Wall Street Journal Editor Admonishes Reporters Over Trump Coverage - Polidicks

[url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/business/media/wall-street-journal-editor-admonishes-reporters-over-trump-coverage.html[/url] [quote]Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve. Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated. “Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal reporters and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition. He added in a follow-up, “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”[/quote] [quote]The draft, in its lead paragraph, described the Charlottesville, Va., protests as “reshaping” Mr. Trump’s presidency. That mention was removed. The draft also described Mr. Trump’s Phoenix speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” in which the president “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.” That language does not appear in the article’s final version. Contacted about the emails on Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman wrote in a statement: “The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion. As always, the key priority is to focus reporting on facts and avoid opinion seeping into news coverage.”[/quote]

yeah commentary as news p much sucks theres alot of news that you can work with involving trump that its not needed anyway

They're both right. The WSJ has made zero attempts at objectivity on any subject for years, by the same turn the Presidency has been an outright shitshow, and should be reported as such. Basically this just another symptom of the end of institutionalized journalism.

[QUOTE=27X;52605522]They're both right. The WSJ has made zero attempts at objectivity on any subject for years, by the same turn the Presidency has been an outright shitshow, and should be reported as such. Basically this just another symptom of the end of institutionalized journalism.[/QUOTE] The bad part is that institutionalized journalism is genuinely [I]critical[/I] to a functioning democracy. Back when my grandpa was young, there was no "left-wing news" or "right-wing news." There was "the news." You'd throw your radio on and listen to the nightly news, and you'd wake up and read the paper the next morning. It was just [I]news[/I]. It was regulated by law, upheld by rigid ethical standards, and served to keep Americans informed and knowledgeable about the world around them. And that all came about in reaction to a long era of yellow journalism, where tabloids printed flat-out lies as if they were facts for a quick buck. Democracy was endangered then, too. People really, really underestimate how important the media is to a functioning democracy. If you want people to vote based on the information available, they need to be receiving the same information, as close to fact as it can be. Where there isn't information is where the debate starts. Nowadays, with the decline of journalism and the rise of internet reporting, it's all about misinformation. Reagan really fucked us with the removal of the Fairness Doctrine - but even if he hadn't, we'd be seeing these effects with how much the internet has changed the field of journalism. Basically, without an ethical, consistent, and non-partisan media, there's no source of reliable information for people to base their political activity on. Instead, people (on both sides) seek out information that confirms biases. And that's dangerous - because you need debate and compromise in a democracy, and you won't ever get that if all you hear about is stuff that tells you how right you are and how wrong the other side is. I really can't see a solution, either.

[QUOTE] The draft also described Mr. Trump’s Phoenix speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” in which the president “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.” That language does not appear in the article’s final version. Contacted about the emails on Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman wrote in a statement: “The Wall Street Journal has a clear separation between news and opinion. As always, the key priority is to focus reporting on facts and avoid opinion seeping into news coverage.”[/QUOTE] I don't see how this isn't reporting the news or the facts, it's pretty honest analysis of Phoenix rally.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;52605644]I don't see how this isn't reporting the news or the facts, it's pretty honest analysis of Phoenix rally.[/QUOTE] The editor didn't want an analysis, he wanted simple reporting of what happened.

[QUOTE=27X;52605522]They're both right. The WSJ has made zero attempts at objectivity on any subject for years, by the same turn the Presidency has been an outright shitshow, and should be reported as such. Basically this just another symptom of the end of institutionalized journalism.[/QUOTE] more like the strength of it. look, fox is unabashedly biased, they don't care, their agenda is to do whatever it takes to ensure everything is framed through their conservative lense. they only hire people who reinforce this and fire those who don't, (looking at you shep) the fact that a paper staff is having this conversation means they still care about what they do

I actually really respect that. My father's been a journalist for decades, and often laments the loss of journalistic integrity in major media outlets today in favour of sensationalism.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;52605899]I was watching some CNN interview (yeah, bias warning) with a group of voters making outrageous claims about "what really happened" in Charlottesville. They all referenced Facebook when asked what their source was. Social media has made it too easy to access misinformation.[/QUOTE] It's pretty crazy how we were all naively excited about the internet democratising information, and never stopped to think that it might democratise lying as well

Laziness is our biggest enemy. Well not always laziness but a general decided lack of time to read up on events and politics from different sources and forming an informed opinion. Instead people look to their trusted source or maybe just see any headline and immediately take it for granted. But trusting any single source instead of multiple is dangerous because there have been many examples of how the context in which a scenario is presented can completely change one's perception of the whole thing. It used to be funny to see people take onion articles seriously but it should've been seen as foreshadowing for how gullible we'd get.

the trouble with trump saying "fake news" is that he's right and its part of the big reason why he even got into power in the first place news media is especially terrible these days and you can't really trust what a lot of journalists say anymore

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52621602]the trouble with trump saying "fake news" is that he's right and its part of the big reason why he even got into power in the first place news media is especially terrible these days and you can't really trust what a lot of journalists say anymore[/QUOTE] Can we start calling trump a fake president then [editline]28th August 2017[/editline] The presidency is especially terrible these days and you can't really trust what the white house says anymore

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52621678]Can we start calling trump a fake president then [editline]28th August 2017[/editline] The presidency is especially terrible these days and you can't really trust what the white house says anymore[/QUOTE] can't trust the elite at all anymore

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52621883]can't trust the elite at all anymore[/QUOTE] Eat the rich and make goblets out of their skulls?

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52621602]the trouble with trump saying "fake news" is that he's right and its part of the big reason why he even got into power in the first place news media is especially terrible these days and you can't really trust what a lot of journalists say anymore[/QUOTE] no the trouble with Trump saying "fake news" is he says it about news that is wholly factual that is critical of him. Fake news absolutely put him in power though I won't argue with that one.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52622541]Eat the rich and make goblets out of their skulls?[/QUOTE] Tougher laws regulating civil servants and lobbying, corporations, their actions, and how they distribute wages combined with a greater level of regulatory oversight to discourage corruption and excessive greed on all fronts would be a good start It is frustrating and disappointing how[I] frequently [/I]people jump to "so you just wanna kill all rich people huh" when someone criticizes the upper class of society. Or even worse, "so you'd pay a doctor the same wage as a janitor??" Ridiculous.