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I always have to shake my head and smile when people whose accounts are full of hatred for #journalists and the #media want to follow me.
Guys, I *am* a #journalist, heart and soul, and I am damn proud of it!
Do you want to follow me to learn? Or do you just want to offer me a job in gastronomy or on a vegetable sorting line? Why this request?
Try to recommend independent media, link to the good journalists! #JournalismMatters for democracy! Only fascists fight against all media.
@NatureMC I've always been struck by what Walter Lippmann (A Journalist by trade) said about advertising and journalism. Independent media is super important for democracy. I think we are furiously agreeing at this point.
@Dianora Great. I'm living in France where media are less independent than e.g. in the neighbour country Germany (where I learnt). 80% are owned by billionaires, some connected with arms manufacturing industry, and all not very progressive.
But at the same time, courageous, committed independent media emerge. Most famous example at the moment is @mediapart https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/dossier/sarkozy-gaddafi-funding-affair
Without their investigations, the former president Sarkozy perhaps never would have been sent for trial.
These
@NatureMC @Dianora @mediapart Charlie Hebdo. Liberation.
@EndorNim And for environment, I warmly recommend @Reporterre and for political comments in France follow @paul_denton
Note to all here: if you answer a comment, pls don't tag the recommended accounts for not spamming them.
Tag only the accounts you want to answer to!
@Dianora We do have these journalists, we have great global investigative networks.
They have to survive - and they need money. First of all they need to be known ... there are so many rather unknown, especially specialists for environment.
And often they are on Mastodon.
It's on us how to recommend or link to them.
@NatureMC
I don't dislike journalists but I hate the owners of MSM who silence their voices.
@SnowyCA This is something completely different!
Many people don't believe it, but journalists themselves also criticise the media (but with arguments)! In the United States, several famous journalists have clashed with their bosses or been fired and now continue to write critically.
It's a difference if someone says: I hate all media/journalists (where do these people get their infos from?) or if I say: I hate owner XY for silencing journalists or XX to write in a manner without ethics.
@NatureMC @SnowyCA I’ve probably been overly critical of journalists and also journalism programs at universities. Although I do think a more journalists today in the U.S. than in the past are little more than biological machines who parrot what they find on news wires—the evidence being that a high percentage of the content from different media outlets is about exactly the same stories, particularly on weekends and even more so on long holiday weekends—but, there are still good journalists. As you note, several have put the importance of ethics ahead of their paychecks and lost their jobs, a hard choice that seems rare among university presidents. Maybe part of the issue in the U.S. is media corporations hiring more for loyalty and performance skills than for journalism skills.
@JosephMeyer First of all, I find it somewhat surprising that the people I hold in high regard often feel addressed, precisely as their criticism is so differentiated! I am referring to the extreme types who would like to wipe out all journalists (and who usually have no idea about their work).
We do need good meta critics of media! (Naming the bad actors and with arguments).
I tell you a story: During the recruitment interview for my first training job in 1984, the editor-in-chief
@JosephMeyer of a German major regional newspaper asked me what I thought about the neo-Nazis who occasionally appeared. I forgot that it was a recruitment interview and argued that this danger should not be underestimated and that work should be done to address it. I knew that he was *extremely* conservative.
I got the job because he said I had the necessary drive, even if he didn't agree with my ideas.
Then I was inside, and experienced how he tried to block every political work
@JosephMeyer against these extremists.
In the end, I lost a colleague, one of the best in Germany. Her life was so threatened by her research that she had to change her identity and go into hiding. Our boss did nothing to help her.
You are young, need a job. I was lucky enough to go and work freelanced. The guy who took the job I could have had, was married, had children and a house to pay off. It's not
I understand your point.
I certainly hold no respect for anyone associated with Fox "news", and I'm not too happy with some political analysts in MSM on either side of the Can-US border, but it's unfair to lump together all those working for the media.
I believe there are a lot of arguments between journalists, editors and owners, same with political cartoonists.
Maybe we should have non-profit news organisations--not corporate owners who control international news outlets and influence public opinion to suit their personal needs.
@SnowyCA First: in times of the internet, we can read media from around the globe. This is a chance.
Second: Independent media do exist (even in the USA), many are on Mastodon. Many are organised as cooperatives. But even "non-profit" means that investigations cost money and journalists have to make a living. Especially because they are not financed by billionaires.
And we have investigative global networks built by official international media outlets. We had never heard about scandals like
@SnowyCA the Panama Papers etc. without them - and it requires an enormous amount of expertise, research and therefore money.
Or we have important factchecking networks like @Bellingcat ...
Agreeing with you ! There are excellent independent news outlets and they exist only due to viewer's donations.
I suppose my choice of wording was not clear, sorry for that. When I say non-profit, I mean like any employee staff should be paid well --I am not suggesting anyone work for free. But I think individual or corporate ownership should be removed from media.
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