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by hackuser
3645 days ago
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> I don't believe mainstream media ever worked in a neutral, non-biased, fact based way. ... they are "free" - which means they actually serve Moloch[0], by writing what sells. That is, the most outrage-inducing, biased misrepresentations (and often outright lies) they can get away with. ... media isn't "a place to go for trusted information" ... I think painting all news media with the same brush is significantly misconstrues the situation. As a comparison, no software developer is perfect and can be absolutely trusted, and some devs are toxic. But I would be wrong to say: Therefore all software developers are toxic. Similarly, there is better and worse news media. Can we absolutely trust any? Of course not; these are human institutions. But there's a long way from The Sun and The National Inquirer to The Financial Times and NY Times. |
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To follow your comparison - sure, we don't say software developers are all toxic[0]. But we like to complain that almost all software is shit. There are gems of almost perfect beauty and usability, and we love them, but there are so few of those. Here on HN we sometimes like to discuss dynamics of what makes most of software shit - and we often find similar sort of economic pressures to those mass media faces.
The thing is, we put extra care in the software that directly affects lives of people. For anything else, we rarely bother. So if the institution of media is so important to democracy, maybe we should put some extra care here too.
(Though I don't know how to do that.)
[0] - also note, that I didn't say "all journalists are toxic"; however, the products of the institutions they form are a different story.