shadowmoses
Joined 11 years ago
Karma
215
Submissions
30
Member since
Jul 6
Recent submissions
Comment · 11 years ago
My bad.
Comment · 11 years ago
Yeah, don't know. Agree w/ you that journalists/ reporters do not need to have moral obligations, though [unless they make moral statements, and are not electing to do so in certain cases] - but even that's a slightly different issue.
Comment · 11 years ago
I think journalists have opinions - and sharing those opinions is a big part of 'news' - whether you like it or not, that's constantly done, either through direct words, or through more subtle means. That's why you have 'conservative' and 'liberal' entities of the news.
Moreover, the media also decides what's important - think about how they've covered Trump vs. Sanders - Trump is selling ratings, they are promoting his message in a way that's unequal to other candidates, and then saying 'oh, we're being neutral.'
Comment · 11 years ago
In any case, I thought the final paragraph was the most important: "So by all means: unleash the contempt and the righteous indignation for Trump. It’s well-deserved. But that should not obscure everything that led to this moment, nor exonerate those who for years have been spewing unadorned anti-Muslim animus from multiple corners and under various banners. They’re more subtle and diplomatic (and thus more insidious) than Trump, but they’re reading from the same script."
Comment · 11 years ago
'What is this low level journalism doing on HN?' is a bizarre way to phrase a question that's really saying 'I disagree with the assertion/characterization' - which is one that is made routinely, over the course of many years, both through news outlets and in various forums of more substantive debate.
Some examples of using the 'fascist' label: From The Financial Times, quoting Sarkozy: “Are 6.5m French people fascists?” [http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2012/04/is-the-front-national-... ]; In 2014,German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday branded the French National Front party fascist: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-elections-fascism-idUSK... ]; French court ruling they can be called 'fascist': [http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20140410-front-nationals-le... ]; 'Donald Trump is Now America's Marine Le Pen':[http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/could-donald-trum... ]
The internet tells me there are about 1 million other references one could use to, in fact, make the claim this is not low-level journalism.
Comment · 11 years ago
Posting the above link as a very popular article from The Atlantic entitled, "What ISIS Really Wants" by Graeme Wood [from 03/2015] has re-surfaced: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi....
Popular as it is [most popular Atlantic article of all time], the essay is deeply flawed - both in form [singular academic source, confirmation bias throughout, conceptual inconsistency] and function [dangerous fear-mongering, promoting racist undertones, serving as fodder for the far-right].
It has been criticized far and wide by other publications [besides The New Yorker, also in the New Republic, Salon, etc] as well as a number of academics in the U.S. including Princeton professor used as the main source in the article.