religious leaders and businessmen has tragic consequences on the ground, and has been reflected in this disturbing increase in violations against journalists," Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said in a statement.



Dont worry, you all have those great youtubers, and instagramers though. 

(via blog.fefe.de)


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 23, 2018)

notimp said:


> See this discussion and original article:
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075333
> 
> 
> ...



I’m kn mobile rn please excuse the lack of formatting.

The article you linked neatly describes a regular hype cycle that’s very commonplace in technology or internet culture without being aware of it, it’s almost funny how unaware the author seems. 
The sentiment in the first few comments of the discussion is that podcasts are permanent and that they’ve replaced NPR for some.

Regarding price. It is quite disengenous to compare a print format that relies multiples of overhead costs such as printing, distribution, etc. to straight online content that, at its most expensive runs a handful of webservers and at its least expensive uses third party infrastructure. It’s also disheartening that you still keep mention journalists who work for outlets  while discrediting everyone else as someone who just gives you their opinion even though you acknowledge there’s not much wrong with freelance work further down. Which is it?

As I’ve said, I’ve only just come across Restles piece but I’m quite shocked as you can probably tell. I’m disgusted that I’m funding his salary.

I’m also not saying crowdfunding and independence is the solution. I’m saying that mainstream media has lost trust by pushing an agenda and their answer is to openly push that they SHOULD be the moral arbiters as evidenced by Restle. They’re not addressing the disconnect between them and their audience because they literally think they’re stupid if they don’t agree with their views of things.
It may also be worthwhile to address that far left politics amongst journalists are very much overrepresented while even just center-right is only a third of the population according to this https://de.statista.com/statistik/d...erenz-von-politikjournalisten-in-deutschland/

—

Also interesting that you source fefe while discrediting people working like this by having “youtuber culture”


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## notimp (Dec 24, 2018)

I dont believe that.  I really believe that the following has happened.

People trust facebook, people trust facebook news (+1 trust if it came from a friend), people see fringe news in facebook feed (30.000 immigrants at the border), people like russian model as news caster. People hear "welcome culture" from their mainstream newscasters. People shout fake news.

Thats it - there was no more loss of trust. The rest was just mainstream media reacting too late. 

Was that them pushing an agenda? Maybe partly but not because of the reasons most people like to think. First, thats what they are being told by the government, which is always a great line to repeat, apart from when the people are about to revolt, which they didnt see coming.  Second the biggest media outlets follow either a (christian) conservative, or a liberal bias, and both of those - and the industry were in agreement, that they could handle this (where even enthused for younger folks - even if not in the first generation, certainly in the second (children) it would pay off...).

There also was a vague fear, that the immigrant stream would never stop. And how soon it "stopped" was definitely politics, so thats not even that wrong. If you bring it up as a point of contention.

But on the flip side when societies say "its enough" is really on the societies themselves. There is no such thing as a definite number there.

The rest was mostly bullshit. "But they all get free iPhones (=smartphones are available for less then 100 USD, granny)" "But they all terrorists, rapists, and some - maybe are good people" (=a few dozen people killed at christmas markets - while the ISIS PR was still happening on the trusted facebook, other murders as well, an rapes - but from politicians perspective, really not that many.).

A "they groped out women" incident on new years eve - which happened for one year, than mostly didnt repeat (cultural misunderstanding, if you take the macho perspective  ), but that was actually reported on.

The main "loss of trust" narrative actually was, that news media piveted too slowly to the "we dont want more migrants" sentiment.

There also was a "journalists get hired out of university from US friendly cycles" (Atlantikbrücke) scandal "broken by the left", but thats not all news outlets - far from it. Maybe the ones deemed "important" by a general mainstream.
-

This doesnt warrent at all the "loss of trust" "fake news" sentiments that where out there. People on this simply were wrong.

What happened much more likely is , that the 90% of folks, that where watching they 8pm newscast believing it was "the news", for the first time in their lives came in contact with fringe and alternative news. Which they couldnt identify their sources of (doesnt mean automatically that they are fake), which they gave a "trust bonus" to, because they trusted facebook, and it came from their friends.

And there being a populist revival, which the conventional media tried to "write down" for the first, maybe month. Then they flipped and had an open discussion about their motives for not reporting (They tend to want to represent the "ideal" image of society, at least as mainstream newscasters, also as liberal newspapers, or christian conservative ones... That was before they saw their voters go bye, bye..  ).

Could have the mainstream media acted differently? No.

Populists simply had no representation in mainstream media as of then. Also they are the ones with the "fake news" warcry if you remember. Which was then idiotically picked up by mainstream media (fearing for their reader/listener/viewer numbers), lending it credence.
-

Now, I read quite a bit of fringe media stuff as well - on the left, and less so on the right. Do I feel betrayed by conventional media in any way? (In europe.) Not particularly.

Did I see people in droves shouting alternative media headlines from the rooftops, complaining, that they didnt see that in mainstream news, when they saw it on thier trusted facebook groups? Heck yeah.

But I already went through some media literacy training (simply by having used the internet for a long time) and they didnt.

If you can come up with other fields where "fake news" might have had a palpable impact on peoples decisions of voiced sentiments, I'd be interested, but those are the ones I came up with from the top of my head.

Heck, and if you'd like more positive Putin stories in the news, you already have two political parties to choose from to make that happen.

Thats not a "the media is coopted by political parties argument" - but again, they like to report the administrations position. Its the safest thing they can do. And they get rewarded for it, by more access. If you want slightly different perspectives on it, you might have to consume more than the 8pm news, but its out there.  Thats also not a bad thing, or immediatly saying that the media is always lying to you. Its just the thing, that was always a thing in the relationship between power politics and and the media. The ones with "most access" always were the friendliest regarding the status quo.

And its a culture thing. All selfcorrection proposals aside, its sheer impossible to fix that.

Georg Restle, is an intelligent guy imho - I've also stated that I like the format, that hes working for. Its just, that hes not always "right", neither am I - or is anyone. He tries to tap into trends, that I might have seen for a few more years than he has, an have a different opinion on, but thats fine. I mean those people are literally asked "how to fix journalism" (not the fake news stuff, but the "our income stream is crumbling" stuff), and they have to come up with something...  I mostly retreat to the "no comment" line on that one.. 

(One proposed solution for example would be more state money - even for smaller outlets, but thats also something most people (even journalists) usually dont like.

And I really think, that you are up against a bunch of idiots, now getting "their news" from facebook and their friends, and really being quite content with it ("Hey its free, whats not to like about free! Hoho,ho.. And so easy, its right there.."), despite not having any idea who has written that up. Also they like the most scandalous headlines the most (have you seen the "new media initiatives" of most established brands? (Bento, ..)). And russian models. Tell me something new.  )

edit: Also, yes - the center left is overrepresented in journalism, but that might be, because conservatives mostly laugh at you for becoming a journalist. They are much more content with their "work place hirarchy fantasies..." Isnt that what they study "economics" for?


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 24, 2018)

First of all, let me thank you for the exchange. Appreciate your willingness to discuss.
Also a merry christmas to you and your family.



notimp said:


> I dont believe that.  I really believe that the following has happened.
> 
> People trust facebook, people trust facebook news (+1 trust if it came from a friend), people see fringe news in facebook feed (30.000 immigrants at the border), people like russian model as news caster. People hear "welcome culture" from their mainstream newscasters. People shout fake news.
> 
> Thats it - there was no more loss of trust. The rest was just mainstream media reacting too late.



I guess we won't see eye to eye on this. I can hit you with multiple examples where things were taken out of context by mainstream media, especially pertaining to migration. As a Journalist knows there's always context, omitting it is a violation of journalistic ethos.

Maaßen said he doesn't have any information regarding hunts in chemnitz (thruthful, could never be corroborated), called into question the authenticity of a video posted by a twitter account called "ANTIFA Zeckenbiss" (video was found to be authentic later), and said it could be a false flag
was made out to deny ANY far right violence

Seehofer's remarks about 69 deportations on his 69th birthday. He was talking about heightened efficiency in the deportation process. In a side remark he said that, 69 deportations have nothing to do with it being his 69th birthday, seemingly noting the absurdity of that implication.
To this day it's hard to find a complete quote in written form because all the outlets shortened his quote to deliberately misrepresent him, making him out to feel as if the deportations were his birthday present. Good job.

I could go on but stuff like this is what loses trust. Criticism of this was all over social media and it was just ignored and they ran with it for days, even weeks. If a deliberate misrepresentation is too controversial, some outlets will just disable the comments under the article and call negative feedback hate speech.



> Was that them pushing an agenda? Maybe partly but not because of the reasons most people like to think. First, thats what they are being told by the government, which is always a great line to repeat, apart from when the people are about to revolt, which they didnt see coming.  Second the biggest media outlets follow either a (christian) conservative, or a liberal bias, and both of those - and the industry were in agreement, that they could handle this (where even enthused for younger folks - even if not in the first generation, certainly in the second (children) it would pay off...).



I see this as two seperate issues:

Not being critical enough of the government. Albeit a bit overblown, people do have a point in regards to publicly funded media being too close to government as the programming directors are voted in by people who are mostly affiliated with a party and are organized according to their political beliefs within the election committee. It's not hard to see _potential _government influence.
Not really sure how this applies to private media.

Clearly, on one of the issues people prioritize highly, you have the conservative party holding a position left of them.



> There also was a vague fear, that the immigrant stream would never stop. And how soon it "stopped" was definitely politics, so thats not even that wrong. If you bring it up as a point of contention.
> 
> But on the flip side when societies say "its enough" is really on the societies themselves. There is no such thing as a definite number there



Here's the thing. As a lot of protestors will tell you, they never had a problem with refugees but they didn't agree with immigration. They made a very clear distinction which the media refused to do, it took years for them to frame the discussion as immigration instead of refuge. Here you can see them actually budge to criticism and loss of trust.



> The rest was mostly bullshit. "But they all get free iPhones (=smartphones are available for less then 100 USD, granny)" "But they all terrorists, rapists, and some - maybe are good people" (=a few dozen people killed at christmas markets - while the ISIS PR was still happening on the trusted facebook, other murders as well, an rapes - but from politicians perspective, really not that many.).



If you claim there's a significant rise of misinformation you will have to make an argument that this has changed. People were misinformed and dumb before facebook.
Regarding violent crimes, there's an interesting discussion to be had. The statistics we have (Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik) show a significant problem that is barely reported on. As I've mentioned earlier non German suspects have even made up the absolute majority in gang rape cases.



> A "they groped out women" incident on new years eve - which happened for one year, than mostly didnt repeat (cultural misunderstanding, if you take the macho perspective  ), but that was actually reported on.



Thats a gross misrepresentation. As evidenced by the PKS, we have a problem with SIGNIFICANT overrepresentation of immigrants with regards to sexual and violent crime. As people will tell you, look into local outlets, here in the south they're full of reports on violent crimes commited by immigrants.



> What happened much more likely is , that the 90% of folks, that where watching they 8pm newscast believing it was "the news", for the first time in their lives came in contact with fringe and alternative news. Which they couldnt identify their sources of (doesnt mean automatically that they are fake), which they gave a "trust bonus" to, because they trusted facebook, and it came from their friends.



I don't think it necessarily needs to be fringe groups. In some cases it's just enough to upload a clip with the full quote and unaltered context. This may just be me, but I find it increasingly frustrating that news outlets don't link primary sources properly if possible, transparency like that would net them a huge boost in trust.



> And there being a populist revival, which the conventional media tried to "write down" for the first, maybe month. Then they flipped and had an open discussion about their motives for not reporting (They tend to want to represent the "ideal" image of society, at least as mainstream newscasters, also as liberal newspapers, or christian conservative ones... That was before they saw their voters go bye, bye..  ).



Again, populist, as in something popular, represents the political center. Can you see how nonsensical it is to write down the political center?



> Could have the mainstream media acted differently? No.



Yes by not ignoring the political center, presumably because they thought they're stupid.



> Populists simply had no representation in mainstream media as of then. Also they are the ones with the "fake news" warcry if you remember. Which was then idiotically picked up by mainstream media (fearing for their reader/listener/viewer numbers), lending it credence.



Let's break this down. A majority of people were against taking in more immigrants. Only one party was willing to represent the will of the people while all other parties refused to and journalists try to "write them down" by your own admission, partly by taking things deliberately out of context and framing immigration as refuge. Now people are simply wrong in losing trust and calling BS, gotcha!

-



> Now, I read quite a bit of fringe media stuff as well - on the left, and less so on the right. Do I feel betrayed by conventional media in any way? (In europe.) Not particularly.
> 
> Did I see people in droves shouting alternative media headlines from the rooftops, complaining, that they didnt see that in mainstream news, when they saw it on thier trusted facebook groups? Heck yeah.



I will admit that I read spiegel online and visit rivva.de as an aggregator. Politically I would say that I'm liberal, to me individual freedom is the ultimate good and should be preserved. I also think that being critical of Islam is very much a liberal stance as for example homophobia is demonstrably rampant in muslim culture amongst residents in europe. I would also argue that this stance represents the political center quite well. I also see that being critical of Islam will get you wrongly labeled as being far-right, fringe, etc. So please excuse me that I can't take you serious on this without providing examples.



> But I already went through some media literacy training (simply by having used the internet for a long time) and they didnt.



You're attributing stupidity to people you disagree with is all I get from that.



> If you can come up with other fields where "fake news" might have had a palpable impact on peoples decisions of voiced sentiments, I'd be interested, but those are the ones I came up with from the top of my head.



Not particularly "fake news" but "grievance studies" showed that it's particularly easy to have BS published as science by journals specific to left leaning ideology, stuff that guides minds like "Margarete Stokowski" of spiegel.
The sentiment I hear from people speaking at universities on a regular basis is that German univiersities are becoming more and more with this junk science.



> Heck, and if you'd like more positive Putin stories in the news, you already have two political parties to choose from to make that happen.
> 
> Thats not a "the media is coopted by political parties argument" - but again, they like to report the administrations position. Its the safest thing they can do. And they get rewarded for it, by more access. If you want slightly different perspectives on it, you might have to consume more than the 8pm news, but its out there.  Thats also not a bad thing, or immediatly saying that the media is always lying to you. Its just the thing, that was always a thing in the relationship between power politics and and the media. The ones with "most access" always were the friendliest regarding the status quo.



See there is the fundemantel disconnect. As soon as the administration takes a position against the mojority of the population they will be seen as untrustworthy. It's the argument Restle has made, that they shouldn't just regurgitate a parties PR statements and I applaud that. The problem is he specifically justifies his reasoning by going against the popular opinion, not by going against the administration.



> Georg Restle, is an intelligent guy imho - I've also stated that I like the format, that hes working for. Its just, that hes not always "right", neither am I - or is anyone. He tries to tap into trends, that I might have seen for a few more years than he has, an have a different opinion on, but thats fine. I mean those people are literally asked "how to fix journalism" (not the fake news stuff, but the "our income stream is crumbling" stuff), and they have to come up with something...  I mostly retreat to the "no comment" line on that one..



I acknowledge that humas are fallible and not everyone is right on everything but that's ignoring the scale of the problem. His proposal is nothing short of disturbing.



> (One proposed solution for example would be more state money - even for smaller outlets, but thats also something most people (even journalists) usually dont like.



Publicly funded media is at a 10% apporval rating. Let's talk about cancelling "bares für rares" or "game two" before we consider giving them more money.



> And I really think, that you are up against a bunch of idiots, now getting "their news" from facebook and their friends, and really being quite content with it ("Hey its free, whats not to like about free! Hoho,ho.."), despite not having any idea who has written that up. Also they like the most scandalous headlines the most (have you seen the "new media initiatives" of most established brands? (Bento, ..)). And russian models. Tell me something new.  )



I understand your concern and I agree that could partly be what's going on. I don't like the attribution of idiocy since you would have to argue on the basis of something tangible in order to call a majority stupid, it's the same fallacy Restle falls into and it comes off more as crusading against wrongthinkers than honest discussion.
Regarding you don't know who's reporting on the news. We know someone openly sympathizing with far left extremism is running fact checking formats for public stations (Patrick Gensing / Faktenfinder). So, I'm not sure whether that's really the case you want to be making.


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## notimp (Dec 25, 2018)

Merry christmas to you and your loved ones as weil. 

I'll need some time to reflect on your points, so a longer response might still be coming, but here is your first impulse reaction on Seehofer, Maaßen and reports on deportation efficiency. 

Maaßen and the accusations surrounding his departure was used as a political gambit on the left. You can identify this by the "we all are morally outraged" part of the public argument (Yeah, sure.. ). What happened internally though is, that he has lost his political capital, by positioning himself very clearly politically. Important people on the left seemingly really didn't like him for that reason. He is supposed to act kind of a-politically in his position. Also, I can tell you that on the left - there were quite a few stories about the BND not quite grasping the current times, and going with overblown scare tactics stories publically to divert from them really not looking so good in a few cases. This was political back and forth - with media outlets probably positioning themselves politically, yes.

Our good old Mr. Seehofer...  I dont believe I know the case you are referring to exactly so I'd have to look into that. But I know that migrant deportations are public stage politics. As in they dont do anything. They are PR. In some cases needed PR - there are for example initiatives that promote "voluntary return" where people can get investment capital, and capital to sustain themselves for about three years if they return to their countries. The money doesnt come from the nation states alone, but also from european funds, and they dont get it at once, but only when they comply with entrepreneurship programs set up in their countries of origin, or destination. But those things, set up all together - arent really that less costly. They basically play with the "euros are worth more in your country of origin - fact - when do you want to return?" concept for people with not much perspective in europe. People in their countries then see, that some folks are returning voluntarily and thats part of a desired effect.

Forced deportations. Very costly. Can be drawn out to even produce more costs, if the person knows what they can go for in legal courts. Legal courts have limited capacity. They only work that fast. As a result, every deportation case you see in the media is more played for the deterrence and the political capital factor, than for this to really be a viable solution for pretty much anything. People can go dark - which is also not something that we want particularly - and depending on what you use to calculate the long term costs of an "economically motivated migrant", it usually isnt cost effective either. The people cought in this which tried to integrate - and also got an in training job in the industry are actually poor bastards, because its really symbol politics mostly.

So the notion that "this is now getting more efficient" and the media didn't want to report on that - I dont buy into. 

Also - mainstream media always was political to some extent. People knew it and didn't cry fake news in past decades. So for me its really just the perception gap of "hey - the 8pm news doesnt tell me everything thats going on out there - and not in a way, that other more fringe news outlets might". And what a realization that is... So you mean, that listening to centrist (although in parts left leaning, when society isnt) news for 20 minutes a day doesnt give you the whole perspective?  Better look up some more russian newscaster model videos and complain. 

The "bias" concept in journalism has a quite descriptive word standing for it in german. This "Blattlinie". Meaning, that as a journalist you tend not to want to "write yourself out of a job". And despite you trying to be your best objective self, reporting on the truth, there might still be political factors in play - which you stop confronting, lets say five years into the job. Its always a give and take. Journalists are no angels either. Thats why its important for some political people to hunt for different perspectives. But this is still very much removed from "they are all trying to hoodwink the public" - when they really mostly are not. Most journalists selfimage is that of a neutral arbiter of world proceedings, or the investigative guy/gal that want to report on things. And that is really most of what you can hope for. That at the point, where people start listening to them (f.e. because they have the prettiest model type newscasters  ) it also becomes political - sadly is also somewhat of a given. Also there might not be something like 100% objective news. But thats a story for another time..


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## supersonicwaffle (Dec 25, 2018)

notimp said:


> Maaßen and the accusations surrounding his departure was used as a political gambit on the left. You can identify this by the "we all are morally outraged" part of the public argument (Yeah, sure.. ). What happened internally though is, that he has lost his political capital, by positioning himself very clearly politically. Important people on the left seemingly really didn't like him for that reason. He is supposed to act kind of a-politically in his position. Also, I can tell you that on the left - there were quite a few stories about the BND not quite grasping the current times, and going with overblown scare tactics stories publically to divert from them really not looking so good in a few cases. This was political back and forth - with media outlets probably positioning themselves politically, yes.



Oh Maaßen has been dubious before for sure, there's also a few things where I don't understand the outrage regarding him.
He had 169 talks with representatives of the major parties, a few (apparently single digit) times he talked to AfD and this has created outrage, what's up with that? During this outrage he also said that he "of course doesn't sympathize with AfD", if people were making the case he's not neutral enough you'd have to say he's a lefty, no?
WRT Chemnitz I fail to see how he positioned himself politically. He truthfully said that they have no proof of far right protestors hunting down migrants. Further he called into question whether a video shot from the perspective of supposed right wingers, posted on an ANTIFA account does show these supposed hunts, which we now know it doesn't. At the time, stories about "hunts" were all over the place even though reporters on the ground said they didn't see any of it. For better or for worse it was literally fake news and politicians, media even our chancellor just ran with it.
You can maybe say he positioned himself politically when calling out false information by the media. Still funny how that would point to journalists having a power trip with the purpose of polically lynching a guy for daring to call their BS into question.



> Our good old Mr. Seehofer...  I dont believe I know the case you are referring to exactly so I'd have to look into that. But I know that migrant deportations are public stage politics. As in they dont do anything. They are PR. In some cases needed PR - there are for example initiatives that promote "voluntary return" where people can get investment capital, and capital to sustain themselves for about three years if they return to their countries. The money doesnt come from the nation states alone, but also from european funds, and they dont get it at once, but only when they comply with entrepreneurship programs set up in their countries of origin, or destination. But those things, set up all together - arent really that less costly. They basically play with the "euros are worth more in your country of origin - fact - when do you want to return?" concept for people with not much perspective in europe. People in their countries then see, that some folks are returning voluntarily and thats part of a desired effect.
> 
> Forced deportations. Very costly. Can be drawn out to even produce more costs, if the person knows what they can go for in legal courts. Legal courts have limited capacity. They only work that fast. As a result, every deportation case you see in the media is more played for the deterrence and the political capital factor, than for this to really be a viable solution for pretty much anything. People can go dark - which is also not something that we want particularly - and depending on what you use to calculate the long term costs of an "economically motivated migrant", it usually isnt cost effective either. The people cought in this which tried to integrate - and also got an in training job in the industry are actually poor bastards, because its really symbol politics mostly.
> 
> So the notion that "this is now getting more efficient" and the media didn't want to report on that - I dont buy into.



"Ich nehme jetzt mal Afghanistan: Ausgerechnet an meinem 69. Geburtstag sind 69 - das war von mir nicht so bestellt - Personen nach Afghanistan zurückgeführt worden. Das liegt weit über dem was bisher üblich war. Der vorvorletzte Flug war mit Zehn und für die Zehn brauchten wir 52 Begleitpersonen. Nur damit einmal die Anstrengung klar wird, die da Unterwegs ist."

He was very cleary talking about efficiency of deportations.

From spiegel-online where they did link his full quote as a video clip as the very last thing and opened their article with:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/seehofer-69-abschiebungen-zum-69-geburtstag-a-1217747.html

Wörtlich sagte er: "Ausgerechnet an meinem 69. Geburtstag sind 69 - das war von mir nicht so bestellt - Personen nach Afghanistan zurückgeführt worden. Das liegt weit über dem, was bisher üblich war."

No word about the comparison to previous deportations but a few twitter reactions from politicians who are all outraged.
I for one believe the way he's quoted changes context and thus is a violation of journalistic ehtos. I guess you could the the journalist acted according to spiegel's "Blattlinie" but I for one think it's over the line. Publishing one more sentence online literally costs you nothing, it's not like print where you have a restriction on words or characters, this was verly clearly deliberately changing context. Throw in the framing with the twitter reactions (5 of 5 left wing politicians) and I can see where people crying fake news come from.

Edit: One more thing that popped into my mind just now.

One of the deported persons committed suicide upon returning to Afghanistan which the mainstream media outrage machine ran with, omitting the fact that this person has beeen convicted of violent crimes here.



> Also - mainstream media always was political to some extent. People knew it and didn't cry fake news in past decades. So for me its really just the perception gap of "hey - the 8pm news doesnt tell me everything thats going on out there - and not in a way, that other more fringe news outlets might". And what a realization that is... So you mean, that listening to centrist (although in parts left leaning, when society isnt) news for 20 minutes a day doesnt give you the whole perspective?  Better look up some more russian newscaster model videos and complain.



It's an interesting conclusion. You're arguing things have changed and they sure have.
Point is information is much more accessible than it is before. It may just be that people came to the realization that this sort of bias by mainstream media may have violated journalistic ethos for a very long time.
Getting negative feedback, which is pretty much what we're arguing about, is a sign that things need to change. It's an opportunity to question the proccess. Right now, mainstream media is making the case to "defend themselves" in a way that defends their traditional proccess against their audiences wishes to be more neutral, transparent and truthful. That's why I'm making the case that they're stuck in old ways and don't understand what's the problem because they're not willing to question how they've worked in the past.
I don't want traditional media to die but the access to information and especially primary sources, shines a light on the way they work and opens them up to a whole new level of scrutiny. They're refusing to acknowledge that things need to change.



> The "bias" concept in journalism has a quite descriptive word standing for it in german. This "Blattlinie". Meaning, that as a journalist you tend not to want to "write yourself out of a job". And despite you trying to be your best objective self, reporting on the truth, there might still be political factors in play - which you stop confronting, lets say five years into the job. Its always a give and take. Journalists are no angels either. Thats why its important for some political people to hunt for different perspectives. But this is still very much removed from "they are all trying to hoodwink the public" - when they really mostly are not. Most journalists selfimage is that of a neutral arbiter of world proceedings, or the investigative guy/gal that want to report on things. And that is really most of what you can hope for. That at the point, where people start listening to them (f.e. because they have the prettiest model type newscasters  ) it also becomes political - sadly is also somewhat of a given. Also there might not be something like 100% objective news. But thats a story for another time..



I agree with you. Point is, a more obvious seperation of facts and opinion would be better suited to allow the audience to form an opinion themselves and then look for a take with the outlets political bias. It's their insistence to keep things mixed, presumably because "that's how we've always done things", that opens them up for criticism. They're just refusing to give people what they want. Again please look at Restle's feedback on his twitter post, people want to be able to form an opinion themselves.


Edit:
FYI here's another story that I became aware of amidst the patreon scandal that's going on rn.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-profile-shenzhen-maker-scene
https://medium.com/@therealsexycybo...-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5


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## Glyptofane (Dec 26, 2018)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Could you please explain to me how that logic works? The ultra-conservative "news" outlets are the antithesis of the liberal ideal, and often produce stories that could in fact be considered dangerous to groups that liberals tend to cater to if the audience actually acted on them (which, they've started to). If Breitbart, Fox Radio, Fox and Friends et al were all a liberal sham, why wouldn't they have pulled the plug by now?


I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Dec 26, 2018)

Glyptofane said:


> I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.


I can't say that I watch it, but I DO listen to Fox radio pretty regularly. I can assure you that if it's been shifting any direction, it's been further right


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## Glyptofane (Dec 26, 2018)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> I can't say that I watch it, but I DO listen to Fox radio pretty regularly. I can assure you that if it's been shifting any direction, it's been further right


Man, I gotta ride in a truck with my boss almost everyday. He listens to Rush and Hannity... I just try to avoid confrontation, but usually say nothing just to avoid mutual disgust. I tried bringing up my Jew shit once and he was just like, we gotta fight these wars!!!


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## TotalInsanity4 (Dec 26, 2018)

Glyptofane said:


> Man, I gotta ride in a truck with my boss almost everyday. He listens to Rush and Hannity... I just try to avoid confrontation, but usually say nothing just to avoid mutual disgust. I tried bringing up my Jew shit once and he was just like, we gotta fight these wars!!!


So your issue is that Rush and Hannity aren't antisemetic enough for you


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## Xzi (Dec 27, 2018)

Glyptofane said:


> I don't want to deal with this, but here goes. Rupert Murdoch was never a real coservative, just a businessman who saw an opportunity to compete with CNN's insane bullshit. He pretends to be a Republican, but his sons won't and now run the station. You probably don't watch it regularly, but people who do tell me is has been rapidly shifting to the left. This nonsense does not represent us, save Tucker... it's a passable representation. That's all it is.


How on Earth do you see Fox as shifting to the left?  It took a hard right into becoming the Trump news network the second he was elected.  The only people on the network that have any sort of remote attachment to reality are Shep Smith and Chris Wallace, and I'm sure most typical Fox viewers skip those shows/segments.  Every other anchor and personality might as well be on talk radio.  If you think Fox isn't conservative enough, it's probably because real conservatism is dead.  All that's left in its place is Gaslighting, Obstruction, and Projection.  That's what happens when an entire political party sells out its values in order to worship a populist conman instead.


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## bodefuceta (Dec 30, 2018)

Before newspapers all we had were commoners spreading untrue and misinterpreted news around.
Now we have untrue and misinterpreted news spread worldwide. When you can actually get to investigate what's reported, even the most trivial and least propaganda stuff turn up false. Seriously, you shouldn't even read any newspaper except if it's personally important to you somehow. And never take it at face value. Specially when there are so many great books you haven't read. And NEVER pay for a newspaper that EVER reported anything false and didn't CLEARLY correct it and spread it ALL OVER after knowing the fact, like most unfortunately do, it's immoral and enables this bullshit.


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## notimp (Dec 30, 2018)

bodefuceta said:


> Seriously, you shouldn't even read any newspaper except if it's personally important to you somehow










And now - think about how long it would have taken for forum moderators to do something about this posting, because you cant catch it algorithmically - and you have kind of learned, why social media currently is the way it is. 

Thank you for participating in this little experiment. 

Meme posting stops from now on.


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## Condarkness_XY (Jan 1, 2019)

I'm not surprised. This is politics, and as such everything is calculated. This is undoubtedly a calculated move. There is some motive behind it. That being said, I stopped trusting any "source" a long time ago. If given the choice to save a liberal, a republican, a journalist, or a random person on the street, I would choose 10/10 times to save the random person on the street.


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## notimp (Jan 5, 2019)

Condarkness_XY said:


> This is politics, and as such everything is calculated. This is undoubtedly a calculated move.








Questions? 

Never attribute anything to malice or "bigger concepts" that can be sufficiently explained by the stupidity of human people (including ones own).

Cui bono on this one is "the far right", so I'm not sure how they exactly would have masterminded a 10 year undercover operation at Der Spiegel...  In Germany currently they are mostly occupied with giving themselves a new code of conduct, so that the security services would stop picking them up because of "protect the constitution" stuff - now that people finally are voting for them, and they can act like they are the valued members of society they always thought they were.. 

(Drei Brötchen bitte.  )


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## supersonicwaffle (Jan 5, 2019)

notimp said:


> Never attribute anything to malice or "bigger concepts" that can be sufficiently explained by the stupidity of human people (including ones own).



I agree. However, I would say that it can look like a conspiracy if you think that journalists are living in a bubble which IMO is not an outlandish suspicion as you yourself said they often copy from one another.

This recent article on the hacks of German politicians and prominent figures with subsequent leaks of private information is a good example.
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/...r-daten-von-politikern-kolumne-a-1246486.html

It's an article about how the perpetrator is most likely an alt-right, women hating, gamergate nazi. I can't even be angry if the author admits to bulshitting everyone by prefacing the article with:



> Was folgt, sind überwiegend Vermutungen. Reine Spekulation, aber das hier ist ja auch eine Kolumne und kein Ermittlungsverfahren.



Which loosely translates as:


> The following article is mostly assumptions. Pure speculation, but this is a column not an investigation



I mean can you really be angry with a guy who basically has to be transparent that he doesn't give a shit about what he writes and is just employed for literary diarrhea? Or with an editor that looks at this and thinks: "Yes, we should publish this"?
It's almost like Der Spiegel has become self aware is now trying to make it transparent that they're not even trying to be good journalists.

And to everyone who doesn't speak german and can't believe a news outlet would stoop so low here's the google translator link:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/hackerangriff-veroeffentlichung-privater-daten-von-politikern-kolumne-a-1246486.html


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## Pippin666 (Jan 5, 2019)

Never trust a German, going on since 1939.

Pip'


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## notimp (Jan 5, 2019)

Pippin666 said:


> Never trust a German, going on since 1939.
> 
> Pip'


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
German, rocket scientist, Nazi; Employed by the americans to get their first man on to the moon. Which brought us cellphones. And them a few centuries of collective "vision".

Check mate.

Here is the song and dance for it:


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## FAST6191 (Jan 5, 2019)

Pippin666 said:


> Never trust a German, going on since 1939.
> 
> Pip'


Why 1939?


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## Pippin666 (Jan 5, 2019)

notimp said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
> German, rocket scientist, Nazi; Employed by the americans to get their first man on to the moon. Which brought us cellphones. And them a few centuries of collective "vision".
> 
> Check mate.
> ...


Check mate ? Kid lol, listen, nothing in this mean they should be TRUSTED  CHECK MATE KIDDO

Pip'


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## notimp (Jan 5, 2019)

Pippin666 said:


> Check mate ? Kid lol, listen, nothing in this mean they should be TRUSTED  CHECK MATE KIDDO
> 
> Pip'


Don't even have to switch my material for this one. 

Here. Check mate.



You would have been the first time around if you weren't stiff enough to miss, that Tom Lehrer wasnt representing the majority view. The majority view was, that all those scientists you got for free after the war, were propper great chaps, because - only that way you could make them work with the same enthusiasm as in their former jobs *cough*.. 

This is another how the world works thing. If something looks like it will help you get your way - trust, turns out not to be important at all. Thats why you need interlinked dependencies. Eh, let me stop talking. Watch the new video. 

edit: Oh, and btw - thanks for the Atom Bombs.  We appreciate them.


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## supersonicwaffle (Jan 5, 2019)

notimp said:


> Oh, and btw - thanks for the Atom Bombs. We appreciate them



Maple syrup nukes?


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## notimp (Jan 5, 2019)

Sharing is caring. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing


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## notimp (Jan 6, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> It's almost like Der Spiegel has become self aware is now trying to make it transparent that they're not even trying to be good journalists.


I laughed at that point. 

I cringed through the rest of the posting, not because of your output, but because of what you are describing. Its not wrong.

But thats what you get with popular opinion. Or opinion in general. First there is the emotion.

I've posted in here (this forum) a behavioral psychology newsarticle that explored, how far people take it not to have to leave their own belief systems. They even forfeit part of the "free money" you give them in psychological experiments.  .  - And what you get with "opinion based journalism" is more of that.

I mean, I do have my guilty pleasures as well - reading my favorite opinion based blogs and yes I am even copying opinions (Think "So videogames arent the devil?!" reaction of a typical member of society - we do it all the time..  ) but at the same time, I don't think that that can be the future of journalism.

We are getting more and more into "there might not be objective news at all" (everything is perspective) territory here. But before we do. The journalist thats writing that - probably really believes in what he writes. If you don't - one possible out is, that the journalist doesnt know what he is writing about. This has even become more likely with recent developments around financing media, time pressures, subversion (or at least agenda setting) through sponsors and even diminishing social status of journalists.

Now two things. First - the solution still is not not "burn it down" and only follow the bloggers you like on facebook. Second - this story (the journalist doesnt know what he's talking about), can be used by every ignorant person on this earth to discredit journalism "prima facie". Meaning - without looking at the article first. And in most cases they also do it on emotional grounds ("journalists dont "work", what have they even studied?"). So somewhere in this dichotomy lies problem and solution.

But then theres also a dictum ("geflügeltes Wort") that states, that every "expert in a field" has read journalistic articles about their field and thought to themselves - "they dont know what they are writing about". Not even just emotionally - but more factually. Some of it is oversimplification, some of it is thinking that follows social criteria, some of it is time pressure, some of it is the journalists personal opinion and some of it is that there are idiots among journalists as well. Coincidentally, they often are the most popular ones in terms of following.. 

Journalism is somewhere in between politics, responsible storytelling and truth. It isnt that they are right out political (sometimes they just publish what "sells"), it isnt outright making up a story - or "making" a story, and it isnt - "they are always lying". Its really a spectrum. It changes with age, with character. It changes with access and affiliation.
Its something that should be able to "dethrone" wrongdoers (that means for example "mobilize"), but at the same time should not be decoupled from the interests of their readers. Its hard. 

But to bring it back - if you are going out of your way to dupe the audience with beautiful stories, that never happened - you arent a journalist anymore. But you still might be a blogger, or a youtuber - and dont even think twice about it. So in that sense, journalism is more a "sense of self" and "code of conduct" as well as having the funds to do any meaningful research at all. And the more people harp on them and tell them, that they are liars, while not paying for their work, and reading facebook feeds instead, the more this gets lost or harmed.

Journalists will be the first to be criticiszed by other journalists in any case. They at least have that going for them..  And it will be in public. So you all will know, and can point your fingers.


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## notimp (Jan 6, 2019)

If you want to see what produces exceptional journalism (as I've liked their Interviews in here at least twice now - but there is also stuff there I cant even watch  ):



Thats what you'd call the "human interest" side of the story I guess.  Journalists as human beings.


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## supersonicwaffle (Jan 6, 2019)

notimp said:


> We are getting more and more into "there might not be objective news at all" (everything is perspective) territory here. But before we do. The journalist thats writing that - probably really believes in what he writes. If you don't - one possible out is, that the journalist doesnt know what he is writing about. This has even become more likely with recent developments around financing media, time pressures, subversion (or at least agenda setting) through sponsors and even diminishing social status of journalists.





notimp said:


> Journalism is somewhere in between politics, responsible storytelling and truth. It isnt that they are right out political (sometimes they just publish what "sells"), it isnt outright making up a story - or "making" a story, and it isnt - "they are always lying". Its really a spectrum. It changes with age, with character. It changes with access and affiliation.



That's the point, if you can't tell a story responsibly because you haven't researched it but still write about it, make assumptions and speculate wildly, does that make you a journalist or a blogger? What about the editor that let's this slide, what makes him more trustworthy than Facebook? Is a column, op-ed or whatever you wanna call it held to a higher standard than things self published? If it isn't, why discredit others that do the same on a different platform and put those that do it for an outlet on a pedestal?



notimp said:


> Journalists will be the first to be criticiszed by other journalists in any case. They at least have that going for them..  And it will be in public. So you all will know, and can point your fingers.



I this particular example he was attributing trump loving, right wing ideology and misogyny to a movement that started out criticizing a lack of ethics in journalism. You would think that if that's the argument from the other side that this would prompt a responsible storyteller to look more closely into the merit of the criticism and probably NOT look at journalistic content as there's a clear conflict of interest. In light of that his preface comes off as a freudian slip.
So, while I think I agree with you on that point, it doesn't hold much water in this particular case.



notimp said:


> But to bring it back - if you are going out of your way to dupe the audience with beautiful stories, that never happened - you arent a journalist anymore. But you still might be a blogger, or a youtuber - and dont even think twice about it.



I'm with you in that I don't think there's a conspiracy here. I do, however, think that journalists are as much in a bubble as they make you believe people on social media are. What's disturbing is that they show the same behaviour: refuse to get off their high horse and listen to the other side.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 6, 2019)

"Journalists will be the first to be criticiszed by other journalists in any case."
Did I fall into an alternate reality again? From where I sit that more or less stopped around the time we got activist journalists being a common sight. Don't know if it is different in the non English/French worlds but I have every reason to suspect it isn't. They might attack one another if they differ in ideology or go across partisan lines but as a general professional trait applied consistently to all they meet? Please.

One exception. If said attack is coming from outside journalism, or some specific subset of it (it is not a protected title as far as I am aware), and in that case you do get a fair bit of "you don't know what you are talking about". See also various points where people have tried to set up rating systems for them all.


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## the_randomizer (Jan 6, 2019)

More "journalists" like him need to be exposed and shamed.  Got everything he deserved.


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## notimp (Jan 7, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> "Journalists will be the first to be criticiszed by other journalists in any case."
> Did I fall into an alternate reality again? From where I sit that more or less stopped around the time we got activist journalists being a common sight. Don't know if it is different in the non English/French worlds but I have every reason to suspect it isn't. They might attack one another if they differ in ideology or go across partisan lines but as a general professional trait applied consistently to all they meet? Please.
> 
> One exception. If said attack is coming from outside journalism, or some specific subset of it (it is not a protected title as far as I am aware), and in that case you do get a fair bit of "you don't know what you are talking about". See also various points where people have tried to set up rating systems for them all.


Yeah, I guess theres something to that as well. There usually are media watchdog organizations in every country and usually also a "media council" where you can bring forward factual criticism, and they will shame, or mediate between you and the media outlet - and there were big scandals in german newsmedia in the past following "they really printed that!" narratives, by competing outlets, but those are few and far between, I have to admit.. 

I guess normally its mostly "trust the big cats, and copy their stories" huh.. 

Eh, there are also research collectives where different media outlets group their stuff and, ....

Ok, lets say everyone can do something about wrong stories, and should be able to get a retraction or apology printed/broadcast at the same "place" reaching roughly as many people.  (Theres usually a law in place to grant you that.)

Also they compete on stories. So "one side says this" "the other side says that" is also a thing. ("We just factual reporters - bringing you opinions.. "). Theres some balance in there as well.  (That was the part, where they had to go public with - "we did you wrong - for not reporting on the far right uprisings in germany for about a month"...  )


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## notimp (Jan 7, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> I'm with you in that I don't think there's a conspiracy here. I do, however, think that journalists are as much in a bubble as they make you believe people on social media are. What's disturbing is that they show the same behaviour: refuse to get off their high horse and listen to the other side.


Noo, no no.  "People on social media" on average are more in a bubble than a "non yellow press" journalist thats able to research a story (hopefully by not just googling it...). That just comes with the territory.. 

This just follows the "journalists are good for nothing - lets go with algorithms that feed us PR stories" yay! Concept of thought.. 

Most journalists will eventually become "experts in their fields" (whatever that means  ) and should be halfway there when hired.  Its just that - f.e. in some fields, stuff changes unexpectedly, or they are too broad and deep to be covered by lts say 5-10 people (f.e.: "science"), or that people make mistakes, or people follow conventions, or....

It also turns out that expert intuition is a bad predictor of things to come, scientifically speaking... at which point we are right back to actually there might not be such a thing as "objective news" at all. 

But at least proper journalists try for eight ours a day not to be ignorant.  The average human being on facebook... 

But theres also the thing that news cycles have become faster. Take for example news that "breaks" on Twitter. Journalists are supposed to cover that in a first story within lets say an hour - where in the past, they had at least a day, and if they were breaking the story, at least a few days, where thy could - talk to people, wait and see... So yes some forms of "journalism" became more "bubbly" as well.

Its complicated..


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## supersonicwaffle (Jan 7, 2019)

notimp said:


> Noo, no no.  "People on social media" on average are more in a bubble than a "non yellow press" journalist thats able to research a story (hopefully by not just googling it...). That just comes with the territory..



https://de.statista.com/statistik/d...erenz-von-politikjournalisten-in-deutschland/

Journalists lean much farther left then the general population, whereas conservativism in German journalism is almost non existent. Journalists will spend most of their time around other journalists and ALSO heavily use social media, follow each other and are therefor be subject to the same algorithms and all your "nah uh" and "but, but, but, muh journalizm" won't change it.
I don't have a problem with political preferences of journalists, everyone has them and disclosing it is honest and transparent.



notimp said:


> But at least proper journalists try for eight ours a day not to be ignorant.  The average human being on facebook...



Journalists are openly trying to frame the discussion around on their values (opninions), how that consitutes trying for eight hours a day not to be ignorant is beyond me

We're running in circles

You put journalists working for outlets on a pedestal and discredit any journalists that don't work in a traditional setting
You continously attribute stupidity and ignorance to the general population
You're saying that journalists are impervious to echo chambers and bubbles while they're even moreso forced to hang around politically likeminded people at the workplace than anyone else and are subject to the same algorithms


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## notimp (Jan 8, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> We're running in circles
> 
> You put journalists working for outlets on a pedestal and discredit any journalists that don't work in a traditional setting
> You continously attribute stupidity and ignorance to the general population
> You're saying that journalists are impervious to echo chambers and bubbles while they're even moreso forced to hang around politically likeminded people at the workplace than anyone else and are subject to the same algorithms


@1: No I did not, I just said, that they will always produce better news in aggregate. Meaning, not the individual story - but in the end as a reader I dont see me profiting from "individual - personalized" journalism as much.

@2: That comes with having looked at the marketing side of things.
(Q: And the masses? A: They were stupid. See: h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04&t=1951 Now thats not me agreeing with the entire quote in that video, but with the assessment on mass behavior. (edit:Votes are slightly different. Thats you telling people to inform themselves about a certain handful of topics first. That allows for some behaviors and biases to be canceled out. In theory.))

@3: Im saying that Facebook (or the concept of aggregated news by "personal interests") is a worse echo chamber in every way. I'm saying that I dont remember any twiitter "discussion", or facebook comment, that made be think, that I was better off for reading it.

I'm also saying, that I lay credence into the public  message of facebook factcheckers in the guardian, that they think, that their work has no influence whatsoever. In the facebook economy, fact checking stories doesnt matter whatsoever.

The thing facebook now does is, that it plays "gatekeeper" as well, and only lets (not friend recommended or promoted) stories into your newsfeed, if one of the ten major news outlets has reported on it. Thats about as much editorial "care" as they really are able to provide. Thats also them killing regional papers, and centralizing the news economy even further.

Also - people getting their news from an advertising company. Literally. Thats outrageous. Also, facebook has done behavioral experiments in the past (A-B tests), on keeping you on the platform longer, affecting your mood, facebook consistently censors stories and images without an opportunity of recourse, and they do it by a PR playbook of "general world morals - based partly on puritanical believes" and US politics...

Facebook is the worst. No people are the worst for still using facebook after everything that happend. Or insta. Or whatsapp. (Same company.) (But nothing happened to me.... Yes, but theres a thing called you looking out for the fringe cases as well, who might be impacted more than you.) But thats the network effect for you, no one wants to feel responsible, that everyone is participating.

If facebook still largely "transports" conventional media, and their only way of handling BS stories is to look at conventional media, why on earth do you pay the advertising company for showing you advertising, instead of the journalistic outlets. Doesnt make sense. 

But you are welcome to go with Jeff Jarvis and make "journalism on Twitch". No one is hindering you. 
Just know, that you will then make journalism under the Amazon umbrella, and so does the Washington Post, so I will probably always go with the Washington Post regardless.


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## notimp (Jan 21, 2019)

@supersonicwaffle :

Here is another person that shares the opinion, that journalism should become more personalized:


> "Technology has always changed journalism. Usually not for the worst. [...] Journalist say we will be replaced by robots. [...] Yes, Some journalist will, but not all. Journalism will become more personalised." (John Micklethwait, Bloomberg @business) #DLD19


src: https://twitter.com/DLDConference/status/1087291632884555777

You could then combine it with Data Driven Content Production ( https://twitter.com/DLDConference/status/1087286515502338048 ) and analyzing your consumers facial expressions ( https://twitter.com/DLDConference/status/1087280035575328768 )
and we really might have something there...

All those are from the same Twitter feed from a Future of tech conference within a few hours. 

Dang, I really am a tad pessimistic on all this, aint I.

The video to the talk the direct quote is from should be online within a few hours. I'll link it then.

edit: Videolink - Journalism in the age of AI: h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jDYCAnLJU
(From the previous editor of The Economist)


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## notimp (Jan 21, 2019)

Here is the ProSiebenSat.1 groups perspective (german TV broadcaster) on the future of media. 

Max Conze: “You need to have a sense where the world is going. You need to be relevant for the next generation. And you don’t have to be afraid of canibalization.” #DLD19 https://t.co/snbouHvwkz— ProSiebenSat.1 (@P7S1Group) January 20, 2019

edit: Video menitoned above is online. I've added the link in the prior posting.


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## fiis (Feb 9, 2019)

Wait, you mean to say that people are not 100% clean? damn, crushed my dreams there. Derp, of course no one is 100% clean, everyone has dirt. the degree of dirt is what counts.


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