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American politics

Rorschach said:
The balance is the tricky part. Not to be overtly biased one way or another is the general aim I assume, just to expound on the facts, but undoubtedly the writer's bias will always leak in. However, adding an alternative perspective to some news item that does not need it is where they open themselves for criticism. They are introducing a counter-narrative or sometimes a false equivalence where none really exists. And to be fair this is an issue far wider than the NYT.
(I'm talking about non-news pieces here and not op-eds).

Do you think there is a general lack of trust in the media or are you thinking of the US in particular?
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Sorry for the late replies, busy days...

In my belief it's impossible to hold a 100% objective view. I think the important part for journalists is to be conscious about this and always ask yourself whether you've let your bias affect your reporting. It's not a bulletproof approach by any means, but IMO it's the best approach if you wanna avoid partisan reporting.

Of course most newspapers and other media outlets also have a political platform of some kind - conservative or liberal - that will affect the reporting and kind of journalists it attracts. But that doesn’t mean journalists should become political activists - balance, fairness and fact checking should still be the core values for journalists, regardless of where you work and who you support.

I do think in a sense NY Times have become more "activistic" in its nature during the past year. The timing of Trump stories and the sheer volume of them is quite unprecedented, I think. The journalism in itself, at least what I've read, is both well done and legit. For a Trump supporter it will of course look very one sided and thus biased, so I'm unsure of the broader impact of their reporting.

Which is connected to what I think is a general mistrust in traditional media, both in the US and globally. This mistrust is IMO rooted in the extreme political polarisation going on, but is also a consequence of (mostly) right wing politicians' yearslong effort to discredit the media. There are of course also other factors - personally I think 20 years of internet clickbait and celebrity/gossip journalism has undermined the serious journalism. But that is in turn connected to a lack of advertising revenue and issues stemming from the rise of Facebook and Google, so it's a complex issue...
 
scaramanga said:
It would be intriguing to see edited Vs unedited but he will have to release the unedited version after for that to work.
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Another flob of flimflam from the man who cannot deliver. Let's see if he unveils this "health care plan" he said he had two weeks ago, and which he stated he'd be unveiling, errr, now. Anyone with a brain cell won't kill it holding their breath...
 
Rorschach said:
I read that earlier. No punches pulled.

The NYT is a strange cat. I keep a subscription going as some of the reporting is incredible, but they just as easily pump out ridiculous puff pieces regarding this current US administration which is hard to square with their investigative reporting.

Different editors or how are they structured (you being an eye tea kay)?
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They are not what they once were. Like yourself I maintain a digital subscription for the good moments.
 
Robbo said:
The opinionists are normally fully separate from the newsroom, at least in a newspaper of NY Times' size. I doubt the barriers are watertight even there though, and often the opinion pieces are based on reporting (like this particular editorial is a very good example of). So in a way you could argue the regular reporters set the premise for the opinionists, which they've certainly done with their reporting on Trump.

Being a regular journalist you obviously have to adhere to certain standards of fact checking and balance in your reporting, while opinionists can present more personal, one sided views.

In my experience the public have a hard time separating opinion pieces and regular journalism, which I think is a contributing reason for a general lack of trust in the media.
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Your final paragraph is absolutely the case, one exacerbated by a solid decade of social media ramp up. I think there should be a an adjunct to English classes where a certain amount of curricular time is spent learning the differences between opinion pieces and news. The word "journalism" is both specific and lives with specific definitions. We sadly have a public who often take one poor social media/opinion-based story, and believe it to be "the news."
 
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