Moldbug:Is Journalism Official?
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-journalism-official.html
Readers may have noticed that, where most writers of my general ilk would refer to the mainstream media, I prefer to refer to the official press.
[..]
Of course, this is consistent with the Polygon hypothesis - that power in modern democracies belongs to those who manage public opinion.
[..]
We usually think of "independent journalism" as a consequence of freedom of speech. But perhaps it's easier to see it as just another form of civil service protection.
For example, the UK has something very close to a Department of Journalism. It's called the BBC. How different is the job of a BBC reporter from the job of a CNN reporter? Not very.
[..]
Don't you think it's slightly strange that this handful of basically-uneducated individuals essentially controls science? That, for example, they could have written up the Wegman report, and consigned global warming - rightly or wrongly - to the same category as cold fusion, N-rays and Hwang Woo-Suk?
[..]
Of course, if journalism is official, we have to be able to lustrate it. If you agree with me that this system is thoroughly pernicious, and that the State should not be managing the minds of its citizens, how do we get rid of it?
[..]
My conclusion is that people trust the Times - and the rest of the official press - not despite the fact that they're basically reading Pravda, but because of it.
[..]
Losing your faith in official journalism is an extremely large mental step. It's really in the category of giving up a religion. It creates an enormous set of questions which you thought were answered, and now suddenly are questions again. And it's very easy to get those questions wrong. To paraphrase Chesterton, when people stop believing in the Times, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
Readers may have noticed that, where most writers of my general ilk would refer to the mainstream media, I prefer to refer to the official press.
[..]
Of course, this is consistent with the Polygon hypothesis - that power in modern democracies belongs to those who manage public opinion.
[..]
We usually think of "independent journalism" as a consequence of freedom of speech. But perhaps it's easier to see it as just another form of civil service protection.
For example, the UK has something very close to a Department of Journalism. It's called the BBC. How different is the job of a BBC reporter from the job of a CNN reporter? Not very.
[..]
Don't you think it's slightly strange that this handful of basically-uneducated individuals essentially controls science? That, for example, they could have written up the Wegman report, and consigned global warming - rightly or wrongly - to the same category as cold fusion, N-rays and Hwang Woo-Suk?
[..]
Of course, if journalism is official, we have to be able to lustrate it. If you agree with me that this system is thoroughly pernicious, and that the State should not be managing the minds of its citizens, how do we get rid of it?
[..]
My conclusion is that people trust the Times - and the rest of the official press - not despite the fact that they're basically reading Pravda, but because of it.
[..]
Losing your faith in official journalism is an extremely large mental step. It's really in the category of giving up a religion. It creates an enormous set of questions which you thought were answered, and now suddenly are questions again. And it's very easy to get those questions wrong. To paraphrase Chesterton, when people stop believing in the Times, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
posted by martin at August 16, 2015
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