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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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In theory, any government could retaliate against a sufficiently annoying journalist - even in countries with well established norms around the freedom of the press, there are many informal ways that a journalist might feel the displeasure of the government. But of course, there's a big difference between being arrested or censored for telling the wrong story, and simply facing a social or career penalty or losing access.

Personally, it's my observation that it's quite the opposite. In many circles one now faces a penalty for siding with the government, and journalists are taught to see themselves as agents of disruption, as adversaries to established power.

any government could retaliate against a sufficiently annoying journalist

Well, yes, the question is how easy it is to do that and what would be the consequences. When we see something like this:

The email, sent to correspondents at just after 6pm on the day lockdown was announced, was labelled: IMPORTANT ADVISORY – language re broadcast. “Hi all – D st are asking if we can avoid the word ‘lockdown’. I’m told the message will be that they want to keep pushing people to stay at home but they are not talking about enforcement at the moment,” it said.

can we still claim they are "independent"? If the government can tell (successfully) the journalists what words to use, is it not government-controlled speech?

In many circles one now faces a penalty for siding with the government, and journalists are taught to see themselves as agents of disruption

What circles are those? What I am seeing more and more nowdays is that the journalists are taught to be always the agents of The Swamp, and if The Swamp is by some freak accident of nature is temporarily not controlling the government, then disruption it is, until things return to the normal. Once they do, the journalists go back to serving as a branch of the government.

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