German weekly Die Zeit just started another round of media soul searching with an article called "Who still trusts us?" (this is the English version). Remarkably, the piece has garnered over 1000 reader comments at the time we are writing this post.
While I do not share many of the views of this essay, it is worth reading, in particular for the stark, graphic examples of cruel and disgusting verbal attacks on journalists on social media.
They do provide some background to much of the bitterness that characterizes the rest of the article. How would I feel if almost everything I write can kick off a barrage of invectives?
Don't we all tend to develop a sort of tunnel vision over time, can this be a noxious conditioning hard to break out if? Trying to understand the impact of these attacks brought up an episode of NPR's This American Life about policing, specifically the impact of officers doing only night shifts in a problem neighborhood.
Some of the night shift officers developed, let's say, policing problems of their own, the kind that makes the misc. section of the local paper and, if they go horribly wrong, a national headline story.
Unsurprisingly, conditioning can contribute to this, and something as simple as putting the officers on day shifts already made a big difference. They got to see and realize their dark, strange workplace was where families lived, where businesses other than liquor stores were open, where people went to churches, and to work.
So, journalists get hammered. Bad.
Time for media outlets to pay for counseling.
Beyond this, the article brings us the usual complaints, the oft repeated combo argument: for the first time in history, people without any expertise in a matter or no education can reach the masses.
Only partly true: yes on "from the opposite end of the world", yes on "nearly instantaneously", yes on "many more people than ever, just have a computer", not so much true for everything else.
The world's most famous idiots, wingnuts and mad men have done well without Twitter or facebook and without expertise or education.
Sure, you can claim, as a German "media scientist" says according to the article, that social media and the reader comment sections of online news outfits have become veritable internet outrage machines. There is always somebody who yells "scandal, scandal", creating "an outrage frenzy out of nothing".
But that final sentence could used just as well to describe German tabloid Bild Zeitung, so why go after social media idiots? Because you can call them whatever you want without fear of lawsuits?
There are innumerable examples of "traditional media" latching on to and giving faux outrage a wider audience - only to turn around and bitch about the internet a few articles later. Look at how, for instance, Der Spiegel covered a laundry detergent's promo of "88 washes". Pathetic.
In that context, the blight of anonymity is held high in the article. You won't see facebook quoted as an example of how to do the right thing often, but the article likes facebook's real name requirement. And fails to figure out that evil doers can easily subvert it.
The quality of bad behavior is not new, the quantity certainly is.
Papers like Die Zeit have made an honest effort to investigate the crisis of confidence. They do talk about the breathless reporting on the crash of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps a few months ago and on the credulity of the press in the run up to the Iraq War, even mentioning flawed reporting on the crisis in Ukraine.
What did papers do when they came under criticism for these, or when they publish articles on highly controversial subjects? Some say sorry, others censor reader comments, again others turn them off.
We all make mistakes!
Yes, we do. But when major media outlets make mistakes that can cause a war (Hearst) or facilitate one (2003 run up), we are talking about failures of a different magnitude than, say, a farmer who forgets fertilizer or even a surgeon who removes the wrong leg.
Many journalists may now feel like call center employees who have been living with "this call may be monitored for quality purposes" for decades.
Any high profile media outlet might as well tell their writers "This article may be monitored for quality purposes". Finally, a personal understanding of the juggernaut of progress, a mere two decades after the type setters went extinct.
Then there is the historic perspective, brought to you by Die Zeit in their soul searching series: pervasive distrust in early newspapers.
The glamorous 20 Century notion of the fourth estate never quite stood up to the reality of newsrooms, why not be honest and let it go?
Oh, one more thing guys: unlike cobblers and many other workers, you can and do write about your fate at will. Spare us some, please.
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