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With democracy on the ballot, the mainstream press must change its ways (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by psychothumbs@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] Mellow12@sh.itjust.works 83 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Inflation is low, unemployment is low and there’s virtually no hint of a recession. But many Americans, according to surveys, are convinced the economy is terrible.

In the last 3 years, The cost of virtually everything went up. food, clothes, building materials, transportation, housing, real estate, and anything else people need not want. Wages didn’t rise to meet them. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Margaret.

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 25 points 9 months ago

Straight up gaslighting. Inflation is low? We just got battered by rising inflation for two straight years. That doesn't go away because a month turned over. Everyone's dollar devalued hard and prices aren't coming back down again now that they're standard. You could only believe this if your job depends on believing it.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 19 points 9 months ago

Inflation is low now. Cost of living went up by like 25% over the last 3 years. Not to mention, I still have pretty slim prospects of owning a house in a convenient and desirable location, and I’m on a software engineering salary. So yeah, economists, you can absolutely shut the fuck up about the economy being so “fantastic”.

And hey, you know, maybe maybe Democrats shouldn’t campaign on how “great” the economy is if nobody who actually works for a fucking living is seeing in real life how “great” it is.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah like I vote dem because the alternative pretty explicitly wants me dead, but I’m an engineer who is still struggling in a medium cost of living area.

It’s like the Dems are afraid to acknowledge their strengths. Your opponents are committing crimes against democracy and promising brutal oppression of women and minorities as well as their political opponents. I think that the only major issue with their financial strategy right now is that it’s too far right, but don’t fucking run on it. Run on the fact that your opponents are fighting for unpopular opinions

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Inflation is a rate of change.

If prices went up a lot last year, but they're not going up much now, inflation now is low.

"Low inflation" doesn't mean prices going down or the value of the dollar going up relative to a basket of goods. That would be "deflation".

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 7 points 9 months ago

My bad, am I mixing up inflation and cost-of-living? I'm trying to understand the economy jargon better.

The point still stands that the rate of inflation is down but we still have to deal with that long period of time AKA 2022 where it didn't dip below 7.5%.

[-] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nothing any government can do will undo the high inflation of 2022. Deflation must be avoided, because while consumer prices would go back down, the main effect of long-term deflation is that everybody stops investing and starts saving. Why would I buy new tools now when I can wait for tomorrow and get them cheaper then? When the entire economy does that, it shrinks. Catastrophic for capitalism. Prices are what they are, they've stopped going up, can't realistically wish for more.

Furthermore to blame high inflation on the Biden administration shows a complete lack of journalistic integrity. Like blaming the '08 crisis on Obama. Both were worldwide events which, if the US weren't so god-damn self-centered, anyone could realize were just as bad or even worse in other developed countries. In 2022 most of the Eurozone was well above US inflation levels (without going too technical, the US Fed had more leeway to much more aggressively raise interest rates to reign in inflation, which it did successfully).

Now there is plenty of blame to be passed around for a lot of specific economic policy items that impact cost-of-living (wages, housing, student debt, etc.). Inflation isn't one of them.

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago

Yeah, that was a bit of an insidious statement. Month over month or year over year inflation may be manageable now, but that does nothing to reverse the price spikes over the last two years. And the vast majority of us did not see pay raises to match them.

[-] fakeanatomydoctor@lemmynsfw.com 21 points 9 months ago

When media and government talk about "the economy", they mean rich people's stock prices, not working people's ability to afford food and shelter.

Where do you think all that extra money we're paying to live is going? To "the economy" of course! Rich donors to politicians are doing better than ever, so the system is working as intended.

[-] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 9 points 9 months ago

My theory is the buoyed perception of the economy is because there are still surplus jobs available in many middle-class industries. IT workers may be getting laid off en masse by several large companies but (for now) they've been able to get jobs elsewhere.

In reality the average person or middle class family is suffering though and it isn't perception. I literally went through grocery and consumables receipts and many categories of items cost 1.5 to 2x what they cost 18 months ago.

I get really sick of being told by douchey think pieces that things that are happening aren't happening, and vice versa. Fuck whoevers poll numbers they are trying to boost.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 9 months ago

I agree with the article on reporting accurately about the threat and illegitimacy of the Right.

I started walking away when it got lumped in with this bullshit.

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[-] matchphoenix@feddit.uk 65 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Christiane Amanpour has reported all over the world, so she recognizes a democracy on the brink when she sees one.

“We have to be truthful, not neutral,” she urged. “I would make sure that you don’t just give a platform … to those who want to crash down the constitution and democracy.”

It’s a great suggestion, which will be summarily ignored by every major tv news outlet.

[-] Orbituary@lemmy.world 54 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Neutrality isn't the mark of good journalism. Questioning the position of governments is. Asking "why" in the context of how it affects people is.

No news organization is neutral. There's a story and a length of time for each segment. The editors and anchor decide what to say and how to say it in that allotted time. That forms a message, and that in itself shows bias, intended or otherwise.

Instead of focusing on neutrality, they should focus on objective truth, and stop worry about which party they're implying to support.

[-] mars296@kbin.social 19 points 9 months ago

You are so right. Media/government/society has been conflating objectivity with neutrality. Many things are objectively right or wrong.

[-] MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

I would say questioning the position of the powers that be is the mark of good journalism, whether that's government, religion, the wealthy, business, whatever.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Questioning the position of governments is. Asking “why” in the context of how it affects people is.

However, questioning isn't the same as attacking or undermining.

For example: It's important for journalists to look for corruption in every government. However, it is an error to expect to find the same amount of corruption in every government; or to inflate the small corruptions of a less-corrupt government to make them sound as important as the large corruptions of a very-corrupt government.

If the Trump administration illustrates one thing, it's that there actually is a big difference between a good administration and a bad one. Everyone who said "the major parties are the same" or "they're all just politicians" was shown to be making a serious mistake.

[-] Orbituary@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Agreed.

To paraphrase what I'm saying with direct examples, the Fox News and MSNBCs (I'm not ignoring CNN or others) of the world have highly polarized standpoints, both of which claim to be giving us unbiased news.

It's obvious, however, both are imparting an agenda.

I typically make the analogy of softdrink preferences. Everyone loves their brand. They rarely deviate, even though Coke and Pepsi are both brown, hyper sugary, bad for you, and rot your insides. I.e., we like our specific brand of poison to be "just so."

[-] whatupwiththat@kbin.social 20 points 9 months ago

the media only cares about click and impressions /FULL STOP > not sure how to fix, but until that changes, it'll be status quo.

[-] Shazbot@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Fixing requires readers support their preferred news outlets with subscriptions. Currently headlines need to drive the ad machine if the lights are going to stay on. Challenging the ad buyer's main revenue stream is not financially viable. It's the main reason news outlets do not want to touch Medicare For All, pharmaceutical ads are big money makers. Money in politics is a no-go because it's a guaranteed cash infusion every two years, not to mention the overlap with other ad buyers. Decoupling the ads from the main revenue gives media outlets the freedom they need to address the news as they seem fit.

[-] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 2 points 9 months ago

This is definitely a factor although advertising alongside subscriptions for news print was a thing for at least 100-130 years. So I don't know if subscriptions are enough.

Too, better journalism requires news media oligopolies to be dismantled and to have more independently owned news media companies.

[-] yip-bonk@kbin.social 17 points 9 months ago

Corporate News is for-profit and run by republiQans. It’s really that simple. Trump showed that corporate news will never do the right thing at the right time, even in the face of the most arrogant, ignorant, outrageous lies and attacks.

It’s time to stop pretending that corporate news can be “saved” and start accepting that it absolutely can not be saved. Then we can move on to a truer form of journalism. We have the ability to publish globally in our hands, literally.

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Yeah, the "liberal media" is just the wing of the corporate propaganda machine that packages its propaganda in a way that is palatable to liberals.

[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

democracy? again?

[-] PostmodernPythia@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

It’ll never work. The Athenians tried and failed. Get back to your plow. Feudalism is the only realistic system that accommodates human nature.

/s, icymi

[-] psychothumbs@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Democracy forever!

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Last week, as she celebrated her 40 years at CNN, she issued a challenge to her fellow journalists in the US by describing how she would cover US politics as a foreign correspondent.

Add to this the obsession with the “horse race” aspect of the campaign, and the profit-driven desire to increase the potential news audience to include Trump voters, and you’ve got the kind of problematic coverage discussed above.

The Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out last week that the media apparently has failed to communicate something that should be a huge asset for Biden: the US’s current “Goldilocks economy”.

Two-thirds of Americans are unhappy about the economy despite reports that inflation is easing and unemployment is close to a 50-year low, according to a new Harris poll for the Guardian.

“When one of our two political parties has become so extremist and anti-democratic”, the old ways of reporting don’t cut it, wrote the journalist Dan Froomkin in his excellent list of suggestions culled from respected historians and observers.

It’s our job to make sure that those potential consequences – not the horse race, not Biden’s age, not a scam impeachment – are front and center for US citizens before they go to the polls.

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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023

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