RelocatedPatFan
Experienced Starter w/First Big Contract
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2009
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Real journalism is a almost completely dead. News is big business now (focus on profit and driving viewpoints - which is fine, it's just that they co-mingle news, opinions and there's plenty of "technically accurate" but let's call it biased editing to form a narrative that might not have been present from the speaker).Reading this thread has led me to doing some thinking about the state of journalism in 2019. Very few of the responses have actually been about Freeman’s article. Most have been a rehash of our opinions as to whether Gronk will unretire or whether he should.
Maybe, in our minds, we are now conditioned to see any media post as being an opinion piece rather than old fashioned reporting. Or maybe, we just see any attempt at reporting as made up internet nonsense and dismiss it as such. I don’t know which it is, but, by the responses in this thread, most just ignored the reporting that there is a belief in the Patriots front office that Gronk will come out of retirement.
This is not the first time I’ve noticed this on the board. Earlier this offseason I posted Greg Bedard’s reporting in the BSJ that “most involved” in the Brady extension discussions didn’t believe the deal couldn’t be finalized until a year had passed since his last redo in August 2018. Some posters vociferously disagreed with my opinion. It wasn’t an opinion people. It was Bedard’s reporting, and it’s looking pretty accurate at this point.
Like Bedard, I’m pretty sure Mike Freeman sees himself as a journalist not a gossip purveyor. The man has been been in the business 30 years and worked for The NY Times and Washington Post when that meant something. It’s a shame so many have just come to ignore all reporting as just gossip based opinion. It’s an even bigger shame we all got too cheap to pay for journalism meant to bring us the truth because we paid for it and professional integrity demanded it and settled for often sensational, opinionated lies that get the clicks the sponsors want.
How comfortable can you be with articles that name, "unnamed people within ...". I've seen first hand accounts of pieces being reported where what is reported/opined to happen didn't actually happen (in the context presented).
CNN had a series about each decade and one of them covered when CNN (itself) became a 24 hours news channel. There was plenty of excellent commentary about the potential downfall of monetizing news and where it would lead. This cycle was foretasted by people who cared about the truth and their profession.
These days you need to listen to both sides to even have a chance of getting to some truth - takes too much work at times.