Jay Rosen / is on Nostr

I teach journalism at NYU, critique the press, try to suggest reforms. PressThink is the name of my subject and my site. "Chill before serving" is my social media motto. Elvis Costello's version of "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding" is my theme song.

[email protected]

Last Notes

2023-09-15 21:13:47

Read this item from today's Politico. It describes how false equivalency and both-sides-ing are not just a lazy habit in journalism, but a tool of politics that incorporates the bad journalism into party behavior, thus making a mockery of the images of detachment on which the press sells itself.
#journalism #uspol #science
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2023-08-29 00:00:37

CNN headline today:
"McCarthy starts to plot Biden impeachment strategy while GOP skeptics remain."
This story introduces the problem of what the GROUNDS would be in paragraph nine and thus buries the lede of a more striking story: a "vibes-based" impeachment, where you establish first the intention to impeach, relegating the small matter of "impeachment for what?" to later stages.
That's news! Instead CNN frames up another strategy story.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/politics/mccarthy-biden-impeachment-strategy/index.html
#journalism #uspol #science

2023-08-27 22:26:01

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@npub1f9u…ya8v
From 17 yeats ago: http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/12/18/suskind_empiricism.html

2023-08-27 21:17:26

I have a high tolerance for repetition, so I consumed a lot of post-debate discussion among journalists.
I don't recall any that tried to rank the candidates — or moderators — on the quality of their connection to observable reality.
Political realities, yes. Any other kind, no.
#journalism #uspol #science

2023-07-26 00:16:38

"Not the odds, but the stakes."
That's my shorthand for the organizing principle we most need in 2024 election coverage. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy— given what's possible in this election. Not the odds, but the stakes.
Here is an example of stakes commentary. Its analysis is both plausible and terrifying.
https://newrepublic.com/article/174535/people-arent-facing-horrors-new-trump-term-bring
#journalism #uspol #science

2023-07-22 18:48:32

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An even more incredible turn in the Texas A&M story, after the president of the University resigned July 20.
The current chair of the journalism department, who recruited Dr. McElroy, released a statement accusing the former president of rank duplicity.
More serious: he says someone altered the draft offer letter to reduce the McElroy appointment from five years to one, without telling him.
It's his signature on the letter.
Read his statement:
#journalism #uspol #texas #science
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2023-07-21 19:47:56

Amazing story. Have you followed it?
Texas A&M announces a new journalism dean. She's black and she's qualified— and an alum of the school! Ex-New York Times too.
They announce her appointment in a splashy event.
Dark forces of reaction mobilize.
The offer is watered down to one year, with no tenure. She says no way, and withdraws. National news is made. It's negative. And today, the president of A&M resigns!
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/21/tamu-president-resign-journalism/
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/11/texas-a-m-kathleen-mcelroy-journalism/
#journalism #uspol #science

2023-06-10 22:30:14

As a guest for public radio's 'On the Media' this week, I tried to explain how the propaganda method known as "flooding the zone with shit" is still bedeviling Anerican newsrooms.
I also respond to Anderson Cooper's "get out of your silo" lecture after CNN's town hall debacle with Trump.
It's a 12 minute listen: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/cnn-impossible-dilemma-on-the-media
And if you do listen, let me know what you thought. Thanks.
#uspol #propaganda #journalism #science

2023-05-25 17:21:12

My shorthand for the approach we most need in election coberage is this:
"Not the odds, but the stakes."
How does this work in practice? Margaret Sullivan answers that in The Guardian today. "Now’s the time to think about just how bad a DeSantis presidency would be."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/25/ron-desantis-florida-record-presidential-campaign?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Not how DeSantis plans to outwit Trump and then succeed in "the general" (itself an insidery phrase...) but what life would be like if he took power.
Not the odds, but the stakes.
#uspol #journalism

2023-05-15 21:46:44

I have a new approach when I am asked to go on TV, which happens once in a while. Uusally it's MSNBC, sometimes CNN under the old regime.
My new goal is to introduce a term or concept that has not been heard before on network television.
A few weeks ago it was "verificartion in reverse" on Maddow.
Most recently (May 11) it was "not the odds, but the stakes," which I had pre-tested in Twitter and Mastodon.
Let me know if it worked: https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/fallout-from-trump-town-hall-174063173939
#journalists #uspol #science

2023-05-10 20:56:44

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@npub1j0p…s926 @npub19kr…8m4r
Yep. Here's a little tidbit that some of you may enjoy. There's a former Vice President for news at NPR who follows me on Twitter. He gave a "like" to this post.

2023-05-10 20:19:38

In this clip — an update on the debt limit — you can hear not only a museum-quality default to both sides mindlessness, but the sound of a news organization, NPR, utterly confounded by its subject, helpless and paralyzed, unable to think, unwilling to try.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1175071444/biden-holds-high-stakes-debt-ceiling-talks-that-include-gop-leaders
It's so surreal. They're still doing, "When will those squabbling politicians put aside partisanship and compromise for the greater good?" after all this.
Hat tip, @npub19kr…8m4r
#journalism #uspol

2023-05-10 01:05:30

"Not the odds, but the stakes."
That's my shorthand for the organizing principle we most need in news coverage of the 2024 campaign. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for American democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.
You may find me repeating this principle.
You may also find me linking to writers who can help explain it. Today it's Perry Bacon, Jr. "How the media can cover Trump better this time."
[Gift link] wapo.st/3MayqOY
#journalism #uspol #science

2023-05-08 05:44:02

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... should have been the central theme of the story, not the two people she is said to be. As Chozick writes, "she truly believes that she could have — and, in fact, she still could — change the world."
There's no two people. Just the one Holmes who has yet to meet the reality of what she did— and who she is.
Here's a gift link for the New York Times story. Should be no paywall. Hopefully it will work. 2/2
https://t.co/9a0NyIbXqZ

2023-05-08 05:43:19

For me this was the key moment for Amy Chozick as author of "Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth."
Chozick writes:
"She thinks if she’d spent more time quietly working on her inventions and less time on a stage promoting the company, she would have revolutionized health care by now."
That Holmes still believes she could transform health care tells us she is nowhere in her recognition of reality, which in turn means the con goes on. And that— 1/2
#journalism #science #nytimes

2023-04-30 16:43:05

"Not the odds but the stakes."
That's my shorthand for what we most need from election coverage in 2024. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.
Dan Rather on the horse race:
"A horse race confers an equivalence upon all candidates. The only detail that matters is who is going to win — not all that might be lost. To view America through that lens today is an exercise in the absurd."
https://steady.substack.com/p/the-danger-of-horse-race-politics
#uspol #journalism

2023-03-04 18:35:13

I have been writing about Fox and what makes it different for 20 years. http://archive.pressthink.org/2003/10/21/oreilly_voice.html
Two days ago, Josh Marshall wrote about Fox the best short form description and analysis I have ever read.
Marshall has a history PhD. As he says, "it’s worth stepping way, way back, not just to the beginning of Fox News in 1996 but to the beginning of the broader countermovement it
was a part of..."
No essay I know of puts it all together like his.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-deep-archeology-of-fox-news/sharetoken/WKLM5YQ0yue5
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