How do we improve the news?
One of the issues I keep chewing on is the fundamental weakness of journalism today. A combination of factors ranging from the ability of fake news to spread via social media to the economic pressures that encourage our formal outlets to pursue sensationalism and fence-sitting have made it such that misinformation rules the day right now.
I want to work on fixing that, but I don’t know how.
I’ve seen people say “we need to subscribe to paid outlets so they can afford to do proper investigative journalism.” Is that the answer? I’m not sure. I have no guarantee that’s what they’ll spend my subscription dollars on, and no certainty that even if they do, it will have a noticeable effect. So I put it to you all: what’s the best place to apply leverage to improve the state of journalism today? Is it a newspaper subscription? Some organization? Does anybody out there have a real, practical solution to this problem — or at least a convincing argument for one — and if so, where?
Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.
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Personally, we have to keep our own news feeds on social media clear of fake news for starters. We have to post rebuttals on our friends and family's fake stories even when our politics are the same, but we know the story is BS. I did this occasionally with a family member and someone I don't actually know. In moderation, of course so as not to be a jerk about it. ;) I also blocked several sites that friends/family were posting, so that they wouldn't be on my wall at all. Then, I DO post stories from well-known, respected sources like NPR, PBS, Washington Post, etc. Probably not all your sources need to be "paid outlets" as you say (I would guess a couple of my choices aren't really huge money-making outlets and that's a good selling point). Clearly some of this a huge a lack of critical thinking skills that most of us probably don't have the mean to address - unless you're a teacher. We can do our best individually, to promote good news sources, and what makes them good (less commercial interests like PBS/NPR, newspapers/journalists who use and list multiple sources, and don't post stories ALL IN CAPS) hahaha.
