Interesting story from ⁦ @benyt⁩ - it shouldn’t be a revelation to people that‘s a tension between new and legacy media. That campaigns need both. Some misunderstood #CambridgeAnalytica affair: mourning journalism’s loss (JOURNALISM HELPED REVEAL IT!) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-biden-wall-street-journal-trump.html

The reality is most misunderstood the #CambridgeAnalytica scandal because it became subsumed by the #Facebook scandal - almost decoupling those activities from the rest of political communication system, which by the way together are essential to the power of a campaign.

You cannot understand the prominence of the emails in mainstream media (which Benkler love to emphasise) without understanding how they were disseminated and amplified. And in how they were disseminated and amplified MSM credibility was essential.

Skilled influence campaigns consider how to use different media in unison to amplify the message.

Journalism was never dead. The problem was it failed to understand how it fits into the digital media ecosystem. And it’s now starting to figure that out.

Trying to distill whether one is more important than the other is a fools game. Journalism must understand coordinated hybrid campaigns and try to anticipate how it can navigate through that environment with its truth to compete for attention in the most effective way.

I think journalism has been in crisis and feeling it no longer had power. Journalists power has been genuinely threatened by credibility attacks on legacy media. Tha’s the weak point & Trump knows it, having attacked critical infrastructure in a way no previous GOP candidate has.

That is the pressure point which gives disinformation strength and it’s the place that needs defensive action. Defensive action will include journalistic bravery and push-back but also must include coordinated work, greater transparency mechanisms and whistleblower protections.

It requires slowing down, getting it right, winning the war even if a battle is lost.