An article on Substack called The Algorithm: The media’s new business model is propaganda explains partly why the media are so untrustworthy–they’re currently seeking readership by reinforcing political and lifestyle narratives and group memberships and because they don’t do any reporting on their own, instead just gleaning what they can from online sources–generally sources biased to their points of view–and regurgitating it in their own words. Basically, journalism as writing college papers.
Unexplored, of course, is the often stated but rarely adequately defended thesis from here at MfBJN, that to the 23-year-old J-school graduates who provide the majority of the print and online content today, putting tweets into paragraph form is journalism because Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and whatever comes next is real life to them. It’s what they know.
Which is why I only trust, sometimes, what I read in the nine small town papers I take. Because why would Bonnie lie to me about what happened in Handy, Missouri, last week?
(Link via Ed Driscoll on Instapundit.)
