When Journalism was a Thing
February 19, 2018 8:25 AM Subscribe
When Journalism was a Thing
This project shows how journalism has collapsed, and why. It shows how the profession's untested truisms and assumptions brought systemic problems and rigs into the profession, and how an alternative model to journalism where patriarchal, binary, biased, narrative, unscientific, and Great Man ideology doesn't corrupt the product.
This project was inspired by an upcoming book of the same title, and is a continuous my 2005 books Don't Believe It!: How lies become news, OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's war on journalism, as well as my work through A Dangerous Woman Story Studio (previously, previously).
I became a journalist for a simple reason: I wanted to study it empirically to see why it was failing so many segments of society, as I also noticed so many lies, hoaxes, spin, PR, and propaganda was becoming news. I have devoted my entire adult life working on this project in various forms for more than a quarter century (starting as a teenager), conducting my own experiments in the real world, and working out alternative models (previously).
When Journalism was a Thing explains the faulty mechanisms that have led to the fragmentation and destruction of journalism: a profession that once had all the power of communications and were the de facto gate-keepers of information dissemination.
The Internet and social media became a real alternative, and with the loss of their information monopoly, all of the problems journalism had but never addressed led to its erosion and collapse. The 2016 US Presidential election showed just how inert the profession became.
I go through various destructive mindsets: from misusing space to lobby governments to fund journalism (in Canada), to its various racist and sexist assumptions, to its unscientific approach to finding, analyzing, and disseminating information, to its penchant to steal ideas and ignore voices that do not fit into its various unrealistic narratives, journalism needed an intervention years ago: but now it needs an alternative.
People need to be informed, but they do not need to make the same mistakes as journalism has and keeps doing. As I continue to work and research on this project, I show how the flaws in the profession have not been addressed.
We need accurate, reliable, relevant, and valid information we can use. We need facts that tell us about the reality of a situation, and the truths that created that reality. Journalism could have been more than celebrity gossip an opinion based in sophistry, but it wasn't. How it got there, and how it can be replaced is my main focus.
This project shows how journalism has collapsed, and why. It shows how the profession's untested truisms and assumptions brought systemic problems and rigs into the profession, and how an alternative model to journalism where patriarchal, binary, biased, narrative, unscientific, and Great Man ideology doesn't corrupt the product.
This project was inspired by an upcoming book of the same title, and is a continuous my 2005 books Don't Believe It!: How lies become news, OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's war on journalism, as well as my work through A Dangerous Woman Story Studio (previously, previously).
I became a journalist for a simple reason: I wanted to study it empirically to see why it was failing so many segments of society, as I also noticed so many lies, hoaxes, spin, PR, and propaganda was becoming news. I have devoted my entire adult life working on this project in various forms for more than a quarter century (starting as a teenager), conducting my own experiments in the real world, and working out alternative models (previously).
When Journalism was a Thing explains the faulty mechanisms that have led to the fragmentation and destruction of journalism: a profession that once had all the power of communications and were the de facto gate-keepers of information dissemination.
The Internet and social media became a real alternative, and with the loss of their information monopoly, all of the problems journalism had but never addressed led to its erosion and collapse. The 2016 US Presidential election showed just how inert the profession became.
I go through various destructive mindsets: from misusing space to lobby governments to fund journalism (in Canada), to its various racist and sexist assumptions, to its unscientific approach to finding, analyzing, and disseminating information, to its penchant to steal ideas and ignore voices that do not fit into its various unrealistic narratives, journalism needed an intervention years ago: but now it needs an alternative.
People need to be informed, but they do not need to make the same mistakes as journalism has and keeps doing. As I continue to work and research on this project, I show how the flaws in the profession have not been addressed.
We need accurate, reliable, relevant, and valid information we can use. We need facts that tell us about the reality of a situation, and the truths that created that reality. Journalism could have been more than celebrity gossip an opinion based in sophistry, but it wasn't. How it got there, and how it can be replaced is my main focus.
Role: Creator, Author
It's fairly ranty.
So what? And Metafilter isn't? Then why are you here?
The site is not for enablers, emotionally dead zombies, or the fearful. I am not going to applaud people who destroyed their own profession and left an information void.
I have passion to go along with the skepticism, and I am in a good place with it, but I suppose when Writing While Female, I am supposed to be some sort of positive Pollyanna cheerleader who is not supposed to stand up to such trash. Do not play by those rules.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 5:04 PM on March 9, 2018
So what? And Metafilter isn't? Then why are you here?
The site is not for enablers, emotionally dead zombies, or the fearful. I am not going to applaud people who destroyed their own profession and left an information void.
I have passion to go along with the skepticism, and I am in a good place with it, but I suppose when Writing While Female, I am supposed to be some sort of positive Pollyanna cheerleader who is not supposed to stand up to such trash. Do not play by those rules.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 5:04 PM on March 9, 2018
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