Excellent post. Brands die slowly, but brands that abandon the reason for their success do die. Eventually.

Cheers.

L3

A 50-year-old masterpiece that illuminates today’s world and gives strength to fight.

Let’s roll.

From its very start, the idea of impartial “professional” journalism was an illusion, though a very profitable one in the 1900s. Of course, to keep a straight face while saying one is “totally objective” in “reporting news,” there is a certain amount of drudgery in chasing down actual facts and reporting enough of both sides to avoid criticism. There is still a lot of room for bias that flies beneath the radar. Well, the MSM flew up into just about everyone’s radar zone this past election, and they heartily deserve any laughs they must endure about their value– value rooted as it has been for a century in their vaunted objectivity.

The institutional bias of large MSM organs reached its highest power, in my opinion, in their overreach during the Vietnam conflict. I can hardly blame them for wanting to relive the glory days. It’s been downhill since then, first driven by cable TV, and more recently in a big way by the internet.

No amount of Orwellian interference by the government will be able to hold back the tide. I don’t doubt that some in government have the desire, but the technology is simply too explosive. Short of totally outlawing the internet, Americans are simply too entrepreneurial and innovative to meekly stand down in the face of information bullying.

The real interesting questions are actually epistemological. What mechanisms for truth seeking and truth telling will evolve when bias, fact reporting, and public cogitation are all decentralized? People are still willing to pay for facts, but what business model will emerge to employ the minority of people who love to find and tell them?

There is much cause for optimism. The internet has the potential for vastly better fact checking than all of the letters to the editor and ombudsmen in the world. And Wretchard, the day will surely come when Google doesn’t get most of the profits from click-ads, and folks like yourself who write so well will find that rewards for one’s efforts can be far more profitable and reliable than a tip jar. I still remember when Microsoft would always be on top, and before that, Lotus.

A. Because the Financial Review understands that NEW facts sell. And the customers KNOW that NEW facts are valuable enough to buy. And they also know that NEW facts are expensive to get hold of, but worth it to do so. And so, to hell with the cost of the paper – it is worth it.

On top of that, the Financial Review’s editors understand something else. They understand that they cannot bullshit their readership. It is commercial death to do so and they know it. So they enforce a breathtakingly revolutionary radical methodology on their reporters. Something the NYT, the Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald have never heard of.

It is called JOURNALISM:
1. State what the facts are
2. State what is NOT known yet (this is also a promise to look for it)
3. State your analysis (tell the reader what the reporter thinks)
4. Make absolutely bloody certain that the reader understands which of the above is which

If the Melbourne Age, NYT etc are too damned stupid or blinded by ideology to do the above, good riddance to them. I for one will dance a jig on their graves.

MarkL
Not in Canberra at all.

And then there are the websites and newsletters created by enthusiasts. Once again, they are better sources of data.

One day, maybe, someone will figure out how to tie all these small, diverse, but superior sources of data together in some fashion. And the Port Lavel Times and Camden News and their ilk will replace the NYT and its kind in fact; they have already far surpassed the MSM in journalistic integrity.

It’s a question of supply and demand. My read of this is there is simply too much supply: too many “reporters” who really have nothing useful to report on.

There are lots of other models, most of which are pay-to-play. People who write about the economy get paid a lot by business leaders and investors. Bloomberg, in particular, makes a fortune off of providing information to these people. A similar thing seems to happen in foreign affairs, defense industry, etc. And of course there are thousands of industry rags – from Variety to Women’s Wear Daily to InfoWorld – that give very focused and high quality content and analysis. They make plenty of money, judging by their growth.

Fact is, very, very few things that are really important happen real-time. Even when they do, the value of having a reporter parachute in, “record” what’s happening, and then return to his rent-controlled flat in Greenwich Village, is low. You get lots of noise, which obscures the signal. One of the problems with the daily newspaper model is that it must create news when there is none; same for cable news networks. Readership goes up when there’s some event, then goes back down again. The incentive is therefore to manufacture more “crises.” Frankly, most folks are just tired of all this sensationalism mixed with obscurantism and topped with ignorance.

Besides, when there is a real crisis, the internet is more useful anyway. At least you get lots of raw data, vs. a collection of selected transcriptions that is fit into a pre-determined narrative. You can decide for yourself, rather than have Bill Keller decide for you. If it’s really important, you’ll take the time to figure it out. If not, you’ll go back to your regularly scheduled life.

I’m afraid this means that we will have fewer professional journalists working in the future. However, once the guild is broken, the Michael Yon’s of the world might actually be able to make more money. This may not be good for the Sulzbergers, but I’m pretty sure that will be a good thing for our polity.

Now if we can just figure out how to do the same thing to the legal profession…

L3

Really – we *hire* people to know stuff like that so we don’t have to bother ourselves with tons of itty-bitty unimportant details and minutae!

This is why they stopped collecting it and starting paying “foreign contributors” for news stories. This is why propaganda rules in foreign war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan to Lebanon.

This is also why I read this blog, intelligent discussion of world events.

Most Americans don’t even know that Georgia is a country. Why is that?