The pen meant books at a time where there wasn't ubiquitous press. Now everyone has a keyboard and is, for better or worse, an author and "journalist" on social media, the new commons.
That's why those with power went from banning books to censorship to controlling the algorithms. It wasn't enough to convince us to not trust experts, or the press. Now we can be made to believe prevalent sentiments are outliers and vice versa.
Some say what you write on social media doesn't matter. I say use the pen while you can for whatever it's worth.
As we can indeed all be citizen journalists today, and likely through social media almost all of us are, I wonder what ethical considerations must come into play?
How do we separate our Reporting from our Opinion? Newspapers worked hard to do that for a very long time, if a citizen journalist wants to be respected he or she will need to work to do the same I imagine.
How do we ensure that what we are saying is true? Again, if we hope to have influence, we need to make this effort. I read an awful lot of independent writing. If I find too many untruths, I no longer read that particular writer.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that if we hope to have influence, we have to use our modern pen responsibly. If not, people notice, and when they do, they stop reading. If we aren't read, our pen is of no more value than a rusty sword in the hands of a young child.
That is the disaster about it. Few are equipped to do real journalism and that isn't even their intention, but fact- checking is being replaced by ignorant consensus.
That's why we have an epidemic of conspiracies, misinformation, and unqualified advice.
I don't disagree. But when people lose trust in traditional media, they will turn to any alternative. And I think that is what we are seeing. And honestly, I think traditional media did it to themselves. One should not be able to turn on two different 'news channels' on the TV, watch two different 'stories' of the exact same situation, and get two very different reports of the 'facts.' But we can now, every day, and that has ruined the credibility of traditional media.
That is not to say that the credibility of independent media should be judged any higher.
But, I do see some bright spots out there. The long form interview podcasts for example. Without the time constraints of TV and Radio, these interviews can really dig a lot deeper than could be done before.
One thing I've noticed though is that most people don't really transition well from traditional media to the new forms. One of my favorite TV interviewers of all time, who has been doing it since just about forever, and still doing it today, decided to start a long form interview podcast some time ago. It isn't good. Then he decided to start a Substack, that is even worse. I've seen something really similar with a really good TV News commentator as well. In both cases, they seem to have gone off the rails once the guardrails were removed. Doing it alone must be radically different than doing it as a part of a newsroom or whatever.
As an optimist though, I've got to believe that independent media will learn. Over time those that do it well will rise to the top, and best practices will be learned and taught.
Because, financial incentives for doing so exist now. Everything isn't just free blogs or whatever that were labors of love. Now one can get paid to podcast or write, and that is a really powerful incentive to do it well.
Saying "when people lose trust in traditional media, they will turn to any alternative" is SPOT ON to what I am saying. And trust was broken all around to a modest extent before it was purposefully attacked.
The 24-hout news cycle created a commentary-dominant news paradigm on TV years ago. It became entertainment also because of us: ratings = advertising dollars. Certain news channels capitalized on it, and created a polarization feedback loop (in more recent years) with deep associations of partisan rhetoric.
One talking head in particular waged a rhetorical war against the "Mainstream Media", which ironically came to mean anyone who disagreed in spite of the accusers being huge powerhouses of viewership. These are serious propaganda tactics, similar to what cults use, specifically pointing the finger at who you can't trust to become the trusted authority themselves.
But the real break from healthy skepticism to outright blank mistrust took place when one cult personality started labelling everything and anything as "fake news". The target was no longer the so-called "Liberal media" with (often rightful) accusations of bias, but a contention over believing the reporting of facts by anyone, anytime.
Distrust of a Free Press is necessary for people in power to cross lines and gain unaccountability. Now we have millions who claim to not trust mainstream media while watching it every day, 99% commentary and half the 1% or more being misleading or false. Studies even show one major news source having avid viewers less informed than people who don't consume news-related media at all. And these people have strong opinions on whatever they are told to be outraged about.
This is our situation, and sometimes it feels like you and I are a minority of "the band played on" musicians. We have to add whatever weight we can to honesty, thoughtful scrutiny, and civility to move the needle even a little.
But now the dominant players in social media are openly in bed with very specific political interests and call the shots as to what free speech is allowed and what is not -- if not by censorship, then by algorithmic burial.
Ultimately I agree, the 24/7 news cycle has been a disaster. It has, as you say, turned news into entertainment in order to survive, and that is not healthy for our society.
Another problem is that it requires its reporters and commentators to speak immediately. There is no time to actually engage in thought before going on the air. As a result, the default is to whatever pre-existing narrative the story can be shoehorned into.
Print media of course didn't suffer from these problems, but killed itself by dumping all of its content online, for free, and training the world that Journalism comes without cost. Truly insane business decisions that starved print of the resources it needs to do great journalism.
Reliance on the algorithm was always bad for media, and a really dumb trap for it to fall into, as the algorithm can be changed in an instant, as these large media companies eventually learned.
But, I do think that we are seeing bright spots for print out there, and I believe that we will see it return to its former self. Different funding models will help, a pulling away from algorithm (and search) traffic will help as well.
Never thought of it that way ... "by dumping all of its content online, for free, and training the world that Journalism comes without cost". It's congruent with everyone having a voice thinking they are thereby entitled to preach.
But we're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube as far as print news. Like Musk said, traditional media is dead, and "we" are the news. That's horrible, of course, but only because we haven't tamed it.
And by taming our public digital commons, I mean learning responsible speech on our part, but also creating truly neutral platform schemas that I mentioned before, namely decentralized, NGO-run system(s) akin to Wikipedia in crowdsourced governance with strict standards toward objectivity. Instead, the for-profit platforms that were accused of bias and censorship are now taken over or bending the knee to the accusers to do exactly that.
On another note, I had a model for a search and catalog system back before 2000 that would easily have rivalled Google, with a curated taxonomy by subject and type where the editors would be rewarded shares of the advertising dollars for their efforts. If I would have had a few hundred thousand dollars investment ...
I believe that we have an obligation not just as good men, but as Americans to stand up and speak out against wrong where ever and when ever we see it. Not just to speak out though, but to at need take the next step.
It's an obligation we have inherited from our spiritual ancestors, from the men and women that marched with Dr. King, to the Vets in Athens TN who used the skills they learned on the battlefields of Europe and Asia, back to Teddy R, back to MWBs G. Washington, Ben Franklin, T Jefferson and the boys, and further back to our ancestors in the form of Thomas Becket, the possibly mythical Robin of Loxley, and so on, all the way back to Cincinnatus, and Pliny the Elder.
Men, real men, do not just shut up and turn away from injustice and wrong. Social pressure be damned, even if you are one man against the world, "NO, YOU MOVE"
Thank you for this Brother. I think it is right, and I think it is inspiring. I do think that we have a responsibility to call out injustice for if we do not it will fester and grow.
And I certainly believe you are right, pressure, social and otherwise must be damned.
We must I think though, choose our battles wisely, for a single pen can not fight on all fronts at once. I think we must deploy our pen where it can be most effective and impactful.
Is the pen mightier than the sword? I believe it is, in many ways. The sword can deal death, which for the person on the receiving end, means and end. The pen can continue to inflict pain as long as the writer is able to continue what they are writing.
Do we have a moral obligation to wield our pen against injustice? I believe we do. To dispel untruths, to educate and inform for the purpose of making society better.
I often think about my university degrees. The restrictions on resources for your research included the exclusion of Wikipedia as a cited source. Why? At one time, Wikipedia was general knowledge that anyone could contribute to, whether they were an expert on the subject or not.
Wikipedia does try to rectify this through the encouragement of participation by scholars and experts in correcting inaccuraies in the content. It's still not perfect but it is an example of individual seeking to right the wrong that is the written word.
As an educator, trainer, teacher, and content developer, I take my responsibility to educate with truth and valuable information, seriously. I research the topics I teach or write about and seek to become an expert so I don't spread misinformation. Many times I am asked questions that I don't know the answer to, and I am honest in telling my students that "I don't know". That is far better than spreading lies or misinformation.
Therefore, my pen, is used to educate, enrich, and improve the students I encounter, with the hope that they carry that knowledge forth.
>>>The sword can deal death, which for the person on the receiving end, means and end. >>>The pen can continue to inflict pain as long as the writer is able to continue what they are >>>writing.
I had not considered this. Thank you for it. It is a valuable and informative perspective.
>>>I research the topics I teach or write about and seek to become an expert so I don't >>>spread misinformation.
This is something that I worry about quite a lot. I don't want to be responsible for spreading untruths by presenting them as truths, and I don't want to lose my own personal credibility by doing so. For without credibility our pen is of little value.
One of my favorite writers from our Revolutionary period is Thomas Paine, and today I ran across a good Paine quote on social media. But, it wasn't a quote I remembered. So before I shared it, I looked it up to ensure that it was real. I think that if more people did the same it would clean up a lot of the errors that get promulgated online.
The pen meant books at a time where there wasn't ubiquitous press. Now everyone has a keyboard and is, for better or worse, an author and "journalist" on social media, the new commons.
That's why those with power went from banning books to censorship to controlling the algorithms. It wasn't enough to convince us to not trust experts, or the press. Now we can be made to believe prevalent sentiments are outliers and vice versa.
Some say what you write on social media doesn't matter. I say use the pen while you can for whatever it's worth.
As we can indeed all be citizen journalists today, and likely through social media almost all of us are, I wonder what ethical considerations must come into play?
How do we separate our Reporting from our Opinion? Newspapers worked hard to do that for a very long time, if a citizen journalist wants to be respected he or she will need to work to do the same I imagine.
How do we ensure that what we are saying is true? Again, if we hope to have influence, we need to make this effort. I read an awful lot of independent writing. If I find too many untruths, I no longer read that particular writer.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that if we hope to have influence, we have to use our modern pen responsibly. If not, people notice, and when they do, they stop reading. If we aren't read, our pen is of no more value than a rusty sword in the hands of a young child.
That is the disaster about it. Few are equipped to do real journalism and that isn't even their intention, but fact- checking is being replaced by ignorant consensus.
That's why we have an epidemic of conspiracies, misinformation, and unqualified advice.
I don't disagree. But when people lose trust in traditional media, they will turn to any alternative. And I think that is what we are seeing. And honestly, I think traditional media did it to themselves. One should not be able to turn on two different 'news channels' on the TV, watch two different 'stories' of the exact same situation, and get two very different reports of the 'facts.' But we can now, every day, and that has ruined the credibility of traditional media.
That is not to say that the credibility of independent media should be judged any higher.
But, I do see some bright spots out there. The long form interview podcasts for example. Without the time constraints of TV and Radio, these interviews can really dig a lot deeper than could be done before.
One thing I've noticed though is that most people don't really transition well from traditional media to the new forms. One of my favorite TV interviewers of all time, who has been doing it since just about forever, and still doing it today, decided to start a long form interview podcast some time ago. It isn't good. Then he decided to start a Substack, that is even worse. I've seen something really similar with a really good TV News commentator as well. In both cases, they seem to have gone off the rails once the guardrails were removed. Doing it alone must be radically different than doing it as a part of a newsroom or whatever.
As an optimist though, I've got to believe that independent media will learn. Over time those that do it well will rise to the top, and best practices will be learned and taught.
Because, financial incentives for doing so exist now. Everything isn't just free blogs or whatever that were labors of love. Now one can get paid to podcast or write, and that is a really powerful incentive to do it well.
Saying "when people lose trust in traditional media, they will turn to any alternative" is SPOT ON to what I am saying. And trust was broken all around to a modest extent before it was purposefully attacked.
The 24-hout news cycle created a commentary-dominant news paradigm on TV years ago. It became entertainment also because of us: ratings = advertising dollars. Certain news channels capitalized on it, and created a polarization feedback loop (in more recent years) with deep associations of partisan rhetoric.
One talking head in particular waged a rhetorical war against the "Mainstream Media", which ironically came to mean anyone who disagreed in spite of the accusers being huge powerhouses of viewership. These are serious propaganda tactics, similar to what cults use, specifically pointing the finger at who you can't trust to become the trusted authority themselves.
But the real break from healthy skepticism to outright blank mistrust took place when one cult personality started labelling everything and anything as "fake news". The target was no longer the so-called "Liberal media" with (often rightful) accusations of bias, but a contention over believing the reporting of facts by anyone, anytime.
Distrust of a Free Press is necessary for people in power to cross lines and gain unaccountability. Now we have millions who claim to not trust mainstream media while watching it every day, 99% commentary and half the 1% or more being misleading or false. Studies even show one major news source having avid viewers less informed than people who don't consume news-related media at all. And these people have strong opinions on whatever they are told to be outraged about.
This is our situation, and sometimes it feels like you and I are a minority of "the band played on" musicians. We have to add whatever weight we can to honesty, thoughtful scrutiny, and civility to move the needle even a little.
But now the dominant players in social media are openly in bed with very specific political interests and call the shots as to what free speech is allowed and what is not -- if not by censorship, then by algorithmic burial.
Ultimately I agree, the 24/7 news cycle has been a disaster. It has, as you say, turned news into entertainment in order to survive, and that is not healthy for our society.
Another problem is that it requires its reporters and commentators to speak immediately. There is no time to actually engage in thought before going on the air. As a result, the default is to whatever pre-existing narrative the story can be shoehorned into.
Print media of course didn't suffer from these problems, but killed itself by dumping all of its content online, for free, and training the world that Journalism comes without cost. Truly insane business decisions that starved print of the resources it needs to do great journalism.
Reliance on the algorithm was always bad for media, and a really dumb trap for it to fall into, as the algorithm can be changed in an instant, as these large media companies eventually learned.
But, I do think that we are seeing bright spots for print out there, and I believe that we will see it return to its former self. Different funding models will help, a pulling away from algorithm (and search) traffic will help as well.
Never thought of it that way ... "by dumping all of its content online, for free, and training the world that Journalism comes without cost". It's congruent with everyone having a voice thinking they are thereby entitled to preach.
But we're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube as far as print news. Like Musk said, traditional media is dead, and "we" are the news. That's horrible, of course, but only because we haven't tamed it.
And by taming our public digital commons, I mean learning responsible speech on our part, but also creating truly neutral platform schemas that I mentioned before, namely decentralized, NGO-run system(s) akin to Wikipedia in crowdsourced governance with strict standards toward objectivity. Instead, the for-profit platforms that were accused of bias and censorship are now taken over or bending the knee to the accusers to do exactly that.
On another note, I had a model for a search and catalog system back before 2000 that would easily have rivalled Google, with a curated taxonomy by subject and type where the editors would be rewarded shares of the advertising dollars for their efforts. If I would have had a few hundred thousand dollars investment ...
I believe that we have an obligation not just as good men, but as Americans to stand up and speak out against wrong where ever and when ever we see it. Not just to speak out though, but to at need take the next step.
It's an obligation we have inherited from our spiritual ancestors, from the men and women that marched with Dr. King, to the Vets in Athens TN who used the skills they learned on the battlefields of Europe and Asia, back to Teddy R, back to MWBs G. Washington, Ben Franklin, T Jefferson and the boys, and further back to our ancestors in the form of Thomas Becket, the possibly mythical Robin of Loxley, and so on, all the way back to Cincinnatus, and Pliny the Elder.
Men, real men, do not just shut up and turn away from injustice and wrong. Social pressure be damned, even if you are one man against the world, "NO, YOU MOVE"
Thank you for this Brother. I think it is right, and I think it is inspiring. I do think that we have a responsibility to call out injustice for if we do not it will fester and grow.
And I certainly believe you are right, pressure, social and otherwise must be damned.
We must I think though, choose our battles wisely, for a single pen can not fight on all fronts at once. I think we must deploy our pen where it can be most effective and impactful.
agreed, the hardest lesson for me to learn was "pick your battles, no that's too many, put some back."
Is the pen mightier than the sword? I believe it is, in many ways. The sword can deal death, which for the person on the receiving end, means and end. The pen can continue to inflict pain as long as the writer is able to continue what they are writing.
Do we have a moral obligation to wield our pen against injustice? I believe we do. To dispel untruths, to educate and inform for the purpose of making society better.
I often think about my university degrees. The restrictions on resources for your research included the exclusion of Wikipedia as a cited source. Why? At one time, Wikipedia was general knowledge that anyone could contribute to, whether they were an expert on the subject or not.
Wikipedia does try to rectify this through the encouragement of participation by scholars and experts in correcting inaccuraies in the content. It's still not perfect but it is an example of individual seeking to right the wrong that is the written word.
As an educator, trainer, teacher, and content developer, I take my responsibility to educate with truth and valuable information, seriously. I research the topics I teach or write about and seek to become an expert so I don't spread misinformation. Many times I am asked questions that I don't know the answer to, and I am honest in telling my students that "I don't know". That is far better than spreading lies or misinformation.
Therefore, my pen, is used to educate, enrich, and improve the students I encounter, with the hope that they carry that knowledge forth.
>>>The sword can deal death, which for the person on the receiving end, means and end. >>>The pen can continue to inflict pain as long as the writer is able to continue what they are >>>writing.
I had not considered this. Thank you for it. It is a valuable and informative perspective.
>>>I research the topics I teach or write about and seek to become an expert so I don't >>>spread misinformation.
This is something that I worry about quite a lot. I don't want to be responsible for spreading untruths by presenting them as truths, and I don't want to lose my own personal credibility by doing so. For without credibility our pen is of little value.
One of my favorite writers from our Revolutionary period is Thomas Paine, and today I ran across a good Paine quote on social media. But, it wasn't a quote I remembered. So before I shared it, I looked it up to ensure that it was real. I think that if more people did the same it would clean up a lot of the errors that get promulgated online.