6 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2017
    1. various screens of secrecy, it’s really the toughest kind of reporting there is. And after the financial meltdown in 2008, The Times, and I was very involved in this series, did a series called ‘The Reckoning,’ where we really did try to hold specific individuals and institutions very specifically accountable for very specific wrongdoing in those cases. And, you know, it’s discouraging now these years later to see that the actual prosecution, for what seemed to me like egregious criminal acts in many cases, were either settled away or most people walked away. But I still think even if the political system fails and there aren’t immediate results that there is value in raising people’s awareness and that that is the job of journalism.

      Yes- this investigative journalism calls for action and is an type of "news" that encourages it. And while you'd hope the outcome would be satisfactory, its almost the act of challenging something in print that's the real victory. It's out there; it's forever known. Of course, it can easily be buried by corporations in settlements and other less important media scandals but the integrity, even if its a little tone deaf at times.

    2. STEPHENS: I think very little of the news actually today is of practical value. For one thing, we don’t live in a society that has all that many threats encroaching upon us.

      Literally strike three. oh my god.

    3. GENTZKOW: You know, why people vote is sort of a mystery in some sense that people have wrestled with for a long time.

      Again, how privileged are you to not recognize that some of us literally had not only to vote but to fight, tooth and nail for our basic human rights? Just because you were immediately y given them, doesn't mean everyone else was. Take your blinders off.

    4. It has what we’d call positive externalities – that when people are more informed they’ll make better decisions, even if they aren’t voting for the reasons we think they should be voting.

      Nicely put! The outcome of informed action is better than no outcome and no action. (Regardless of we agree with that specific informed action.) Indifference is economic and political poison.

    5. Emir KAMENICA: Well absolutely, there’s a view that certain transformation of news into entertainment has been a great kind of downfall of civic society, but that kind of blames the news as opposed to the lack of interest in news when it’s not entertaining.

      There's an intersection where "news" news meets "entertainment" news. Then again, there's a region where "entertainment news" meets "entertainment" and things can easily go either way. There's something to be said for places that do nothing but entertain (safeplaces are beneficial) but no "news" input ever = ignorance and only "news" no safespace = a sort of dictatorship.

    6. DUBNER: Interesting. So let me ask you this. Do you keep up with stuff   because you feel it’s the quote “right thing to do” or because you really like it?

      Lol. Isn't is cute (and by cute I mean unbelievably typical) that the adult male asks if these kids listen to the news because they "really like it" as if all people are afforded the choice to "like it" or not when it keeps us informed on our oppressors and the injustices and the disasters harming us. Ignorance is a luxury only the privileged can afford.