I posted the NYT article in the other thread but I think the more important point than the disinformation attempt and failure is media as gate keeper, which the NYT went into details. Is media gate keeping by educated, moral, professional necessary for a today society that is bombarded with misinformation and hashtags at the speed of light ? https://t.co/Gs7xwstX19
From the Time: ... The gatekeepers return The McLean group's failed attempt to sway the election is partly just another story revealing the chaotic, threadbare quality of the Trump operation — a far cry from the coordinated “disinformation” machinery feared by liberals. But it’s also about a larger shift in the American media, one in which the gatekeepers appear to have returned after a long absence. It has been a disorienting couple of decades, after all. It all began when The Drudge Report, Gawker and the blogs started telling you what stodgy old newspapers and television networks wouldn’t. Then social media brought floods of content pouring over the old barricades. By 2015, the old gatekeepers had entered a kind of crisis of confidence, believing they couldn’t control the online news cycle any better than King Canute could control the tides. Television networks all but let Donald Trump take over as executive producer that summer and fall. In October 2016, Julian Assange and James Comey seemed to drive the news cycle more than the major news organizations. Many figures in old media and new bought into the idea that in the new world, readers would find the information they wanted to read — and therefore, decisions by editors and producers, about whether to cover something and how much attention to give it, didn’t mean much. But the last two weeks have proved the opposite: that the old gatekeepers, like The Journal, can still control the agenda. It turns out there is a big difference between WikiLeaks and establishment media coverage of WikiLeaks, a difference between a Trump tweet and an article about it, even between an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal suggesting Joe Biden had done bad things, and a news article that didn’t reach that conclusion. Perhaps the most influential media document of the last four years is a chart by a co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, Yochai Benkler. The study showed that a dense new right-wing media sphere had emerged — and that the mainstream news “revolved around the agenda that the right-wing media sphere set.” Mr. Bannon had known this, too. He described his strategy as “anchor left, pivot right,” and even as he ran Breitbart News, he worked to place attacks on Hillary Clinton in mainstream outlets. The validating power of those outlets was clear when The New York Times and Washington Post were given early access in the spring of 2015 to the book “Clinton Cash,” an investigation of the Clinton family’s blurring of business, philanthropic and political interests by the writer Peter Schweizer. Mr. Schweizer is still around this cycle. But you won’t find his work in mainstream outlets. He’s over on Breitbart, with a couple of Hunter Biden stories this month. And the fact that Mr. Bobulinski emerged not in the pages of the widely respected Journal but in a statement to Breitbart was essentially Mr. Bannon’s nightmare, and Mr. Benkler’s fondest wish. And a broad array of mainstream outlets, unpersuaded that Hunter Biden’s doings tie directly to the former vice president, have largely kept the story off their front pages, and confined to skeptical explanations of what Mr. Trump and his allies are claiming about his opponent. “SO USA TODAY DIDN’T WANT TO RUN MY HUNTER BIDEN COLUMN THIS WEEK,” the conservative writer Glenn Reynolds complained Oct. 20, posting the article instead to his blog. President Trump himself hit a wall when he tried to push the Hunter Biden narrative onto CBS News. “This is ‘60 Minutes,’ and we can’t put on things we can’t verify,” Lesley Stahl told him. Mr. Trump then did more or less the same thing as Mr. Reynolds, posting a video of his side of the interview to his own blog, Facebook. ... much more at the link ...
Great question. Problem is the right has complained about liberal bias since time out of mind. This would set off the tin foil hat crowd like you can’t imagine. You’d hear how we are just like China media now. What I would like to see is channels that are obviously politically leaning like Fox News required to remove any political commentary/analysts/interviews to a separate channel. If your channel has news in the name then all you show is news. No opinions, no analysis, no Tucker Carlson or Fox and Friends. Move that shite to a channel called Fox Entertainment.
I voted Don't Know. On one hand, if people are college educated, one would assume gatekeepers perform a more sinister function than a one like a benevolent despot. On the other, there's too many tricks to market, spin, or frame things into reality. Anyone can watch 20 min youtubes as a replacement for the "gatekeepers"... Koppel believes there should be training for journalists to be considered journalists. Posted in a different thread about something similar. And yes most journalists have a liberal bias. It's just that their editors and owners are for the bottom line
I only see one way out and it’s massive upward mobility like 1945-1958. That could bring people to the same tables again. no media outlet can do it, no election, not even a hostile foreign power invading.
I haven't had the chance to read the article but yes I think that journalist should act as gatekeepers and that journalistic ethics should keep journalist from spreading factually untrue news. The problem is that journalists don't control the media anymore. As long as the internet exists there will be all sorts of groups and services getting "news" out there. As ideological and other confirmation biases will continue to exists that will make sure that other outlets that aren't bound by journalistic ethics will continue to persist.
Great article and kind of explains some things in 2016. I think the gatekeepers realized they were played but to be fair it's the fault of the Clintons for always pushing the envelope.
I don't think 'gatekeeper' is the right word. There seems to have been a time, after broadcast television and before cable, where journalists really could decide what the public could know. That role eroded over time and then fell into the ocean with the internet and social media. They cannot and should not be the arbiters of news. But they have an important role as guides, and I think the strength of their brands are more important in this landscape than ever. Before 2016, my attitude was to read everything. Don't wear the blinders of the big news organizations. After 2016, I may still read a bunch of different things, but I scrutinize and consider the publisher while I read, thinking about two things: their worldview and their professionalism. When it comes to the big news organizations like the NYT who fancy themselves gatekeepers, they can be partners to their readers to help them interpret and understand what is showing up in their twitter feed. That doesn't mean they can just bury a story about Hunter Biden because they know it's bs, but they can help people see it's bs. I've worked in a department where we tried to get journalists to write the stories we wanted them to write. Journalists like having stories handed to them because they don't have to work very hard or risk wasting effort when you do. But they are also suspicious and don't want to be patsies either. Supposedly the Trump campaign had gotten the WSJ to start to play along with a Hunter Biden story, but they also bristled at the idea of being used as a hitman. Sounds about right. And ultimately, it looks like the story fell flat because professional outfits like the WSJ wouldn't print what they couldn't verify (though they tried), and tabloid rags printed instead with dubious credibility. This all seems to have worked out exactly as it should. The Hunter story got out even though it was bs, the brands that operate as trusted guides denied their support, and the public took it warily (that is the gullible who wanted to believe it did so, and the rest of us drove by like it was a fender-bender we weren't involved in).
Gatekeepers are only going to be as good as the willingness of most people to heed the fences. With the internet and other media there are plenty of holes in the fences so whether the MSM acts as gatekeepers many will still go around it. NYT nots that the Hunter Biden story hasn't gotten much traction and that most MSM haven't published it but that doesn't mean it's not gotten any traction at all. Further as we see even here on D&D that MSM isn't covering it gives it more cachet among many. "The lamestream media doesn't want you to know this!" This is the often the fuel for things such as conspiracy theories that the more something isn't covered the more compelling it becomes. For example "The TRUTH that those in power don't want you to know!" While gatekeepers can help what I think we need much more of is critical thinking. Our society isn't a closed society and it shouldn't be where there are only a few information sources or that we should limit ourselves to only a few information sources. There are plenty of stories that are factual but don't get coverage for a variety of reasons. If most of us though apply some critical thinking to the news we hear that will do much more than gate keepers.
Good OP and good thread. Enabling gatekeepers with control of our information intake is a two-edged sword. The downside is a small cadre of insiders controls what people learn (or control what parts are 'legitimate.') The insular nature of working within a single paradigm can solidify existing power structures and be closed to new ideas. On the other had, we all see the chaos of a total free-for-all wild-west information world is a disaster. "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on." We desperately need well-trained investigative journalists with high standards to help us sort out the lies from the truth. I don't think that in the 90s, many or any of us were worried about the information world being too open; now we see things differently. I don't want to go back to a world where the flow of all important information is guarded by gatekeepers, but free democracies can't survive in an information paradigm where the average citizen shrugs as to whether any truth or facts exist. At this point in time we need more gatekeeping.
