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A #thread on journalism: Most young people want to start their careers as reporters. We did too. Early 2000s: Editor said "sit back down & spend at least 3-4 years on the desk. It will make you a better reporter." Most of us did. We had the luxury of time & labour of good mentors
2015-2020: Jobs had started to vanish. Budgets were being cut. Digital scene changing drastically. Mid-level editors were being sacked. Big media bosses busy consolidating investment & organising "events." Very few folks around to rigorously train a newsroom full of new reporters
Take a minute to consider journalists fresh out of college: thrust into a competitive industry, jobs scarce, low entry pay, zero investment in training. Editors above them who can train them are either a product of this environment themselves or fighting to keep their jobs.
This isn't a comment on ethics of any particular channel. This is to show you another side — young ppl competing for virality because they have little say in traffic/TRP targets, tweets curated as source, very little money spent on building their knowledge due to high attrition
If you question why journalists are unethical — and entirely possible they are personally/politically inclined — lay the blame also on the lack of any investment in teaching them otherwise. Blame the bosses who have run good media institutions down to the ground.
There have always been unethical journalists, but there have also been strong editorial policies to keep them in check when they represent the organisation in a professional capacity. I've seen journalists with problematic views change when working with great editors.
You don't have to agree with this. But there's a way forward. If you feel those journalists speaking up about toxic workplaces are pulling a fast one, track their work over a period of time. Conditioning can be reversed. Dishonesty has a way of showing up.
