Thread by @GrantRants

I am sharing this again because the stats tell a story that everyone should be paying attention to. (journalism thread)

Warren Buffett sees newspapers dying. But PR jobs are booming bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via @markets

The numbers here say there are 6.4 public relationship people to every working journalist. This is a startling number that should concern any citizen, although for more journalists it is confirmation of what we experience daily.

It is often the case that we are outnumbered and in the case of politics, the approach appears to be to use superior numbers - combined with the reach of social media - to bombard the public with spin and half-truths faster than journalists can fact-check and report the truth.

And it can become numbing for readers: The political spin gets spread widely through PR agents and politicians. Journalists fact check, produce stories, but almost before that story is published, the PR machine is either pushing out something new, or doubling down in force.

In short, it is vastly easier to present spin than it is to fact check and report to the public. Making it easy to carpet bomb the public with misinformation faster than journalists can do their jobs responsibly.

In Ontario, the government now has its own propaganda channel with Ontario News Now. In Niagara, we have blogs masquerade as "news" that exists entirely as a partisan outlet - in this case, for conservatives but don't be shocked when the other sides do the same thing.

It is also worth noting that over the last few years in Niagara, local reporters have had to deal with the produce of spin and half-truths (and sometimes outright lies) presented as fact by PR folk that spoke for politicians or agencies they govern.

There are more PR staff working for just @NiagaraRegion than there are reporters working at three daily newspapers. At one point the @NPCA_Ontario has more coms staff than the Standard's entire newsroom.

And when having a small army of coms staff wasn't enough, the politicians hire outside PR firms to further craft their messages and spin. This happened at @NiagaraRegion when they attempted to blunt the impact of the #NiagaraPressFreedom incident in 2017.

Now, this is not to say all PR and coms people are bad, or all journalists are heroes. One should resist such simple and broad brushes. There are many PR people who do an honourable job, particularly those working in the public sector like health care or education.

However, the fact remains that reporters are vastly outnumbered, and often outgunned in terms of resources when it comes to trying to cut through the spin and fog of alternative facts and misinformation to present the facts.

As a consumer of news you need to ask yourself one question: Do you want to get your information from partisan spin machines and agents whose interest is presenting their bosses in the best light, or from journalists who are working to cut through all of that to present to facts?

The stakes are real. When the government can overwhelm news agencies to this degree, the balance that keeps power in check leans the wrong way. Think about it, and support your local newspapers and agencies.
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Hey @threadreaderapp. Unroll, please!