Category Archives: Journalism

The News Is What Bureaucracies Report

If you can’t base your news on a bureaucratic report, you’re swimming outside the normal news business (because you can’t normally get sued for reporting what a bureaucracy reports). I’m reading Paul Pringle’s 2022 book (Bad City: Peril and Power … Continue reading

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How The News Differs From Reality

What is reality? That which exists no matter how intensely people wish it didn’t. In 1984, Communications professor Sandra Braman wrote that news is “the passage of bureaucratically recognized events through administrative procedures.” At the top of WSJ.com right now … Continue reading

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The Media Are The Lapdogs Of The Experts (5-31-22)

00:00 How did Salvador Ramos get the money to buy his guns? 01:40 Why did the police repeatedly lie to us? 12:00 Fact-check: Do ‘more people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles’?, https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/05/30/fbi-data-deaths-hands-fists-feet-versus-rifles/9960682002/ 16:30 WSJ: Political Narratives Are the … Continue reading

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When Did Intellectuals Stop Supporting The Free Market Of Ideas?

I just read the famous Ronald Coase 1974 essay on the free market of ideas. I was struck that this economist takes for granted that intellectuals support the free market of ideas. When did this de facto intellectual support for … Continue reading

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The Case Against The News

From The Guardian: News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious … Continue reading

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