A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. – Joseph Pulitzer. It’s a tribute to journalists’ vanity and self-mythologization that the Pulitzer Prizes still retain some aura of gravitas. Having chronicled them extensively for Columbia Journalism School, I think of the prizes more like Oprah’s Book Club or the Grammys—a mark of bland establishmentarian respectability, and likely sign that the product is a rubber stamp.
Who is doing good journalism, then? Who is questioning the official narrative? Who is trying to get at the truth, no matter who murky, or unsatisfying the answers might be?
In this Substack era, tons of people are! But it's much more about thoughtfully combining together various facets from different idiosyncratic voices than expecting any single outlet or POV to channel the big picture anymore! Except, of course, for https://ivyexile.substack.com/about !!
I do love what you’re doing and your posts are must read for me. But traditional journalism to me conjures the image of chain smoking alcoholics talking to witnesses and writing stuff down. Who is doing that, independent of the NYT (or possibly WSJ)?
That is very kind, thank you! There may still be a few chain-smoking alcoholics out there doing the shoe leather thing, but for the most part print journalism has become more genteel than that, and more about massaging narratives than investigation per se. Some of that is what ideologically polarized audiences want, some of it is that journalists at the fancier outlets are disproportionately from very comfortable backgrounds (making it possible to go into a hemorrhaging field in the first place), some of it is that so few publications have the resources to do that kind of reporting anymore. I do think there are still some scrappy reporters at alt-weeklies and local news but in terms of big national stories it's mostly stenographers or crickets.
Were you connected to the Pulitzers while Keven Willey was there? I used to read her column in the Arizona Republic decades ago and thought she was a sensible centrist. I was disappointed that her tenure failed to achieve revocation of the ridiculous award that Duranty won for his Stalinist propaganda.
I don't think so, not familiar with her. As Sig Gissler seemed to indicate I think the attitude about rescinding Duranty's award, or setting the precedent of rescinding anything but the most immediate embarrassments, would simply give more fodder to the wrong kind of people.
Ivy Exile, all the opinion polls agree that public trust in the news media has sunk to its historical minimum. To what do the journos you know, including professors of journalism, attribute the evaporation of their public credibility? In view of that, what do they think will restore it?
Hi John, I've been pleasantly surprised how much of the response to this post from journalists/j-school professors has been general agreement/mutual frustration. In the same way that a lot of Hollywood film editors assembling awful movies are hardcore fans of classic cinema, plenty of veteran journalists miss the former standards as much as anyone.
Of course there are true believers blaming capitalism/white supremacy for undermining faith in the profession, and glib partisans blaming Trump, but especially among older millennials and up there's more bewilderment at how cartoonish things have become. Overall there's a sense that the problem is vaster than what they have any power to fix beyond plying their trade as ethically as they can, so they keep their heads down. Few hold out much hope of restoring public confidence in this fragmented age!
If I understand your reply, then journos of leftist politics blame journalism's loss of credibility on capitalism, white supremacy and Donald Trump. If they are correct, then the solution would be for them to write articles critical of capitalism, white supremacy, and Trump. Yet, while they have been doing that for quite a long time, the news media's credibility has gone down instead of up. Since their remedy has failed to cure the illness, it is likely they have misdiagnosed the disease.
The rest, you say, are bewildered at how cartoonish things have become. Why are they bewildered? Why can't they identify the cause of journalism's lapse of credibility and hence a means to restore it? If the professors of journalism cannot analyze such a serious problem in their chosen field, then why are they professors of journalism?
I daresay most journalists start as idealists broadly on the left, which is awfully hard to let go of! From the perspective of many hard-headed center-left types it seems like things have only recently been blown off course by this new generation of crazy kids, as exacerbated by Trump.
Conservatives already have conceptual categories for long-term seeds of social decline, to upscale progressives the past several years have been in some ways more disorienting. So a lot of top journalists are still hoping the fever will break (leaving some useful rhetoric to drive voter turnout) and that they can soon get back to Matthew Yglesias and Brookings Institute press releases.
Who is doing good journalism, then? Who is questioning the official narrative? Who is trying to get at the truth, no matter who murky, or unsatisfying the answers might be?
In this Substack era, tons of people are! But it's much more about thoughtfully combining together various facets from different idiosyncratic voices than expecting any single outlet or POV to channel the big picture anymore! Except, of course, for https://ivyexile.substack.com/about !!
I do love what you’re doing and your posts are must read for me. But traditional journalism to me conjures the image of chain smoking alcoholics talking to witnesses and writing stuff down. Who is doing that, independent of the NYT (or possibly WSJ)?
That is very kind, thank you! There may still be a few chain-smoking alcoholics out there doing the shoe leather thing, but for the most part print journalism has become more genteel than that, and more about massaging narratives than investigation per se. Some of that is what ideologically polarized audiences want, some of it is that journalists at the fancier outlets are disproportionately from very comfortable backgrounds (making it possible to go into a hemorrhaging field in the first place), some of it is that so few publications have the resources to do that kind of reporting anymore. I do think there are still some scrappy reporters at alt-weeklies and local news but in terms of big national stories it's mostly stenographers or crickets.
Funny. I used the same epigraph about 15 months ago.
https://xpcallahan.substack.com/p/3222023?utm_source=publication-search
Excellent article from a rarely heard inside view. "Pomp and circumstance guarantees decline" is one of Parkinson's laws.
Were you connected to the Pulitzers while Keven Willey was there? I used to read her column in the Arizona Republic decades ago and thought she was a sensible centrist. I was disappointed that her tenure failed to achieve revocation of the ridiculous award that Duranty won for his Stalinist propaganda.
I don't think so, not familiar with her. As Sig Gissler seemed to indicate I think the attitude about rescinding Duranty's award, or setting the precedent of rescinding anything but the most immediate embarrassments, would simply give more fodder to the wrong kind of people.
Ivy Exile, all the opinion polls agree that public trust in the news media has sunk to its historical minimum. To what do the journos you know, including professors of journalism, attribute the evaporation of their public credibility? In view of that, what do they think will restore it?
Hi John, I've been pleasantly surprised how much of the response to this post from journalists/j-school professors has been general agreement/mutual frustration. In the same way that a lot of Hollywood film editors assembling awful movies are hardcore fans of classic cinema, plenty of veteran journalists miss the former standards as much as anyone.
Of course there are true believers blaming capitalism/white supremacy for undermining faith in the profession, and glib partisans blaming Trump, but especially among older millennials and up there's more bewilderment at how cartoonish things have become. Overall there's a sense that the problem is vaster than what they have any power to fix beyond plying their trade as ethically as they can, so they keep their heads down. Few hold out much hope of restoring public confidence in this fragmented age!
If I understand your reply, then journos of leftist politics blame journalism's loss of credibility on capitalism, white supremacy and Donald Trump. If they are correct, then the solution would be for them to write articles critical of capitalism, white supremacy, and Trump. Yet, while they have been doing that for quite a long time, the news media's credibility has gone down instead of up. Since their remedy has failed to cure the illness, it is likely they have misdiagnosed the disease.
The rest, you say, are bewildered at how cartoonish things have become. Why are they bewildered? Why can't they identify the cause of journalism's lapse of credibility and hence a means to restore it? If the professors of journalism cannot analyze such a serious problem in their chosen field, then why are they professors of journalism?
I daresay most journalists start as idealists broadly on the left, which is awfully hard to let go of! From the perspective of many hard-headed center-left types it seems like things have only recently been blown off course by this new generation of crazy kids, as exacerbated by Trump.
Conservatives already have conceptual categories for long-term seeds of social decline, to upscale progressives the past several years have been in some ways more disorienting. So a lot of top journalists are still hoping the fever will break (leaving some useful rhetoric to drive voter turnout) and that they can soon get back to Matthew Yglesias and Brookings Institute press releases.
Thank you for that answer, Ivy Exile. I hope you are mistaken because if you are correct then the problem is even worse than I thought.