[matt4077]

If you stick to quality journalism (NYT/WSJ/The New Yorker/The Economist/Bloomberg), the world of journalism is really not worse than it was in whatever golden age of the press people seem to imagine.

The idea that all media gravitate towards low-brow outrage clickbait because it sells better is quite obviously wrong. Just as there is fast food as well as organic granola, or porn as well as independent conceptual arthouse cinema, there are publications of all levels of quality. And that didn't actually change dramatically, because tabloid journalism wasn't just invented. If people were attracted only to the yellow press, it would have taken over the market long ago. Instead, journalism has been, just like history, bending towards quality (/justice).

What changed is that the barriers to entry have fallen. It used to require capital to publish, and those capable of reaching the masses had to have seen success in other walks of life, or convinced the establishment of their credentials.

Now, the internet allows the Breitbarts of the world to reach an audience as deranged as them, and that is putting some pressure on parts of the market. But that affects not so much the top end of the spectrum, but local papers and publications like the National Enquirer.

[adrianratnapala]

While I agree with your general point: the original post is mostly attacking lazy cut-and-paste journalism at the "quality" publishers. Channel 4 is not really junk outfit, and nor is The Independent which (according to the original post) repeated the claims, as did the New York Times.

[hueving]

>If you stick to quality journalism (NYT/WSJ/The New Yorker/The Economist/Bloomberg), the world of journalism is really not worse than it was in whatever golden age of the press people seem to imagine.

Only if you agree with the political stances those sources are biased towards. Perhaps it has always been that way, but something like the NYT is hardly unbiased and it bleeds through on everything from article selection to point of view, etc if you're not an American Liberal.

[soundwave106]

I personally think it is impossible to eliminate bias. Even news services that try to inject as little opinion as possible (eg wire services like AP News) have to make some choice on what they carry and how they phrase it.

All five of those sources are biased, but in different ways. It is helpful to "look outside your natural bias" sometimes, so assuming the NYT maintains its quality standard it probably is worthwhile for an American conservative to peek in that direction every now and then. (This goes vice versa, eg it is helpful for American liberals looking at more sober quality news sources with a more American-business-conservative bias like the WSJ.)

The important key here though is accuracy and sober analysis. So the fact that the NYT is "American liberal" is not a problem. The issue described in the linked article, that they did a poor job of fact-checking on a relatively sensationalist article, is a problem. The BBC also has its own bias too, but at least they showed a little big more skepticism compared to the other outlets. So props to the BBC here.

IMHO if the New York Times values its current "quality journalism" rep, they need to watch this more carefully. There are plenty of clickbait sensationalism-driven "news" outlets, and only a relative few with decent reporting reputation. "Quality journalism" is more expensive, but I feel it is also something some people actually would pay subscription money for. Few people are going to want to pay money these days for sensationalist clickbait they can get on the Internet for free.