Take a look at the opening paragraphs of this news article.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has already helped block one of former President Donald Trump’s allies from winning the Republican nomination for governor in a crucial battleground state. Now he’s hoping for a repeat in his own backyard.
Ducey is part of a burgeoning effort among establishment Republicans to lift up little-known housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson against former television news anchor Kari Lake, who is backed by Trump. Other prominent Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have also lined up behind Robson in recent days.
What is notably missing is a crucial bit of information, and that is when the election is due to take place. In fact, when I first read through the entire article, I could not find the date at all. Then I read it through more carefully and found it mentioned in passing in the fifth paragraph.
Few states have been as central to Trump’s election lies as Georgia and Arizona, the two closest 2020 battlegrounds where he pushed aggressively to overturn the results and fumed when Kemp and Ducey refused to go along. Trump has already faced a setback in Georgia, and the Aug. 2 race in Arizona is among his last opportunities to settle scores and install allies to lead states that may prove decisive if he decides to run again in 2024.
I get annoyed when news outlet do not provide basic information. For example, this long report could not spare the space to give the time when the Cassidy Hutchinson congressional congressional hearing was to be held, surely a crucial bit of information for those who want to watch the hearings live, especially since the article hyped how important this event would be.
These are not aberrations. I frequently find that reporters do not provide the basic facts and instead leap straight into their analysis and interpretations. I thought that the basic rule in journalism was to start off with the who, what, when, and where information, leaving the why for later. I have no problems with explanatory detail, but it should be secondary. Nowadays journalists seem to be far too eager to jump to tell us what it all means, rather than what has happened.
For example, in the article about the Arizona race, it would be easy to add the parts that I have indicated in italics.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has already helped block one of former President Donald Trump’s allies from winning the Republican nomination for governor in a crucial battleground state. Now he’s hoping for a repeat in his own backyard in the primary race to be held on August 2.
In the article on the congressional hearing, it would be easy to start as follows:
The Jan. 6 select committee is set to hear from a onetime top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Tuesday at 1:00pm ET, an abruptly scheduled hearing whose announcement riveted Washington.
When news reports talk about a future election, I want to know the exact date, not a statement like ‘next month’ or ‘in August’. When they give the results of an election, I want to know the votes or percentages for each candidate and preferably also the percentage of people who voted. Instead we are often given statements like “X cruised to an easy victory in an election marked by low turnout.” I would prefer to make those judgments myself.
The reader should be expected to have to dig around to get basic information that is central to the news report.
The reader should not….
[Corrected. Thanks! -- Mano]
Nowadays, journalists are just another genre of entertainer, akin to standup comics, or pop singers. Too many facts is an impediment.
Or, to put it another way -- not journalists.
“Or, to put it another way — not journalists.”
A lot aren’t, especially in the popular media. Not in the way that old fogies like me understand the term.
I agree with Mano; give me the facts. After you’ve done that, you can share your thoughts on the matter, as long as you are not trying to tell me what my thoughts on the matter should be.
And, if you feel the need to punch down, fuck off.
I agree about the punching down and telling me what to think before telling me what I’m supposed to think about. Mostly when outfits do that I feel like what they’re really doing is trying to sell me a low information voter self-starter kit.
Journalism in general is not in a healthy state right now. The original idea was that it could keep a lively discussion going that would act as a force to inform the voters and check the power of a democratic government. But for awhile now there have been too few important players with very large megaphones. Too few people leads to too few interests, so when something happens that benefits those interests, you get something like Fox supporting the insurrection. And where it would have made them an outlier when the owners of news outlets were a more diverse and populous group, now it means they get to shape the story and betrayal becomes patriotism. This also leads to fewer places for a disaffected journalist to get employment and I’m sure that has an effect on reporting as well.
“punching down” is still punching, same as “punching up”.
(Just saying)
Was that ever actually the case in reality though? Or was that just part of the marketing for news as a product, promulgated by journalists themselves, that we’re just becoming increasingly aware isn’t true?
Dunc:
It depends on which issue you look at. If you want to ask whether racist or misogynistic assholes were ever held to account in the news then generally things are better now. If you ask whether a few hundred people and some corrupt politicians could openly rebel and try to take over the government and get significant media support for their “just tourists” lies? I don’t think there would have been anyone trying to sell that before.
@John #6
Wrong again John. You seem to have trouble with metaphors. “Punching down” is not punching at all: look it up. At best, all your comment brings to the table is that the term “punching down” has the word “punching” in it. Duh.
I have been encountering a lot of articles like that lately. It has to be on editorial-purpose. Clickbaity politically slanted crap at the beginning, then a buncha blather to run you past another ad, and some more blather to take you to the next page, and then (maybe!) the actual fact.
Or y’know do the whole thing over again one or two times more and do not include the fact but links to other articles that are said to be related to the fact you want to know, but don’t contain it either.
The LA Times has been doing a lot of this.
file thirteen:
Mmmhmm. Not like the concept ever came up here in the last decade or so.
So, care to explain why and how you think I’m wrong, or why “punching up” is not the converse?
Metaphors, similes, allegories, idioms, analogies… all so very obscure to me!
(heh)