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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor (slightly modified)

 

When your digital news feed doesn’t contain links, when it cannot be linked to, when it can’t be indexed, when you can’t copy a paragraph and paste it into another application: when this happens your news feed is not flawed or backwards looking or frustrating. It is broken.

Steven Johnson, The Glass Box And The Commonplace Book

Movie-goers are pickier about the believability of movies than pundits are about the believability of politicians’ claims.

Doug J, Post-realism [via Duncan Black]

For the most part, our big news orgs simply don’t explain things. In all candor, they rarely seem to know what sorts of claims are being made in the wider discourse.

Bob Somerby, Why is it easy to beat our side? Wisely, Dionne asked [via Kevin Drum]

When the only way to get most television shows to people’s houses was over a wire or across airwaves that could only hold so many channels, [the media moguls’] particular distribution model made sense. But when the same connection — whether cable, DSL, satellite, or WiFi — can let people download whatever video program they choose, an entirely new model can take hold. The shift isn’t Google’s fault any more than America should be blamed for breaking off from Pangea.

Aaron Swartz, Googling for Sociopaths

Most serious news stories are peppered with information that is laughably false, and reporters are always fully aware of how false that information is. Newspapers are constantly quoting people who are openly lying, and almost every sound bite you hear in the broadcast media is partially false. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s not that the truth is being ignored; it’s just that the truth is inevitably combined with a bunch of crap that’s supposed to make news stories unbiased and credible, but really just makes them longer and less clear. The motivation for doing this is to foster objectivity, but it actually does the complete opposite. It makes finding an objective reality impossible, because you’re always getting facts plus requisite grains of ‘equalizing’ fiction.

Chuck Klosterman [via Marco Arment]

The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest.

Rick Perlstein, In America, Crazy is a Preexisting Condition: Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage

…as time went by I think that knowledgeable, responsible commentators got tired of the [taking head] format, decided it was a very poor way of getting their points across, and mostly stopped doing it. Also, scholars will tend to agree with each other too often to make good television. So they were replaced by political hacks who know that their only job is to get the talking points of the day across and do everything possible to discredit their opponent. This has led to a deterioration in discourse that benefits those most willing to be outrageous.

Bruce Bartlett, on why the media is apt to allow discredited ideas on the air nowadays

In short: We who publish must learn how to say what we don’t know at least as well as we say what we know.

Jeff Jarvis, Product v. Process Journalism: The Myth of Perfection v. Beta Culture [via]

Quality journalism is expensive, and to the extent that it provides a public good, we will find ways to fund it. But top-heavy, poorly run, arrogant-to-the-bitter-end media companies? This is their crisis, not our crisis, and it certainly isn’t about journalism.

Dan Conover, The newspaper suicide pact

[Newspaper owners, editors, and reporters] should remember that “newsmakers” are intent on using the media to influence readers, listeners, and viewers to take up their ideas. The electronic and print media today probably have more power over public opinion—and thus government—than they had fifty years ago. But I fear they turn much of that power over to those who create news events to get coverage.

Walter Pincus, Newspaper Narcissism [via]