I largely agree, but I think it speaks to a larger point about the news landscape and how people access and use the news. How people use the news has shifted. Instead of a way of getting informed in order to hold elected officials accountable, for instance, it's used to confirm one's personal leanings --- essentially to make their reader/viewer comfortable. There's the story and the news, and then there's how it is presented. Comforting and confirming someone's personal leanings is a much more effective business strategy than a recipe for good journalism, and yet here we are.
It's possible for someone to trust and agree with the presentation of the news; to distrust, but agree; to trust, but disagree; or to distrust and disagree (there's also not caring at all, which is another issue all together). In TV, you might call these segments. In my view, most news organizations have become hyper focused at catering to the "trust and agree" segment so much so that it has become the majority of what they do. All they work on is comforting that segment. I think much of the popular dissatisfaction and distrust with news orgs in general, is really that in 2024 the news is actually not very useful. Instead, people are starting to see that it's kind of more like an imaginary friend who never disagrees who and who offers you comfort almost on demand.
I agree with that too, but “accountability” is a loaded concept. Hold politicians accountable for what? That depends on your vision for what America should look like.
Well, ideally, in a liberal democracy, hold politicians accountable for whether they do what they say they will do. They are elected on a certain set of promises ("I will do x", "I will support value y") and, ideally, people made informed decisions based on that when voting. Whether they get reelected is a way of holding elected officials accountable in a blunt sense. One way for voters to be informed of whether politicians are doing what they said they would do (even, really on what politicians are doing at all) is to have journalists write accounts of what politicians said and then did, because normal everyday people are not paid to follow politics all day figuring out whether they're actually doing what they said they would do---journalists do that for us. They report on what happened.
That depends on your vision for what America should look like.
That's also why I think people are way too hung up on things like "neutrality" and "objectivity" in their news. It's not clear cut and not a science, journalists tell stories which are factual to the degree possible by them. They are useful. When they don't do that well, or dishonestly, they lose credibility as stand-ins for us following politicians around. We hold journalists to account in the same way. Ideally, they do the same by retracting or publicizing their errors as well. That's also why a diverse news environment is a good thing. But, as we know, it can also easily become hyper polarized to the point where it stops really becoming useful at all, just comforting, and in some cases practically a blatant ideological tool in service of certain politicians, which for many years was considering deeply embarrassing for a journalist.
Well, ideally, in a liberal democracy, hold politicians accountable for whether they do what they say they will do.
I agree with that, but consider this hypothetical: Trump’s travel ban. He campaigned on banning travel from certain countries with high levels of Islamic fundamentalism. And then he did that. I think a reporter could say those facts without interjecting their view of whether that promise was a good thing or a bad thing. But Trump’s promise was deeply offensive to the value system a certain segment of society, which deems multiculturalism as axiomatically valuable. They couldn’t help themselves from reminding their viewers that they found Trump’s values abhorrent.
I think that’s where it matters whether the media attempts to maintain ideological neutrality. If CNN reported the facts, I’d watch it. But if they interject moral assessments of the facts, then I’ll watch Fox News instead. If neutrality isn’t an option, I’ll go watch the outlet that I at least agree with.
Comments
I largely agree, but I think it speaks to a larger point about the news landscape and how people access and use the news. How people use the news has shifted. Instead of a way of getting informed in order to hold elected officials accountable, for instance, it's used to confirm one's personal leanings --- essentially to make their reader/viewer comfortable. There's the story and the news, and then there's how it is presented. Comforting and confirming someone's personal leanings is a much more effective business strategy than a recipe for good journalism, and yet here we are.
It's possible for someone to trust and agree with the presentation of the news; to distrust, but agree; to trust, but disagree; or to distrust and disagree (there's also not caring at all, which is another issue all together). In TV, you might call these segments. In my view, most news organizations have become hyper focused at catering to the "trust and agree" segment so much so that it has become the majority of what they do. All they work on is comforting that segment. I think much of the popular dissatisfaction and distrust with news orgs in general, is really that in 2024 the news is actually not very useful. Instead, people are starting to see that it's kind of more like an imaginary friend who never disagrees who and who offers you comfort almost on demand.
I agree with that too, but “accountability” is a loaded concept. Hold politicians accountable for what? That depends on your vision for what America should look like.
Well, ideally, in a liberal democracy, hold politicians accountable for whether they do what they say they will do. They are elected on a certain set of promises ("I will do x", "I will support value y") and, ideally, people made informed decisions based on that when voting. Whether they get reelected is a way of holding elected officials accountable in a blunt sense. One way for voters to be informed of whether politicians are doing what they said they would do (even, really on what politicians are doing at all) is to have journalists write accounts of what politicians said and then did, because normal everyday people are not paid to follow politics all day figuring out whether they're actually doing what they said they would do---journalists do that for us. They report on what happened.
That's also why I think people are way too hung up on things like "neutrality" and "objectivity" in their news. It's not clear cut and not a science, journalists tell stories which are factual to the degree possible by them. They are useful. When they don't do that well, or dishonestly, they lose credibility as stand-ins for us following politicians around. We hold journalists to account in the same way. Ideally, they do the same by retracting or publicizing their errors as well. That's also why a diverse news environment is a good thing. But, as we know, it can also easily become hyper polarized to the point where it stops really becoming useful at all, just comforting, and in some cases practically a blatant ideological tool in service of certain politicians, which for many years was considering deeply embarrassing for a journalist.
I agree with that, but consider this hypothetical: Trump’s travel ban. He campaigned on banning travel from certain countries with high levels of Islamic fundamentalism. And then he did that. I think a reporter could say those facts without interjecting their view of whether that promise was a good thing or a bad thing. But Trump’s promise was deeply offensive to the value system a certain segment of society, which deems multiculturalism as axiomatically valuable. They couldn’t help themselves from reminding their viewers that they found Trump’s values abhorrent.
I think that’s where it matters whether the media attempts to maintain ideological neutrality. If CNN reported the facts, I’d watch it. But if they interject moral assessments of the facts, then I’ll watch Fox News instead. If neutrality isn’t an option, I’ll go watch the outlet that I at least agree with.