devtesla

devtesla wrote (edited )

Reply to Russiagate is this generation's WMD by neku

this article is acting like Russagate being less that it was hyped to be is going to have some kind of huge effect on people's trust in the media, when really I think the people who distrust the media are just gonna be distrusting it just as much and people who cling to it are gonna still cling to it. it's good to have all the reporting failures on this story in one place, just like the tone is wild. I also hate that it seems obsessed with the media not being "sides-choosers" which is some deep "the media used to neutral!" bullshit.

also to say Russiagate is worse than the WMDs story I think is grossly insensitive to the fact that millions are dead because of how the media reported on WMDs. Also like the president's campaign manager is in prison, the Mueller investigation was a story. I don't buy the whole "it was just paying off a porn star" framing he uses like in this context paying off a porn star is kinda huge lol.

also look at this ending:

We had the sense to eventually look inward a little in the WMD affair, which is the only reason we escaped that episode with any audience left. Is the press even capable of that kind of self-awareness now? WMD damaged our reputation. If we don’t turn things around, this story will destroy it.

I'd love to live in the planet where getting the WMD story catastrophically wrong resulted in any kind of looking inward, or any damage to the reputation of media institutions, but this is not the case. The opposite is! Reporters that were against the war were punished and haven't recovered, every pro-war reporter has been promoted several times since. The media institutions most responsible for this failure are going to be the only outlets standing when facebook finishes eating the entire industry.

Media is fucked. Media is really fucked up. I don't think the narrative in this story is super explanatory as to why tho lol. If it was framed as like "the media over trusts intelligence agencies, causing catastrophe" then yea that would be a good article. Tho I think reporting on Venezuela is a better explanation of how media orgs buy CIA nonsense tbh, like beveling that a coup is inevitable when it doesn't have a chance that is a bigger fuck up then what, overstating the scope of an FBI investigation?

I'm so sick of this shit can it be over and can we get back to electing socialists plz

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