,
19 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Since we’re talking about journos hating twitter users (we are people), and asking why they don’t direct their criticism at their media colleagues, I have some ideas about why Murdoch media don’t get called out by the rest of the media for giving them all a bad rep. A thread👇🏻
Journalists are an in-group. First they are journalists and next they belong to an organisation. This group shares in-group characteristics:
👉🏻Suspicion of outsiders
👉🏻Belief their skills are superior to all others
👉🏻They don’t criticise each other
👉🏻Don’t acknowledge their power
👉🏻Suspicion of outsiders
👉🏻Belief their skills are superior to all others
👉🏻They don’t criticise each other
👉🏻Don’t acknowledge their power
I read a study that looked at the way journalists rank objectivity amongst different groups and guess which group the study found to be ranked highest on an objectivity measure: journalists. They think they see the world more clearly than us mere mortals.
The problem is, journalists think they are objective because they interview a ‘he said’, ‘she said’ and they think this covers both sides of the story and therefore anyone who complains of bias is just a partisan who wouldn’t know how to be objective.
I’ll repeat again, journalists think they have skills in objectivity that the mainstream don’t possess. This links to the idea that they think they are impartial and that none of us tweeps are. That’s why they call us partisans - they use this term as a put down, as criticism.
In fact there is nothing wrong with being partisan and knowing your values. Everyone has values. My values are collective action for collective benefit. That makes me a Labor true believer because Labor prioritises these values. Policies that Labor develop align with these values
Do these values preclude me from critiquing and criticising journalists? No they don’t. In fact, the in-group of journalists also have values, whether they pretend to or not. Journalists must have values because otherwise how do they vote?
Journalists are also just as impacted by democracy, by government as the rest of us are. Climate change, for instance, is not just impacting those who talk about it, but will impact each and every one of us, journalists included. Do they worry about that?
So, back to this idea that journalists are able to be completely value-less and objective, and their assumption this makes them see the world clearer. In fact, I argue that by pretending they have no values, their values become an unconscious bias which they don’t account for.
Through this unconscious bias, values dictate important journalistic decisions. For instance, I wrote this thread about the assumption that the capital class are more authoritative and therefore Liberals are better at managing economy.
For the most part, journalists come from the same class and share many of the same cultural assumptions of that class. Having analysed trade union media coverage you can guess how unconscious class assumptions impacts on union dispute coverage.
So, back to why us tweeps criticise journos. Much of our criticism is about journalists not giving what we perceive to be fair coverage to both sides of politics - either positive or negative coverage. That is, not taking both sides’ values into account.
Example, since I have collective values, I complain when budget analysis focuses on individual outcomes of tax cuts ahead of collective outcomes like wealth inequality. If I don’t see coverage that takes account of my values and uses narrow right wing values, I complain.
There are certainly abusive people on twitter who are either rude for the sake of it or badly articulate their criticism in a way that makes criticism personal and unreasonably nasty. Guess what journos - we all suffer this on twitter. Comes with the territory.
But, there is also a huge amount of criticism which is genuine, well thought out and most importantly - valid. For instance, tweeps are outraged that the Murdoch media is becoming more like propaganda and less like news every day. This should concern journos too.
When we see journos failing to recognise the damage Murdoch media is doing to their own industry, their own profession, it really feels like the in-group, which crosses over all outlets, is impervious to self-reflection.
It is also worrying that many journos are using their power to squash genuine criticism, which reinforces the boundary between the powerless and the powerful. If journos think they’re perfect and everything is fine, why is news media struggling to survive?
Do journos want the industry to survive? Do they worry that Murdoch media’s huge share of news, blatantly biased news, is having a negative impact on the industry as a whole? Do they worry about trust. Or that fourth estate isn’t acting as a watchdog on power as they should be?
These are hard questions to ask and even harder to answer. Journos berating us tweeps for criticising them is just a sideshow to these more important debates. Since they write their audience off as trolls, it doesn’t fill me with hope of them ever listening and reflecting. End.
