|
Unfortunately this is the state of journalism today. In the length of an article it is only possible to make one point, at least outside of a dense article aimed at a specialist audience. Additionally the article should seem to be relevant, that means that its single point need to be exaggerated until it seems earth shattering. And journalists are not really payed to research a topic in depth, but to write articles. So this is at least the impression I get from every article, where I actually know something about the topic. In theoretical physics every article describes one paper, and calls it a break through towards quantum gravity. Independent if this is a cute toy model, a interesting trick to calculate some technical problem or a actual attempt at quantum gravity, in which case there is certainly no data to back up the theory and the theory is almost certainly wrong. Another thing is any reporting about nuclear energy, either the article is wildly exaggerating the dangers of nuclear energy or it is wildly overstating the necessity of nuclear energy. ( Nuclear energy is IMHO a particularly nasty example for articles, because the dangers are extremely model dependent, so to inform a lay audience one would need an entire book.) And for programming, well the wired article did not strike me as a particular bad offender. This would be tolerable, if it would not bias the political process. The current German president, Joachim Gauck, is a nice example. [1] In 2010 the, in this context center-left, SPD had no chance at electing their own candidate, so they attempted a PR coup by nominating a guy who is a hero for conservatives, while the conservative CDU did elect a career politician. Much to the dismay of conservative talking heads. Last year, the president had to resign [2] and chancellor Merkel did nominate Gauck, knowing that now the SPD is on the hook because he was their candidate. And all political commentators in Germany did just dust off their opinion pieces from two years ago. In conclusion, I have no idea how to fix journalism. But I think that better journalism is badly needed. Or else the control loop for the political process has less and less input from actual facts and deep thought and is only controlled by some self consistent PR bullshit. Edit: Clarified the conclusion. [1] In Germany the president has a largely ceremonial role and is elected by an assembly of the parliament and (some members of) the state parliaments. [2] Itself only a media phenomenon. |