I stumbled today on a Reddit AMA with Blake Morrison, one of the Reuters reporters who published an investigation into Banksy's identity a few days ago.

I expected there to be backlash against this story, but I didn't quite predict how thoroughly and incessantly the public would disregard the investigation as in their public interest. And it also painted so clearly to me how little they same to care about actual reporting.

Morrison was absolutely eviscerated. Only a handful of the AMA's hundreds of comments were remotely positive. Most of the rest was accusing him of trying to distract the public from the Epstein files, attempting to get a great social activist arrested, doxxing someone to get them harmed, etc. Morrison refuted these comments with ethical standards: he explained what public interest means, cited SPJ and Reuters ethics codes and pointed back to numerous sources who explained themselves why Banksy's identity is important to know. The article itself even explains at length in the opening paragraphs why Reuters reported the story.

The backlash has just been kind of astonishing to me. I feel like a few decades ago, it wouldn't have been this extreme. I've even seen some family members on social media (who are already journalism-sympathetic, with me being a journo and all) accusing "the media" of harassment and authoritarianism.

Nobody in this conversation save for actual journalists have tried to understand why Reuters would write this story. Nobody has a grasp of how journalism like this IS in the public interest. It's just all so horrifying to me how little society seems to care about verified flows of information anymore.

If you work in a US newsroom and your coverage of what’s happening in Gaza and Israel does not include the voices of Palestinians — if it does not contextualize 75 years of illegal occupation — then just a friendly reminder that your coverage is bad and you should feel bad. Also, that you’re not so much a journalist as you are a shill and a willing propagandist.

Solidarity with all the producers, bookers, editors, and reporters being forced strongly encouraged to start with “throwing rocks” and told to only book ex-military and/or white DC policywonks experts “because reasons.”

Anyway, here’s a picture of a brave Ukrainian youth standing up to some jerk Russian soldier.

I see time and time again with CNN portraying stories specific ways and it's usually an agenda. Other news sources do it too, but it's nowhere as blatant as these two articles posted literally days apart. One articles points out the race if the perpetrator is Caucasian, but if the perpetrator is African American, they tend to omit that information and the perpetrator is now a "suspect." I will post the screen shots. Any opinions? I would love for CNN to reply to this and see their explanation of this double standard.

The flow of information in the Media and News today is dominated by centralized outlets, editorial bottlenecks, and algorithms that favor engagement over accuracy. It's all purely engagement farming. almost lik the Influencers Clip Farming right now haha. Traditional news are all influenced by advertisers, political pressure, and platform incentives, which makes it harder to find news that is both objective and reliable. On social platforms, rumours spread faster than corrections, leaving audiences caught between information overload and distrust. Like I've stopped counting the amount of times my brother told me some crap from tiktok and me instantly debunking with one internet search

I've been searching for alternative initiatives that have emerged. There's non profits, investigative journalism, AI tools and Blockchain projects. I was wondering if there's any other journalism companies working towards a better News world?

I found ProPublica pretty quick. It's a big non-profit newsroom dedicated to investigative reporting on corruption, abuse of power, and systemic failures. I'm sure many have heard of this one. I do wonder how far a non-profit can comer in the media world without any sponsors.

Another one was BellingCat, a collective of open-source investigators who use digital forensics and crowd-sourced research to uncover war crimes, corruption, and disinformation. They are also fairly big and have a big Discord community.

I also looked into other types of journaling. Here are a few AI projects I found. The Associated Press has been experimenting with AI tools for years to automate financial reports, sports recaps, and election results. another one is AJN (Agent Journalism Network) which uses AI to collect and analyse and verify from multiple sources. This one was interesting because it's on the Blockchain making it extremely transparent. but idk if doing everything with AI will bring other problems. Also found other Blockchain type projects but they are still in early stages.

Anyone else know of some good alternatives from the mainstream media?

Many journalists seem to have decided that since perfect objectivity is impossible, they shouldn't even bother trying. It has become an excuse for advocacy and shoddy reporting. I know this is not a great revelation.

I have an expose to tell about health insurance carriers and a kickback ring I reported and got retaliated against. I really want to tell my story to the press but important politicians and CEOs are involved with human rights abuses. Unfortunately, the CIA is very much involved with this situation because these people use them for retaliation. Please reach out or comment if you want to hear my story.

i dont know about european countries but i have seen US media through youtube and i tell you, here in argentina the media channels are so much better, i can tell you the differences i noticed:

- in the US, they tend to deliver news on something that happened many hours ago, and they just edit things out, the format is so weird. they'll send a cameraman and a reporter to the place, but instead of live streaming things, they just record whatever they show or any interviews with witnesses, they will edit out most of what they say. that doesnt happen in argentina, here they just livestream things and they dont censor anyone. even the most biased media channels bought by a political party, they livestream the people they interview from the streets and if they say something that is not convenient to them, they will just stop talking to that person or say "whoops, we lost connection" but at least we get to hear what that person said instead of it being prerecorded and edited out like the US media does

- in argentina, journalists discuss the news between themselves and maybe some guest which can be an important figure in politics or an expert in the topic that is being discussed. like 4 to 10 people discussing it and can last for hours even, as they are being fed more details of the news. some of the guests might even be from opposing parties so you hear both points of views and this is so cool, and yet i never see this happen in any US media channel (BBC, fox news, etc)

- some of our most skilled journalists will hold like an hour monologue, as they walk around the studio, of the things that are happening in the country and giving their critics to the current government, they are so interesting you could listen to it all, but i never seen this in any US media

- in the US journalists say "the suspect" EVEN when they have clear proof like security camera footage. idc if they have to do so for legal reasons, that just means some laws in the US are mega dumb. in argentina we just say "the thief/murderer", journalists describe the person as it is and they will even insult him/her depending on how bad his/her crime was. even politicians, even the president. i feel the US journalists have zero freedom of speech compared to my country's journalists

so my question is, how come the US media channels are so bad? they are not worth watching if they are gonna edit everything like that, how come the US citizens normalize such bad quality journalism?

I’m seeing this a lot more lately and especially with the most recent graduates. But please if you work in journalism, do not post your personal opinions about hot button issues on your social media pages. Especially if they are “professional” pages. Having an opinion and sharing it publicly is what journalists are NOT supposed to do.

I just came across a post from someone sharing about the executive order to cut funding from PBS and NPR. The post started off very matter of fact, but ended with a personal jab and insults aimed at the president and the administration. Which is fine if that’s how you feel, but stop making public comments! This is why the public is losing trust in the media, and increasingly thinks members of the media are biased. Because you are putting it on full display. Also, when you make these kinds of public statements, please realize in many cases you are alienating between 45% and 55% of your audience.

If you choose to share your personal feelings about politics, hot button issues, legal matters, etc. please stop referring to yourself as a journalist

Nate Silver's take on the evolution of the fact-checking industry. Nate identifies as a democrat and that sometimes shows in his writing but this piece seems even-handed.

On the other hand, one could hope that the included "Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review" chart is misleading.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-fact-checking

Maybe I'm wrong, but there's something that deeply bothers me right now that is going on in the media. So, elections are suppose to be people voting for the candidate of their choice.

If the media is trying to manipulate the candidates by doing something like calling for their resignations in a legitimate context, aren't they choosing the candidate for the voter?

I was under the impression that it is not the role of the media to tell the voters who to vote for, or manipulate the candidates in an attempt to alter the election outcome?

What is going on, seems wrong to me. Am I the only one?