#15: dialogic reasoning
(If this letter was forwarded to you or you discovered it online, you can subscribe here and learn more about it/me here.)
Good morning,
There are some things that are only possible to discover through talking to another person. I had another long chat with my brother, covering a number of topics related to the news and how frustrated he has been with it, that made me realize: “reliability” of news orgs is understood quite differently between journalists and consumers.
Reliability
Journalists view reliable news as that which provides factually accurate information—who, what, when, where, why—and do the facts check out?
Consumers view reliable news as that which helps them live, make sense of things and actually provides a public service.
While I do know of great news organizations that do the former wonderfully well, I also know that most of them are not read by the average news consumer. The latter, on the other hand, is a relic of times past.
Morally
From a moral perspective, j-school teaches aspiring journalists that the purpose of news is to hold Power, in all its forms, accountable.
I imagine from the consumer perspective, we want news organizations to give us the information necessary to both successfully navigate and uncover the flaws and opportunities in the systems within which we live.
While I do know great news organization that do the former well, pretty much no single news organization can do the latter.
So many of the reasons behind this are economic, and ultimately, the onus to fulfill our own news needs falls on the news consumer. Which requires an investment of time and resources that most people can’t afford or don’t want to prioritize investing in even if they can. This is the toughest thing to grapple with in writing a book about how to read the news.
I would love to talk to folks about it.
A question for you:
If you could have the news do one thing for you, what would it be? Please reply to this email by filling in the following sentence:
“I wish I better understood _______ because it would help me ________.”
(No judgment, no rules!)
Also I’m sorry this letter is a short one as I’ve got notes to share that I haven’t had a moment to get down in writing yet.
For now, happy Monday :)
Jihii