Slashdot Mirror
Inside the Guardian and the Snowden Leaks
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting and thoughtful article in the New Yorker about the inner workings of the Guardian newspaper. It explains a lot about why the Snowden files ended up there and not elsewhere. Given all the snark on Slashdot about the sorry state of modern journalism, it is well worth a read to see one organization that got it right. An illustrative quote about Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor: 'He has a really useful piece of equipment that most editors don't have, which is a spinal column.' I would encourage everyone to read this, and if you support the type of journalism the Guardian has been engaging in, think about buying a subscription. The article also talks about the financial side of the newspaper business, and real journalism is not going to happen unless somebody pays for it."
Dear slashdotters, The Guardian is quickly becoming one of my preferred references. Can you help me broaden my horizons by naming other good newspapers? (English/French/Spanish language only sorry)
The Guardian is a hard-left medium that has proven itself to be anti-American over the decades.
Your point being?
Oh right, you think america should be given respect for free instead of earning it through deed like everyone else has to.
One of the side effects of the rise of the blogging hordes is the death of traditional journalism. Even if old media is biased one way or another, the decent newspapers of record have some respect for journalistic integrity. Reporting on a government corruption scandal is very different from reporting on the latest iPhone over at Engadget or the endless stream of celebrity garbage "news." Seeking out the real story from actual, verifiable sources rather than a blogger posting their own opinion as fact is the difference. While I'm sure some bloggers are journalists in the traditional sense, not all are, and blogs are even more sensitive to producing content that makes people click than newspapers are.
Some people may cite this as anti-progress, but look at media prior to the Internet, in fact, before cable TV. There were only 3 network news sources, and a few newspapers of record producing content. Now there's tons of media outlets, thousands of random bloggers, and an increasing trend of the medial outlets crowdsourcing content from their readers (CNN iReport, etc. etc.) Having so many choices means that opinions are more diverse, but conversely it also means that it narrows people's viewpoints. Conservatives are Fox News fans, but they're also fans of even more conservative bloggers. It makes liberals more liberal and conservatives more conservative, and that leads to situations like we're in today with Congress and the Tea Party faction. You would never have something like this in the 50s/60s simply because the population didn't have enough customized hot-button content to whip them into whatever polarized frenzy they're into.
Traditional journalism does need to return to media, but as the submitter states, you have to pay for it, and integrity doesn't pay the bills like the latest unverified rumor from a friend of a friend of Lindsey Lohan...
I had once the idea to spin a story that the NSA had nude pictures of a celeb and anyone could get them with a FOIA request ;-). But that would be too evil.
The NTY has been riding the work of Woodward and Bernstein since Watergate. That was a long time ago, and now they are in the pocket of intrenched special interests, just like the rest of US journalism.
It's a sad day when no major new organization in the US can be counted on to stand up to external pressure, whether it be economic or political. It ironic that a newspaper in the UK is doing the heavy lifting in this case, since there is no constitutional protection of the press in England, and there is in the US.
Why is Snark Required?
BBC and Fox often present the same message different ways. For example on foreign wars - BBC shows some children in caves, children are suffering - cold, hungry, afraid of bombings by pro-government forces and want to return to normal life. After successful campaign children miraculously disappear - like in Libya, where anarchy currently is so widespread that PM was recently kidnapped. But evil dictator is dead, so children must be ok now, sure :) Fox message is just like "He is an enemy of US, we will destroy him!" - more straightforward, less sickening.
I remember how those "think of the children" news are made - I was around 15 y.o. in Moscow, it was around 1992, presumably Japanese news channel (there was russian producer who told us that) filmed as as "Russian punks". They told us to come to building in our block that was scheduled for demolition, generously gave us each 2 packs of marlboro and some vodka, somebody brought a guitar. So we were to sing russian punk songs while drinking vodka from a bottle and smoking cigarettes, all this with broken windows and overall mess of a building scheduled for demolition as a background. I do not know if it was shown or not, if shown we could be orphans of war near dwelling, half destroyed by government aviation in Chechnya, or where it was needed at the moment.