You can't trust "the news" anymore. Everything is just clickbait doomsday nonsense every day. It's incredibly hard to separate fact from fiction, opinion from fact, and reality from fantasy.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think we generally expect too much from media outlets. Readers also have a responsibility to understand the context of what they're reading, and that's been true for as long as newspapers have existed.
Take everything you read with a grain of salt, know that a story might later be retracted or edited, and follow different outlets with different perspectives. I think the homogenization of media consumption is far more dangerous than the fake and false stories that get out.
Journalists cannot always guarantee ‘truth’, but getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism. We should always strive for accuracy, give all the relevant facts we have and ensure that they have been checked. When we cannot corroborate information we should say so.
2. Independence
Journalists must be independent voices; we should not act, formally or informally, on behalf of special interests whether political, corporate or cultural. We should declare to our editors – or the audience – any of our political affiliations, financial arrangements or other personal information that might constitute a conflict of interest.
3. Fairness and Impartiality
Most stories have at least two sides. While there is no obligation to present every side in every piece, stories should be balanced and add context. Objectivity is not always possible, and may not always be desirable (in the face for example of brutality or inhumanity), but impartial reporting builds trust and confidence.
4. Humanity
Journalists should do no harm. What we publish or broadcast may be hurtful, but we should be aware of the impact of our words and images on the lives of others.
5. Accountability
A sure sign of professionalism and responsible journalism is the ability to hold ourselves accountable. When we commit errors we must correct them and our expressions of regret must be sincere not cynical. We listen to the concerns of our audience. We may not change what readers write or say but we will always provide remedies when we are unfair.
I think this is a reasonable position. In general, the media itself has convinced us of its importance and at times. Which it is, but I think that less scrupulous entities have abused this privilege to a truly distasteful and disappointing degree.
I agree, we often overlook that media companies are private businesses just like any other private enterprise. And like it or not, private enterprises have agendas agendas that typically involve increasing profits.
There aren’t a ton of incentives within the media industry for those companies to not act like purely capitalistic enterprises even though we expect them to.
If publishers didn’t have special protections under the law for the false and defamatory things that they say, they wouldn’t have a special responsibility to only print the truth.
What’s so strange to me about the state of media in the US is that most people don’t seem to pay for it anymore. Online publishing outlets are largely funded by advertising, which we on HN know is one of the more unsavory monetization strategies out there. Of course it’s going to perverse incentives.
Those complaining about how fake news is these days likely expect a perfect product that they refuse to pay for while simultaneously demanding that they not use the perverse advertising/CTR models that encourages things like clickbait titles. How is that supposed to work? That’s like expecting Facebook to remain free whilst not selling user data.
Historically there was no golden age of truth - the important thing is to not trust. Before Hearst got his blood money lying into a war newspapers were literally arms of political parties. The hard truth is you can't reliably delegate away critical thinking.
