This sort of fake soul-searching happens every few years. Nothing ever changes. A similar process happens in Big Science, with editorials pretending to bemoan loss of trust, followed by no action at all.
To this point, I just checked on a post that Jon Kay retweeted on the capture of scientific communication. (https://www.city-journal.org/article/unscientific-american) It makes me wonder if the idealogues tried to shape culture through news outlets to the demise of media, so they moved to science journals, now to the demise of trust in science. Is the goal to get rid of objectivity?
Tara, I wonder how much of the reversal is due to a change of heart and how much to the intense competitive pressure from podcasts and newsletters, which have made made the effective suppression of any information and any point of view next to impossible?
Tara, you left corporate and government-funded media to embrace the independent sphere because of what they had become; why are you continually expressing your hope that it will soon be okay for you to go back? You accept what the EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES is saying at face value, who's been helming the paper through almost a decade of shameless propagandizing and misinformation, because he's mad that the President won't give him an interview because HE's mad that they've been pivoting a bit away from shameless propagandizing to avoid becoming a complete laughingstock? Even what Kahn is saying in this interview is false narrative: '...dragging itself back from the brink?' TNYT went over the brink in 2016, and furnished it's new home at the bottom of the chasm of journalistic disintegrity with the absurdity of it's lies during Covid. To suggest there is a brink to come back from is absurd in itself, but here you are gleefully gobbling up the bait, washing it down with the optimism you proudly wave about to keep a nice healthy glow on your Substack persona. It's so weird to observe you as a journalist: independent insofar as it serves your image to your readers on Substack, but clearly desperate to return to the comfort and security of large, corrupt institutions as long as they tell you the right narrative. It leaves me wondering: do rats, after they leave the ship, sit around the dock staring longingly at it, hoping it's going to stop sinking so they can climb back in?
I will trust the CBC when the entire management team is "Publically Fired for Cause" and replaced entirely with people who left the CBC 10 years ago because they could not stomach what was happening in 2014.
Well put, I suspect you are over the target. This subber is unhappy with the content and paid for the right to say that. In fact, this column shared what I read this week so in terms of value, well, there's a way to go. Fact is most journalists are lazy and semi skilled. No one cares what is happening in the media except the media (and ex-media.)
There seems to be a slight correction, by some people who work in the media, in response to the fact that they have absolutely lost the confidence of the public. I want to be hopeful but I will need to see concrete and sustained action, rather than words, and a clear return to objective reporting in Canada to feel like a positive change is underway. We subscribe to the Globe and Mail, because my husband is very loyal, but I never read it. I also refuse to view or read the CBC, although I used to rely on them for news coverage, especially local, in the past . At this point I don’t believe most Canadian legacy media outlets deserve my attention. Even if they return to objective reporting, their lies and false reporting have done too much damage to our country. A return to objectivity now can’t correct the damage they have done. Until the media corrects and takes back their false reporting of the last few years, I am not prepared to give them another chance.
Wow, what will you do Tara, when big media surges back? Have you had offers?
I share Polistra's skepticism. The revenue is gone (not coming back) and with it common sense.
I'd like to see the NYTimes apologize to Donald Trump. He got them right from the very beginning.
And Ii like what you say about swagger. Back in the day nobody liked journalists (I met a few) who were often rough, mouthy, know it alls. But they got the job done.
Apologies to a lot of people are needed, for a very humble start.
Not sure about this 'swagger' thing. It seems to me that swagger is exactly what journalists have had too much of these past years, editorializing their reporting and presenting it as truth. Vilifying people who didn't want to get the Covid shot is one perfect example; the phrase 'safe and effective' could not have been trotted out with any more 'swagger' without giving people worse myocarditis than the shots cause. It seems to me that journalists need to dispense with their swagger and embrace their humility, and just report the facts. Courage, objectivity and impartiality is not swagger; swagger is a confident, often boastful facade one puts on when one is lacking in style. You don't need swagger to report on uncomfortable topics. Shafer is trying to redefine the word to fit in with his thesis when other words will do just as well. Too many words (like 'vaccine') (while others, like 'woman', are resisting redefinition) have been redefined in the past few years for people who respect the English language to be comfortable with.
You'll know there's hope for this cause in Canada when the large outlets cut off the federal umbilical cord. Unfortunately there never were any scissors to do the cutting, you either have integrity or you don't.
You can actually ask Nellie Bowles about how it was a newsroom revolt what led to the Free Press to be born, as well as about their recent Berliner article that led him to resign from NPR. If Khan is still the NYT editor a month from now, maybe there will be a bit of hope (I do believe and wish for a strong, independent, MSM), but that would barely qualify as the end of the beginning. Actions must follow, and apologies to their readers and to those wronged during this period are in place; otherwise it is just BS. As per Canada, nothing will change as long as MSM journalists keep being government employees.
I hope you aren’t wrong about hope for this in Canada but as someone not in the industry I don’t see the evidence yet. I watched a YouTube channel featuring clips of Rex Murphy critiquing Trudeau around 2015 & 2016. The contrast to how Mr T has been treated with kid gloves by CBC in recent years is stark. To redeem itself I think ideas like Jen Gerson of The Line had suggested—making it a public resource/good—or focusing mostly on culture, or subsidizing purely local news in remote communities makes sense. If we keep it at all. But it’s a whole industry, not just CBC. For me a preferred solution is to do what you have done. More indie outlets & perspectives to counteract the oligopoly. I also appreciate Free Press, Breaking Points, Matt Taibbi—and hope we get more like-minded journalists finding their courage here in Canada. Matt Taibbi did one of the best breakdowns of the troubles with bill C-63 I’ve yet seen. In Canada, only so-called ‘right wing’ media has been as thorough and persistent. i.e. True North and others. Which allows the majority of news consumers to ignore it by throwing it in a bucket marked ‘morally reprehensible just because.’
I agree that when the ones that dig deeper have clear political agendas (like True North and other very conservative news outlets), this isn’t a good sign. They shine because the mainstream patronizes readers, having drunk the ideological Kool-aid. It’s not as if nobody knows what good journalism looks like.
Tara, I do hope you are right. I will feel more confident when the UK's Guardian starts acting as a newspaper and not a comic for the identity-obsessed progressives.
We don't trust the media because they are not trustworthy.
A couple of mea culpas is not going to repair the damage.
If your spouse was as trustworthy as the press, (Trump, Covid, George Floyd, BLM) you would not only file for a divorce, but insist on a restraining order and get tested for STD's.
For years the press has been telling us we must have picked something up from a toilet seat and they're only going to put the head in.
Thanks for this Tara, it is encouraging. I have great difficulty believing that this trend will be followed in Canada, where we have a government that is funding media for their allegiance. The Toronto Star is the biggest culprit and should be allowed to die a slow and painful death. CBC is PRAVDA for the Liberal party, and the faster Pollievre defunds it, the better off we will be. We need a public broadcaster who is without bias and focuses on Canadian content,local information and journalistic integrity.
A common thread in the various comments below shows well-deserved skepticism over Kahn's last-gasp remarks. Yet, podcasts will never take over the broad field that very large news can (and should/must) cover, simply because of available consumer time. Apart from the retired, the idle wealthy, the messy or the unemployed, no one has enough free time in a day to wolf down a dozen podcasts or more, of even the most interesting ones. Big newspapers and big networks were big for a reason. They had competed to reach that size and, to be honest, most were pretty partisan "back in the day" too. Their output was more graceful and polite because society itself was more that way, and people didn't expect to go to work in shorts and bare feet, just to tell their colleagues what they should be eating. I am forced to side with a few of the most pessimistic comments I read here, that Kahn's finding-Jesus-rather-late-in-the-service is mostly posturing and attempting to put out the raging fire in his NYT homestead with a tiny glass of water. The world is pretty unenlightened at the moment and the media in general are just the reflection of that sad state of human affairs. Intolerant, uncivilized, biased, mean and nasty. We need more comedians, probably.
I hope you are right that the worm is indeed turning. The Cass Report is also a sign of positive change away from extremist trans ideology. But we need to see journalism getting the two sides of the Gaza-Israel war right; this is not a simple conflict but there are serious grievances with both Oct 7 and now the Israeli backlash. In Canada, until we see reporters entering the fray over the “buried children” at Kamloops, then we aren’t out of the pit yet. This news blackout and lack of journalistic courage over what appears to be the largest media miscue in decades is ongoing, on that subject. A tiny fraction of mostly (very) conservative news sources has dug a little deeper but where’s the mainstream media desire to call for excavations in the apple orchard? When this story blows wide open, it will not be pretty. But until then, I’m afraid “we are not quite there yet.”
Excellent point. We need a gutsy, left-leaning journalist to dig into the alleged mass graves of children at Kamloops and other sites. Show any skepticism about that (despite the weird lack of investigation and the fact that no exhumations have been done - wouldn’t the right thing be to give the remains of those kids a proper burial by their family?) and you are instantly labelled a racist. Hey Tara, I hear you consider yourself to be a journailst! This is a an issue which means something to Canadians! It’ll take some courage though (not swagger), so I’m not sure if you’d be up for it.
Bravo! I've only had a look at the first part, but look forward to reading it in full and would recommend it to everyone. This is a highly complex issue, the mainstream narrative of which I'm sad to say even many indigenous people have bought into without understanding the full breadth.
Beyond Substack, I also give a shout-out to the Chronicle-Herald in Halifax. This venerable newspaper published anti-narrative pieces throughout the pandemic and just this weekend published a lengthy article criticizing the treatment of children with gender confusion issues. Unfortunately they also regularly publish corrupt pieces from pharma-funded academics, but at least they attempt objectivity. Glad to see that the formerly influential NYT is waking up and that the rest of the world may someday catch up with Halifax.
When your spouse cheats on you, you may forgive their actions and try to save your relationship, but will you ever trust them again? Our marriage to the media is suffering from such a cheating partner, and it will be a long, long haul back to any kind of productive relationship. Trust takes time and truth!
This sort of fake soul-searching happens every few years. Nothing ever changes. A similar process happens in Big Science, with editorials pretending to bemoan loss of trust, followed by no action at all.
To this point, I just checked on a post that Jon Kay retweeted on the capture of scientific communication. (https://www.city-journal.org/article/unscientific-american) It makes me wonder if the idealogues tried to shape culture through news outlets to the demise of media, so they moved to science journals, now to the demise of trust in science. Is the goal to get rid of objectivity?
Tara, I wonder how much of the reversal is due to a change of heart and how much to the intense competitive pressure from podcasts and newsletters, which have made made the effective suppression of any information and any point of view next to impossible?
Tara, you left corporate and government-funded media to embrace the independent sphere because of what they had become; why are you continually expressing your hope that it will soon be okay for you to go back? You accept what the EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES is saying at face value, who's been helming the paper through almost a decade of shameless propagandizing and misinformation, because he's mad that the President won't give him an interview because HE's mad that they've been pivoting a bit away from shameless propagandizing to avoid becoming a complete laughingstock? Even what Kahn is saying in this interview is false narrative: '...dragging itself back from the brink?' TNYT went over the brink in 2016, and furnished it's new home at the bottom of the chasm of journalistic disintegrity with the absurdity of it's lies during Covid. To suggest there is a brink to come back from is absurd in itself, but here you are gleefully gobbling up the bait, washing it down with the optimism you proudly wave about to keep a nice healthy glow on your Substack persona. It's so weird to observe you as a journalist: independent insofar as it serves your image to your readers on Substack, but clearly desperate to return to the comfort and security of large, corrupt institutions as long as they tell you the right narrative. It leaves me wondering: do rats, after they leave the ship, sit around the dock staring longingly at it, hoping it's going to stop sinking so they can climb back in?
I will trust the CBC when the entire management team is "Publically Fired for Cause" and replaced entirely with people who left the CBC 10 years ago because they could not stomach what was happening in 2014.
Well put, I suspect you are over the target. This subber is unhappy with the content and paid for the right to say that. In fact, this column shared what I read this week so in terms of value, well, there's a way to go. Fact is most journalists are lazy and semi skilled. No one cares what is happening in the media except the media (and ex-media.)
There seems to be a slight correction, by some people who work in the media, in response to the fact that they have absolutely lost the confidence of the public. I want to be hopeful but I will need to see concrete and sustained action, rather than words, and a clear return to objective reporting in Canada to feel like a positive change is underway. We subscribe to the Globe and Mail, because my husband is very loyal, but I never read it. I also refuse to view or read the CBC, although I used to rely on them for news coverage, especially local, in the past . At this point I don’t believe most Canadian legacy media outlets deserve my attention. Even if they return to objective reporting, their lies and false reporting have done too much damage to our country. A return to objectivity now can’t correct the damage they have done. Until the media corrects and takes back their false reporting of the last few years, I am not prepared to give them another chance.
Wow, what will you do Tara, when big media surges back? Have you had offers?
I share Polistra's skepticism. The revenue is gone (not coming back) and with it common sense.
I'd like to see the NYTimes apologize to Donald Trump. He got them right from the very beginning.
And Ii like what you say about swagger. Back in the day nobody liked journalists (I met a few) who were often rough, mouthy, know it alls. But they got the job done.
Apologies to a lot of people are needed, for a very humble start.
Not sure about this 'swagger' thing. It seems to me that swagger is exactly what journalists have had too much of these past years, editorializing their reporting and presenting it as truth. Vilifying people who didn't want to get the Covid shot is one perfect example; the phrase 'safe and effective' could not have been trotted out with any more 'swagger' without giving people worse myocarditis than the shots cause. It seems to me that journalists need to dispense with their swagger and embrace their humility, and just report the facts. Courage, objectivity and impartiality is not swagger; swagger is a confident, often boastful facade one puts on when one is lacking in style. You don't need swagger to report on uncomfortable topics. Shafer is trying to redefine the word to fit in with his thesis when other words will do just as well. Too many words (like 'vaccine') (while others, like 'woman', are resisting redefinition) have been redefined in the past few years for people who respect the English language to be comfortable with.
You'll know there's hope for this cause in Canada when the large outlets cut off the federal umbilical cord. Unfortunately there never were any scissors to do the cutting, you either have integrity or you don't.
You can actually ask Nellie Bowles about how it was a newsroom revolt what led to the Free Press to be born, as well as about their recent Berliner article that led him to resign from NPR. If Khan is still the NYT editor a month from now, maybe there will be a bit of hope (I do believe and wish for a strong, independent, MSM), but that would barely qualify as the end of the beginning. Actions must follow, and apologies to their readers and to those wronged during this period are in place; otherwise it is just BS. As per Canada, nothing will change as long as MSM journalists keep being government employees.
I hope you aren’t wrong about hope for this in Canada but as someone not in the industry I don’t see the evidence yet. I watched a YouTube channel featuring clips of Rex Murphy critiquing Trudeau around 2015 & 2016. The contrast to how Mr T has been treated with kid gloves by CBC in recent years is stark. To redeem itself I think ideas like Jen Gerson of The Line had suggested—making it a public resource/good—or focusing mostly on culture, or subsidizing purely local news in remote communities makes sense. If we keep it at all. But it’s a whole industry, not just CBC. For me a preferred solution is to do what you have done. More indie outlets & perspectives to counteract the oligopoly. I also appreciate Free Press, Breaking Points, Matt Taibbi—and hope we get more like-minded journalists finding their courage here in Canada. Matt Taibbi did one of the best breakdowns of the troubles with bill C-63 I’ve yet seen. In Canada, only so-called ‘right wing’ media has been as thorough and persistent. i.e. True North and others. Which allows the majority of news consumers to ignore it by throwing it in a bucket marked ‘morally reprehensible just because.’
I agree that when the ones that dig deeper have clear political agendas (like True North and other very conservative news outlets), this isn’t a good sign. They shine because the mainstream patronizes readers, having drunk the ideological Kool-aid. It’s not as if nobody knows what good journalism looks like.
Tara, I do hope you are right. I will feel more confident when the UK's Guardian starts acting as a newspaper and not a comic for the identity-obsessed progressives.
We don't trust the media because they are not trustworthy.
A couple of mea culpas is not going to repair the damage.
If your spouse was as trustworthy as the press, (Trump, Covid, George Floyd, BLM) you would not only file for a divorce, but insist on a restraining order and get tested for STD's.
For years the press has been telling us we must have picked something up from a toilet seat and they're only going to put the head in.
Thanks for this Tara, it is encouraging. I have great difficulty believing that this trend will be followed in Canada, where we have a government that is funding media for their allegiance. The Toronto Star is the biggest culprit and should be allowed to die a slow and painful death. CBC is PRAVDA for the Liberal party, and the faster Pollievre defunds it, the better off we will be. We need a public broadcaster who is without bias and focuses on Canadian content,local information and journalistic integrity.
A common thread in the various comments below shows well-deserved skepticism over Kahn's last-gasp remarks. Yet, podcasts will never take over the broad field that very large news can (and should/must) cover, simply because of available consumer time. Apart from the retired, the idle wealthy, the messy or the unemployed, no one has enough free time in a day to wolf down a dozen podcasts or more, of even the most interesting ones. Big newspapers and big networks were big for a reason. They had competed to reach that size and, to be honest, most were pretty partisan "back in the day" too. Their output was more graceful and polite because society itself was more that way, and people didn't expect to go to work in shorts and bare feet, just to tell their colleagues what they should be eating. I am forced to side with a few of the most pessimistic comments I read here, that Kahn's finding-Jesus-rather-late-in-the-service is mostly posturing and attempting to put out the raging fire in his NYT homestead with a tiny glass of water. The world is pretty unenlightened at the moment and the media in general are just the reflection of that sad state of human affairs. Intolerant, uncivilized, biased, mean and nasty. We need more comedians, probably.
I hope you are right that the worm is indeed turning. The Cass Report is also a sign of positive change away from extremist trans ideology. But we need to see journalism getting the two sides of the Gaza-Israel war right; this is not a simple conflict but there are serious grievances with both Oct 7 and now the Israeli backlash. In Canada, until we see reporters entering the fray over the “buried children” at Kamloops, then we aren’t out of the pit yet. This news blackout and lack of journalistic courage over what appears to be the largest media miscue in decades is ongoing, on that subject. A tiny fraction of mostly (very) conservative news sources has dug a little deeper but where’s the mainstream media desire to call for excavations in the apple orchard? When this story blows wide open, it will not be pretty. But until then, I’m afraid “we are not quite there yet.”
Excellent point. We need a gutsy, left-leaning journalist to dig into the alleged mass graves of children at Kamloops and other sites. Show any skepticism about that (despite the weird lack of investigation and the fact that no exhumations have been done - wouldn’t the right thing be to give the remains of those kids a proper burial by their family?) and you are instantly labelled a racist. Hey Tara, I hear you consider yourself to be a journailst! This is a an issue which means something to Canadians! It’ll take some courage though (not swagger), so I’m not sure if you’d be up for it.
One of the rare exceptions is an article in Peace Magazine (that I authored). PM isn’t “left wing” per se but it covers many progressive causes. I have to say also that publication of this piece did face a few obstacles. https://open.substack.com/pub/robincollins/p/indian-residential-schools-assimilation?
Bravo! I've only had a look at the first part, but look forward to reading it in full and would recommend it to everyone. This is a highly complex issue, the mainstream narrative of which I'm sad to say even many indigenous people have bought into without understanding the full breadth.
The Peace Magazine print version in pdf available here: https://web.ncf.ca/fs766/Collins_IRSGenocidePMagWinter2023.pdf
Beyond Substack, I also give a shout-out to the Chronicle-Herald in Halifax. This venerable newspaper published anti-narrative pieces throughout the pandemic and just this weekend published a lengthy article criticizing the treatment of children with gender confusion issues. Unfortunately they also regularly publish corrupt pieces from pharma-funded academics, but at least they attempt objectivity. Glad to see that the formerly influential NYT is waking up and that the rest of the world may someday catch up with Halifax.
When your spouse cheats on you, you may forgive their actions and try to save your relationship, but will you ever trust them again? Our marriage to the media is suffering from such a cheating partner, and it will be a long, long haul back to any kind of productive relationship. Trust takes time and truth!
“The flea cools the bite so it can bite again.” Walter Kirn
- America This Week, with Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, Episode 91