Ben Collins: It's time for journalists to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard

[Nevilledog]

https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/06/ben-collins-its-time-for-journalists-to-draw-the-sword-and-throw-away-the-scabbard/


We’re losing.

I’m hesitant to start off this memo on such a grim note, but it’s true: The people putting out the truth are under siege in the information war, and we’re not doing so great. That’s, in part, because a lot of those people aren’t even aware they’re in an information war to begin with.

There is good news: We can still win. It will take a change in tack, and a little bit of courage.

But first, since I’m doubling down on bad ideas right out of the gate, I’m going to do something else that’s probably ill advised. I’m about to quote Edward R. Murrow, who, I’ve been told by a bunch of books, was not a pal of Mr. Cronkite. They both wound up at the same place — the facts — and they took two separate ways to get there. They were in the trenches and were too deep in it to see they were on the same side. I get it. We’ve all been there. A lot of us are there right now.

Murrow, famously, said this:

This instrument can teach. It can illuminate. Yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who is generally believed to have known something about weapons, is reported to have said, “When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

*snip*

[GenXer47]

1. the media can't break its political coverage mold

They make too much $ on the horse race. Even if one of the horses is actually a Jabberwock.

[rubbersole]

2. AI is going to flood all media platforms with mountains of disinformation.

Platforms won't be able to police themselves. It will be ugly for real truth.