quote:

Media is a business.

This. News or truth has nothing to do with it anymore.

$$$$$$$ is all it is.

That is a cop-out.

Money can still be made without turning into a whore. Saying "it's just a business" does not explain what I'm describing. If anything, it has very little to do with business, because unpaid, unsupervised interns are very frequently the ones putting up this peripheral content on these sites.

I'll go further than that- stating that "It's just a business" lets these assholes off the hook. Saying "It's just a business" does not help matters, because if enough people complained about this silly non-news crap, we would see a change. Saying "It's just a business" means business as usual, and that is no kind of help.

It may come as a surprise to some people, but there are those of us in the world who know that journalistic integrity does still exist, but is uncommon.

There are I think a lot of factors in this. Television has played a huge roll I think. The quasi news shows that cropped up in the '80's that just morphed into the bullshit early "reality" shows, the Maury Povich et al shows and their ratings, started it all. Suddenly it was about drama and the most sensationalized at that.
If it bleeds it leads has always been true, but there was a time when at least some of that was factual. Now it must be sensationalized for the ratings and it doesn't matter if we're wrong or not, we'll just run an update later.

News agencies have lost the desire for credibility beyond ratings. I think there was a case recently in GA where a journalist was fired for telling the truth in his stories, not slanting them properly. He sued and lost, because his employers had a right to dictate what the journalist wrote, truth was irrelevant. That I believe was the final death blow. There is no more credibility.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

I'll go further than that- stating that "It's just a business" lets these assholes off the hook. Saying "It's just a business" does not help matters, because if enough people complained about this silly non-news crap, we would see a change.

I think you are right. I don't understand why people don't bitch more, but they don't. I include myself in this. I do boycott things from time to time, but I don't write enough letters. I just stop participating as it were. I should do more.

And the "news" websites? So many ads and tacky click bait make most sites almost unreadable.
I want to get the news without this stupid bombardment of bullshit.
Just report the news. Or what the media version of it may be.
My recent endless click bait favorite: Meryl's wedding.

I'm calling the local news because someone let their dog poop on my lawn and they didn't even pick it up.

Why would they do this to me???

I don't know what made the vet call the news about a note that was left on his car. He could have just muttered idiot under his breath and moved on.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
And the "news" websites? So many ads and tacky click bait make most sites almost unreadable.
I want to get the news without this stupid bombardment of bullshit.
Just report the news. Or what the media version of it may be.
My recent endless click bait favorite: Meryl's wedding.

I can't win. I have to use ad blockers to even attempt to visit some of these websites. My internet service is just better than dial-up, and all those ads lock up my browser. And then, I get a pop-up telling me to whitelist this site to view an article somewhere in all that clickbait.