'Beyond the Killing Fields': Why Journalism Is in a 'State of Chaos'

"I beseech you to consider the possibility that you might be wrong".
Oliver Cromwell to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

Read the comments here. Read the comments on any similar “What We Journalists Must Do!” article. Do you get the impression that maybe you folks have your diagnosis wrong? If you don’t understand your problem, how do you expect to solve it?

Ya’ll’s real problem is that you don’t like us. You really don’t like our ideas. We get that. No worries. It’s a free country. You’re free to continue using the same narratives you’re using now. You’re free to continue ignoring stories for which you have no good narratives. We are free to ignore you. That last sentence is the “problem” you really want to solve.

There’s no truth in The News and there’s no news in The Truth.
Goodbye already, go.

In my opinion, Mr. Schanberg's response does not explain WHY the profession of journalism is in jeopardy; the author is merely re-stating that the profession IS in the current questionable state of a loss of integrity. Perhaps it takes someone not in the journalists' ranks to say that all writers for what is known as the media are competing for sales in the marketplace rather than seeking to tell the truth without being beholden to their employers. Our entire society, not only those who seek to report wars, financial and economic issues, poverty, disease, political conflict, suffers from a crippling enigma that wants to gain the soapbox. It is incumbent upon us, meaning the ordinary citizen to discern, to question, to investigate - and then to discard what has no validation, impossible as it may be. I personally am not interested in what I consider to be sex scandals, scurrilous and viscious heresay, emotional comments, rumors, and prefabricated speculation. I think that a great deal of responsibility lies with the reader who chooses to separate the chaff from the wheat. Liz Kerry

We old-fashioned journalists must resign ourselves to the need for updating our skills. I just spent five years taking college classes (while working at activism) learning the adobe creative suite, web site building and social media. There is in fact a great deal of garbage, so we need to teach more critical thinking skills and civic duty in our op-ed writing.

In the past, we could simply present both arguments and ASSUME that the voters would DO something about the problems without being taught that the information had to be used by them in some active way. We old dogs should resign ourselves to being the teachers of the young and wait for the confusion and critical thinking dilemmas to strike a balance on their own. It was a mistake not to suggest more solutions to the voters who are so dumbed down that they can no longer see cause and effect, or understand their role in making a democracy work. Just my two cents worth.

There's been nothing quite as liberating as the breaking of the MSM news monopoly. Until journalists perceive what the public discerned long ago, they will continue to join the unemployment lines. I stopped taking the local paper long ago because of its "fluff" pieces and mindless echoing of whatever the leftist national journalists were spinning. Humans crave accurate information and communication. The explosion of the internet negates the argument that people will simply gravitate toward the information that simply confirms their own views. The market has spoken and found journalism an unreliable source of information, much less one that helps the public "make informed decisions." Its unrelenting attacks on any thing that doesn't echo typical liberal positions and incurious posture toward the consequences of the inevitable failures of leftist ideas has rendered the MSM complicit in bad governance. Finally, this seems to be seeping into the public's collective conscious. Just as much of the country (and world) has deemed Obama's ideolgical insistence on irrational positions in the face of irrefutable facts, the public seems to view the MSM in much the same way. We've had enough and can do better on our own, thank you very much.

Most "journalists" are products of Left wing universities. The common man knows elitism and ideologue writing when he reads it. Most events are now viewed or heard on TV, etc., as they happen. People make their own judgements. They don't trust pundits or journalists with agendas. For example, if you wanted to know about the Black Panther voter intimidation case, and the implications of the DOJ dropping that case when Holder came in as Attorney General, you'd not get it from the MSM. But when you see and hear the street scene of that intimidation case recorded at the time, you would be outraged. People trust their own eyes and ears more. They know now that the MSM is selective in what it covers. Nor can the newspapers can't get the printed news out fast enough compared to other sources like the Internet. Gone are the days when people crowded up to the vendor on the corner for the latest headline. Nowadays, people get it as it happens on TV. If they want a more in-depth analysis, and have the time to do it, they read a magazine or a book. Newspaper Editorials are almost always biased and insulting to your intelligence.

Excellent insight. However, even before blogs and Twitter became so prevalent, the concept of true investigative journalism was on the wane. Publishers and broadcast general managers got skittish about having to go to the next board meeting and explain excessive OT, travel expenses and, most of all, lawsuits. There's no way Ben Bradlee could function in today's environment. It is a sad end.

OK, fine. BUT even within the new-rules game of electronic journalism, the majority of reporting is garbage. For example, I just read an article about the wilderness bill and the fact that one congressman removed his support. Nowhere in the article did it say what provisions had been added that made the man change his mind. The whole article was about failed promises and conflict between congressmen, but there was NO information in it about what made the guy withdraw his support. Another long article, one about the barge/excursion boat collision, failed to tell me where it took place and if the small boat had been sunk, and what happened right after the collision. I am tired of no-info journalism. We may all be getting our news from eyewitness Facebook posts soon. This is why, not the changing venue.

The press just doesn't get it! Journalist in general have lost credibility because of their leftest bent. Stories that are contrary to a liberal bias are left unreported and stories that align with that bias are over reported. There should be no bias in reporting.

The media at large has a very low opinion of the average citizen and take the position that they, the media, must lead the "unwashed to the truth" as the media deems viable.

In my opinion, the media can only recover its lost credibility to the public by beginning to report the truth without trying to shape the truth. Another thing that would help the profession would be if political hacks would desist in referring to themselves as journalist.

The press like most colleges in this country are so far to the left they are almost going circles!!!

Every article I've read about the demise of the print press never hits on one of the major reasons. Idealology pervades every aspect of journalism these days and that is solely the fault of the universities that promote it. The ideal that the average reader needs to be guided by the writer to 'more enlightenment' for his/her own good is condencending and is why many of these news organziations are losing readers.