you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Chipit[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

But journalists are specially trained. They are society's best people (according to journalists). There have been proposals for laws that would give them special rights and make them citizens above everyone else. For them to be revealed to be worse than they used to be is highly revealing.

[–]Nemacolin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

No. Not really. I do not know anyone who thinks journalist are morally superior.

[–]jamesK_3rd 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It isn't necessarily about their morality. Many big organization journalists claim smaller journalists and bloggers aren't true journo and shouldn't be protected. Individuals such as Andy Ngo come to mind. In addition to their demands for deference to their authority, they generally have been attempting to stifle smaller outlets, or larger platforms that independent horrendous journos may use, such as Facebook, twitch or WordPress.

It's a big reason we've seen the push for censorship by media outlets under the guise of curtailing fake news. They generally think you're to stupid to read and make an informed decision yourself..

I

[–]Nemacolin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I am unaware of any big (press) organization saying the small fry do not count. Whose demands for deference to authority? Who has been trying to stifle smaller outlets? Please tell us which media outlets are pushing for censorship.

[–]Chipit[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You must have missed the gigantic outcry against bloggers. Suddenly anyone with a keyboard could report news, and journalists interpreted it as a threat. Remember when the blog Little Green Footballs broke the Dan Rather fake news story? The animated .gif heard 'round the world? His fake memo was exposed by rewriting it in MS Word and playing it back and forth with the document that CBS released. They were identical. MS Word didn't exist in the 70s. A major journalist, a highly credible and respected news anchor, got caught in a lie that they were accustomed to getting away with. It was a huge embarrassment, and instead of resolving to be better, they resolved to declare war on bloggers.

Then we were all treated to an entertaining cavalcade of people coming out with bizarre theories of obscure typewriters in the 70s that could possibly type the memo, when it was an obvious forgery. Journalists didn't take this as a warning to not publish fake news, they took it as an assault. One of them famously called bloggers "idiots in their pajamas", leading to the establishment of Pajamas Media, a thorn in the side of fake news until this day.

Seriously, this was a big deal and I'm surprised you're not aware of it.

[–]Nemacolin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am sure it was a big deal. Please provide a cite. Many thanks.

[–]Chipit[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Journalists and their fellow travelers certainly do.