“Journalists are easily bored . . . Especially by good news.”

And. . .

. . . [T]his is the No. 1 issue — anonymous sources. Readers believe that anonymous sources are one of two things — it’s either something that’s been made up or someone that’s manipulating the reporter. [emphasis added] And certainly the latter is often the case.”
—Daniel Okrent, former public editor of The New York Times.


Continue reading about the ‘Fourth Estate’ and why it’s “pretty damn low — humiliatingly low”.


“I think one of the greatest casualties of the high metabolism of the news business is complexity. That’s a big loss.”
—Quote by Bill Keller, journalist and former editor at The New York Times.

“We see it all the time. That is why most of the time, when local media does something on someone on food stamps, it’s a black woman, and she’s got a bunch of kids, and she’s obese. That is not accidental. You’re just living out your own stereotypes. This is the bias that reporters bring to their job.”
—Soledad O’Brien, journalist, former CNN anchor.


Below are more quotes and excerpts from a very long article published in New York magazine. The view these reporters and editors have — many former, having left the profession of the ‘news business’ — is not a pretty one. Another quote from the article . . . editors, reporters and journalists need to:

“[C]onfront, out in the open, the possibility that their work might not be any of the things they imagined it was — objective, rigorous, informative. Instead, we found we often looked partisan, mendacious, lazy, sloppy, and shrill.”


From the lead-in to the article published in New York, a sobering view of journalism and news reporting:

“For decades, the pollsters at Gallup have been asking Americans if they trust their media. In 1974, the year Woodward and Bernstein brought an end to Richard Nixon’s presidency, 69 percent of them did. In a poll released last year, that number was at a historic low. Today, the only institutions Americans have less faith in than television news (21 percent) and newspapers (20 percent) are Congress and ‘big business.’ That’s pretty damn low — humiliatingly low, especially for a group of people who fancy themselves members of ‘the Fourth Estate.’ ”


Below are just 10 of the 53 points made in the New York article about “the Fourth Estate”:

Is desperate to be respected, which produces blindness.

Journalists are easily bored …

. . . Especially by good news.

Unfortunately, so are readers, who are hard-wired for panic.

Which editors, producers, and publishers know.

Journalists are deluded …

More cynical than their readers …

Rush their work …

Believe popular opinion is all that matters …

. . . And are completely comfortable cutting deals.