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The irony is that the NYT and its inability to deal with the realities of the Trump era has set back journalism -- and I'm certain student journalism -- for a generation. It's going to be the opposite of the Watergate effect. https://twitter.com/williams_paige/status/1194741886436757507
As a college student in the late 90s, early 00s, I could look up to senior journalists and think -- yeah, this is tough to do, and can even strike me as wrong in the moment, but in the long run it's good for society and good for democracy.
I wouldn't think that today.
I wouldn't think that today.
In Baquet's zeal to "not be a leader of the #Resistance," as he said on the BBC today, he abdicated his role as a watchdog of democracy and made the paper a handmaiden to power, white supremacy, and greed. So of course student journalists are going to question "core ethics!"
There has long been a double standard between the way prestige journalists cover the powerful and powerless. Or am I the only one who remembers @maggieNYT refusing to publish the PUBLICLY AVAILABLE names of rich Trump donors to protect their "safety"? https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1158840961235136513?s=20
(I don't remember a lot of journalistic handwringing over that one on Eighth Avenue. I sure don't remember a snarky headline like this one, about the Times' White House correspondents capitulating to power.)
So, yes, student journos: If you let activists dictate your coverage, you're going to be writing press releases for activists. Don't do that.
But, pros: If you let powerful people dictate your coverage, refuse to elevate vulnerable people or listen to criticism, you're worse.
But, pros: If you let powerful people dictate your coverage, refuse to elevate vulnerable people or listen to criticism, you're worse.
And moreover, you're setting a shitty example for the next generation, who are going to learn (who perhaps have already learned) not to follow in your footsteps at all, at a time when there have never been fewer incentives to go into journalism at all.
