MINOT, N.D. — Between the BuzzFeed catastrophe and the Covington Catholic High School mess, I’ve been thinking a lot about journalism these past few days. This is a topic I’m not fit to weigh on, according to some. Not so long ago columnist Jack Zaleski wrote that I shouldn’t refer to my reporter co-workers as colleagues, which is an…
Alternatively, More Conservatives Should Join the News Media
Yesterday, in response to consternation among media types over the demise of conservative news and opinion magazine The Weekly Standard, I argued that if “mainstream” media types were so concerned about it they ought to try hiring more conservatives. I received a lot of feedback on that post through various mediums, and one consistent and well-made…
The News Media Should Hire More Conservatives
There is a lot of consternation of late about the demise of The Weekly Standard, a right-of-center publication founded by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes and owned by Rupert Murdoch from its founding in 1995 until 2009 (right around the media mogul purchased the Wall Street Journal). The Standard is hardly the first ideologically-driven publication…
Twitter Isn’t Harming Journalism, Journalists on Twitter Are
John Ziegler, writing at Mediate, has an interesting piece today headlined “The Top Ten Ways That Twitter Has Greatly Harmed Journalism and Destroyed Our Public Discourse.” An excerpt: I have written before about some of the many problems which exist with Twitter, the platform which now, partly because of President Trump’s love of the outlet,…
Print Column: The Public’s Loss of Faith in Mass Media Began Long Before Donald Trump
MINOT, N.D. — It’s become fashionable for journalists to blame Donald Trump and his attacks on “fake news” for undermining the public’s trust in mass media. An example of this are recent editorials from newspapers across the country, coordinated by a call to action from the Boston Globe, criticizing the President’s “dirty war on the…
This Is Why Right-of-Center Americans Don’t Trust the Journalism Industry
I awoke this morning to two stories in my news feed I feel are pretty strongly related to one another. First was the results of a Pew Research study into public perceptions of the media. According to Pew, far more right-of-center Americans distrust the journalism industry than their left-of-center neighbors: Fresh data affirm a long-running…
Hiring Comedians to Insult Republicans Is Not How Journalists Will Regain the Trust of Americans
In January of this year Gallup released a poll showing 84 percent of Americans thinking the press is very important to the health of our democracy, but 43 percent saying journalists were doing a very poor job of supporting it. Flash forward to last night’s White House Correspondents Association dinner where comedian Michelle Wolf berated…
Los Angeles Times Reporter Worried #NoDAPL Coverage Wasn’t Slanted Enough Toward the Protesters
Over at the University of North Dakota professor Mark Trahant – a journalism professor, albeit one sharply biased in favor of the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline protesters – is holding a symposium on those protests which today featured a panel of panelists who covered them. One of the panelists – Los Angeles Times reporter Sandy Tolan…
This Is the New York Times Admitting That They’re a Left Wing Newspaper
Today the New York Times decided to dedicate their letters-to-the-editor section entirely to Trump supporters. A group of people that, by my reading, range from enthusiastic supporters to those skeptical of the President’s behavior but none-the-less supportive of his agenda. But more interesting than the letters is the explanation from the Times for why they did this.…
President Trump’s Threat Against NBC’s Broadcast License Is Stupid and Counterproductive
Our blustery President, in one of his fits of social media pique, suggested that perhaps the broadcast license for NBC News ought to be pulled based on some of their coverage: With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?…