[battlebot]

Well said. I would add that journalistic ethics have reached a new low. Astoundingly new low. On the other hand, I was not alive in the 1890s during the era of "yellow journalism" where everyone with a printing press was turning out nothing but bullshit on an hourly basis and hawking it to unsuspecting rubes.

Turns out there is good money in just making up crap and printing it.

[jerf]

I remain unconvinced that journalism has reached a new low, rather than our ability to detect its shoddiness has reached a new high.

The only two things I could identify as uniquely a problem today that weren't problems in the past are A: the money is coming out of journalism faster than it can adapt to it and B: the incredibly immediate pressures to be first and get the most clicks. The latter being a thing that has always been present to some degree, since journalists have always made money by attracting eyeballs in one form or another, but the immediacy of the pressure today I'd say is a quantitative change that becomes a qualitative change by sheer size.

But I'm still unconvinced this is a new low, rather than one that we're detecting. Journalism has some nasty stuff in its history. It certainly hasn't reached a new low if you step outside of the United States. The press still hasn't quite reached Pravda lows, but I will conceded it is currently engaged in a full burn towards it.

[ThomPete]

Completely agree. It's a sign of health not sickness that we are experiencing this change.

What people often forget is that at the same token lies can be spread so can corrections to those lies.