As trust in media hits a new low, the excellent Amanda Ripley proposes an alternative way of reporting news, for actual humans - plus, a new, uncensored stand-up special from Andrew Schulz
I find it horrifying that 42% of Canadians still have faith in the mainstream media. People often lament the fact that “there’s not enough trust in institutions.” The real problem is that there is far, far too much trust. These institutions deserve no trust at all.
Covid showed people prefer certainty over truth - they just want to be told what to do. It is just too much for them to accept that the CBC or CNN are actively lying to them.
“There is a way to communicate news — including very bad news — that leaves us better off as a result. A way to spark anger and action. Empathy alongside dignity. Hope alongside fear.”
Isn’t this sentiment a possible source of the problem? Writing to spark anger and action is activism. How do you prevent political bias in this case? Mostly we all just want the news. Ideally the reader would not be able to discern any political bent of the publication.
When I see my doctor he does not inject political activism into his diagnosis.
Tara's usual inability to actually understand anything about journalism vs the real world:
"people don’t particularly care how the sausage gets made." This is true. They don't.
"If that was ever true, it’s definitely not the case now, years into the rolling crisis that is Covid."
This is nonsense, and how in the universe does covid become the #1 raison d'etre for journalism?
"People very much want to know what’s gone wrong with our news media." Swing and miss AGAIN by Tara. People KNOW what’s gone wrong with so-called "news" media. People want to know how these journalists can stand themselves, never mind the slime they swim in each day.
I just find industry standards are so much lower today than they were even a decade ago. It wasn’t so long ago that farmers who only had a Grade 8 education, would end their day by reading The Hansard…can you imagine that in today’s world? We’ve become lazier in our thinking and our thought process, and our societal institutions have responded accordingly.
Just think about the ramifications of your comment for a minute:
Those Grade 8 educated farmers, like their working class peers all through society were educated in a one room school house. The essential 3RRRs were deemed to be the building blocks for critical thinking and personal improvement through hard work.
Today, our societal institutions are failing us badly. The public education system has wandered away from emphasis on critical thinking and has chosen to deliver graduates who know a little about everything and not much about anything. And we wonder why young people are disconnected from the very important institutions that shape our society. They will inherit the responsibility for them soon, and it’s not a pleasant thought.
I probably said that wrong and will maybe go back and edit that statement; you are correct. I should have just said farmers. Back in the day most had to leave school after Grade 8 to help out on the family farm. As such, schooling standards were much higher, ensuring these kids had a strong foundation by the time their formal schooling ended. And yet today, in my home province of BC, the math curriculum stipulates that adding and subtracting fractions need not occur until Grade 8. Standards have declined terribly.
They were a big part of all our schooldays. In Grade 4.
Progressive school reform has been in vogue since the late 80’s in Canada whereby young children are encouraged to learn at their own pace and it’s reached the point now where there aren’t any standards left in the curriculum. It’s beyond sad.
I read media to find out what those people over there are wound up about. Their motivation is to manipulate my emotions by telling me how the important people think of something.
Neither has anything to do with informing either myself or themselves. There is infinite interest and fascination to be had by digging deeply into complex subjects, with a good writer describing the journey.
MSM "News" is not news. It is a crafted ' message ' repeated over and over again without evidence or a contrary point of view. It is sensationalized. It is meant to scare. It is an opinion. It is not fact. It is manipulated, cut and pasted, insincere, unapologetic nonsense. It's a travesty.
Pawsative nailed it: "What's missing from the news is truth." But it's not just that simple, because truth is complicated in many ways. As Amanda Ripley beautifully expresses, facts that lack heart will leave us cold. The best art always captures truth that resonates with our emotions, not only our intellects. But the problem isn't only a lack of "human" content. Intelligent people need to know they are being respected, not merely preached at. And the painful absence of strenuous, full-throated, and *respectful* criticisms of the dominant views held by any particular news outlet, *from within that very outlet*, leaves many of us doubting the veracity of the outlet's editorial control. We *need* truth. It's like water to the human spirit. But we also need to be able to make up our own minds about *whose* truth makes the most sense.
This piece resonated. The news(da noose) doesn’t offer constructive solutions, in Canada at least, most newsrooms pander to Ottawa which funds them. So there is serious Liberal bias in the media as they dare not bite the federal hand that feeds them. Do I trust Canadian mainstream media? Mostly not I’m afraid!
Anyone who feels guilty that the "news" no longer excites or inspires her is insecure and just plain ignorant of the underlying issue. It is not "news". It is propaganda and editorial. It is the opinion of people with only average intelligence. It is propaganda. It is propaganda from its conception to its delivery. Why would anyone find it exciting or inspiring. Bizarre concept. Hard pass on Amanda, as on most ... tending to all ... journalists.
I don't believe people don't trust the media. They want to be SEEN as being edgy and independent minded, which is why they report not to trust, but when it comes down to it, they clearly buy whatever the media talking heads are selling. For example, when the Covid "vaccines" were introduced, I literally thought 'no one is going to take these because people don't trust the media, so, like me, they will do their own research instead" ( In April 2021, when researching the 'vaccines' in order to determine whether or not I would submit- because I REALLY do not trust the media, or government, for that matter- I found this article from 2016 in which the CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech describe the LNP that ushers the mRNA particles into cells, " toxic" with "dangerous side effects" especially when given in repeat doses: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/13/moderna-therapeutics-biotech-mrna/) Why, if 58% of people do not trust the media, do 86% have LNPs coursing through their bodies that the CEOs of the manufacturing companies themselves describe as dangerous and toxic ??
They don’t trust the media. Full stop. Whether or not they just want to read the headlines and not want to debate it is another matter. It’s a sad state of affairs.
sorry you left out ""But those nanoparticles can lead to dangerous side effects, especially if a patient has to take repeated doses over months or years. ""
Interesting, never realized this but Noah Smith (substack Noahpinion) does this in almost post. I suppose that's why he's now hit 6000 paid (@10 bucks a month, you do the math) subscribers!
What this "read" misses about much of today's media stories fed to the public is the lack of research into the facts by anyone, followed by a fair and reasonable presentation of the researched facts, and the reporting of however many sides or interpretations of the facts there are, rather than slanting the stories to favour the prejudices and dogmas favoured by the writer, the writer's political party and the owners of the media platform.
Once again, solid reasoning. But to go deeper, the philosophical reason why modern news agencies (especially cable news) offers little if any hope, agency or dignity is that they have largely adopted a metaphysical view of the world where everyone is by dint of their biological traits either an oppressor or oppressed. And some forms of oppression "intersect" with each other, making things worse. You as an individual don't matter - only the group(s) you're a member of. Hope is out of the question, since leftist identitarians need the oppressor/oppressed dialectic to maintain their financial, social and cultural capital (witness the rise of a massive woke bureaucracy in corporations, governments, and universities), and thus dig deeper and deeper into the earth to find smaller and smaller deposits of outrage gold. Hence the rise of the "micro-aggression" and the widening of the definitions of "racism", "sexism", "hate speech", "violence", etc. to the point where literally any person, institution or physical object can be accused of one or more of these sins with little or no evidence (just type into Google "is X racist?", substituting for X any common thing encountered in daily life - chairs, trees, dogs, cat, math, etc. - it turns out we all live in a fallen world).
Unlike the Christian message, which at least offers some promise of salvation and thus of hope, the new Cathedral offers no hope, no individuality, no personal dignity. The media simply reflects this nihilism. It's as if the Buddha had only one noble truth - "life is suffering". The big question is, why do so many people worship in this Cathedral, since all if offers is a temporary sense of moral superiority against a background of mass suffering?
I find it horrifying that 42% of Canadians still have faith in the mainstream media. People often lament the fact that “there’s not enough trust in institutions.” The real problem is that there is far, far too much trust. These institutions deserve no trust at all.
Covid showed people prefer certainty over truth - they just want to be told what to do. It is just too much for them to accept that the CBC or CNN are actively lying to them.
Indeed. Institutions, after all , are made up of unscrupulous men drunk on power.
“There is a way to communicate news — including very bad news — that leaves us better off as a result. A way to spark anger and action. Empathy alongside dignity. Hope alongside fear.”
Isn’t this sentiment a possible source of the problem? Writing to spark anger and action is activism. How do you prevent political bias in this case? Mostly we all just want the news. Ideally the reader would not be able to discern any political bent of the publication.
When I see my doctor he does not inject political activism into his diagnosis.
This was exactly what I was thinking about that .
What’s missing from the news is truth.
The problem with journalism is journalists.
...and money....money corrupts the institution they work for.....at this point they are just propagandists.......
Tara's usual inability to actually understand anything about journalism vs the real world:
"people don’t particularly care how the sausage gets made." This is true. They don't.
"If that was ever true, it’s definitely not the case now, years into the rolling crisis that is Covid."
This is nonsense, and how in the universe does covid become the #1 raison d'etre for journalism?
"People very much want to know what’s gone wrong with our news media." Swing and miss AGAIN by Tara. People KNOW what’s gone wrong with so-called "news" media. People want to know how these journalists can stand themselves, never mind the slime they swim in each day.
I just find industry standards are so much lower today than they were even a decade ago. It wasn’t so long ago that farmers who only had a Grade 8 education, would end their day by reading The Hansard…can you imagine that in today’s world? We’ve become lazier in our thinking and our thought process, and our societal institutions have responded accordingly.
Just think about the ramifications of your comment for a minute:
Those Grade 8 educated farmers, like their working class peers all through society were educated in a one room school house. The essential 3RRRs were deemed to be the building blocks for critical thinking and personal improvement through hard work.
Today, our societal institutions are failing us badly. The public education system has wandered away from emphasis on critical thinking and has chosen to deliver graduates who know a little about everything and not much about anything. And we wonder why young people are disconnected from the very important institutions that shape our society. They will inherit the responsibility for them soon, and it’s not a pleasant thought.
Gentlemen farmers have college degrees and are professionals who own farms but have real farmers come in to do the work - hence ‘gentleman farmer.’
I probably said that wrong and will maybe go back and edit that statement; you are correct. I should have just said farmers. Back in the day most had to leave school after Grade 8 to help out on the family farm. As such, schooling standards were much higher, ensuring these kids had a strong foundation by the time their formal schooling ended. And yet today, in my home province of BC, the math curriculum stipulates that adding and subtracting fractions need not occur until Grade 8. Standards have declined terribly.
Not only were standards higher they actually had standards. Now it’s just dumbing down, political indoctrination and warehousing.
Grade 8? Good grief….fractions were a big part of grade 4 in my day.
They were a big part of all our schooldays. In Grade 4.
Progressive school reform has been in vogue since the late 80’s in Canada whereby young children are encouraged to learn at their own pace and it’s reached the point now where there aren’t any standards left in the curriculum. It’s beyond sad.
I read media to find out what those people over there are wound up about. Their motivation is to manipulate my emotions by telling me how the important people think of something.
Neither has anything to do with informing either myself or themselves. There is infinite interest and fascination to be had by digging deeply into complex subjects, with a good writer describing the journey.
MSM "News" is not news. It is a crafted ' message ' repeated over and over again without evidence or a contrary point of view. It is sensationalized. It is meant to scare. It is an opinion. It is not fact. It is manipulated, cut and pasted, insincere, unapologetic nonsense. It's a travesty.
Pawsative nailed it: "What's missing from the news is truth." But it's not just that simple, because truth is complicated in many ways. As Amanda Ripley beautifully expresses, facts that lack heart will leave us cold. The best art always captures truth that resonates with our emotions, not only our intellects. But the problem isn't only a lack of "human" content. Intelligent people need to know they are being respected, not merely preached at. And the painful absence of strenuous, full-throated, and *respectful* criticisms of the dominant views held by any particular news outlet, *from within that very outlet*, leaves many of us doubting the veracity of the outlet's editorial control. We *need* truth. It's like water to the human spirit. But we also need to be able to make up our own minds about *whose* truth makes the most sense.
This piece resonated. The news(da noose) doesn’t offer constructive solutions, in Canada at least, most newsrooms pander to Ottawa which funds them. So there is serious Liberal bias in the media as they dare not bite the federal hand that feeds them. Do I trust Canadian mainstream media? Mostly not I’m afraid!
Anyone who feels guilty that the "news" no longer excites or inspires her is insecure and just plain ignorant of the underlying issue. It is not "news". It is propaganda and editorial. It is the opinion of people with only average intelligence. It is propaganda. It is propaganda from its conception to its delivery. Why would anyone find it exciting or inspiring. Bizarre concept. Hard pass on Amanda, as on most ... tending to all ... journalists.
I don't believe people don't trust the media. They want to be SEEN as being edgy and independent minded, which is why they report not to trust, but when it comes down to it, they clearly buy whatever the media talking heads are selling. For example, when the Covid "vaccines" were introduced, I literally thought 'no one is going to take these because people don't trust the media, so, like me, they will do their own research instead" ( In April 2021, when researching the 'vaccines' in order to determine whether or not I would submit- because I REALLY do not trust the media, or government, for that matter- I found this article from 2016 in which the CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech describe the LNP that ushers the mRNA particles into cells, " toxic" with "dangerous side effects" especially when given in repeat doses: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/13/moderna-therapeutics-biotech-mrna/) Why, if 58% of people do not trust the media, do 86% have LNPs coursing through their bodies that the CEOs of the manufacturing companies themselves describe as dangerous and toxic ??
They don’t trust the media. Full stop. Whether or not they just want to read the headlines and not want to debate it is another matter. It’s a sad state of affairs.
sorry you left out ""But those nanoparticles can lead to dangerous side effects, especially if a patient has to take repeated doses over months or years. ""
can lead to not does lead to
Interesting, never realized this but Noah Smith (substack Noahpinion) does this in almost post. I suppose that's why he's now hit 6000 paid (@10 bucks a month, you do the math) subscribers!
What this "read" misses about much of today's media stories fed to the public is the lack of research into the facts by anyone, followed by a fair and reasonable presentation of the researched facts, and the reporting of however many sides or interpretations of the facts there are, rather than slanting the stories to favour the prejudices and dogmas favoured by the writer, the writer's political party and the owners of the media platform.
Once again, solid reasoning. But to go deeper, the philosophical reason why modern news agencies (especially cable news) offers little if any hope, agency or dignity is that they have largely adopted a metaphysical view of the world where everyone is by dint of their biological traits either an oppressor or oppressed. And some forms of oppression "intersect" with each other, making things worse. You as an individual don't matter - only the group(s) you're a member of. Hope is out of the question, since leftist identitarians need the oppressor/oppressed dialectic to maintain their financial, social and cultural capital (witness the rise of a massive woke bureaucracy in corporations, governments, and universities), and thus dig deeper and deeper into the earth to find smaller and smaller deposits of outrage gold. Hence the rise of the "micro-aggression" and the widening of the definitions of "racism", "sexism", "hate speech", "violence", etc. to the point where literally any person, institution or physical object can be accused of one or more of these sins with little or no evidence (just type into Google "is X racist?", substituting for X any common thing encountered in daily life - chairs, trees, dogs, cat, math, etc. - it turns out we all live in a fallen world).
Unlike the Christian message, which at least offers some promise of salvation and thus of hope, the new Cathedral offers no hope, no individuality, no personal dignity. The media simply reflects this nihilism. It's as if the Buddha had only one noble truth - "life is suffering". The big question is, why do so many people worship in this Cathedral, since all if offers is a temporary sense of moral superiority against a background of mass suffering?
I don't think journalists have realized that their profession has been made obsolete by the availability of information on the internet.