In most dictatorships, many journalists are usually horribly mistreated. They get jailed, “commit” suicide, or vanish i.e. NK, Iran, Belarus, etc.
Unfortunately those governments’ tone and narrative is similar to what you’re saying here (based on my personal experience). Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying you are the same or you have the same intentions. It’s a different context. But this narrative, without rooting out the cause, leads to the rise of those dictatorships.
My point is that the problem is the system that incentives a group of people to game it as, you rightly mentioned, in order to be more successful. They have to get the most viewers, reader, clicks, impressions, you name it. It’s all the same.
The ways things work lead to emergence of toxic “journalism” and rotten social media platforms. These are side effects.
I agree (except, having also had personal experience of this situation, I think journalists do overplay the personal danger bit).
The cause is exactly what you say: the incentives are all wrong for accurate investigative journalism, which is what we need to keep the powerful uncorrupted. Unfortunately this is because the internet destroyed the business model for news, and there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. We need a new business model for investigative journalism, and while plenty of people are trying (including Substack in the article, who seem to be doing OK), none have really cracked it.
Unfortunately those governments’ tone and narrative is similar to what you’re saying here (based on my personal experience). Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying you are the same or you have the same intentions. It’s a different context. But this narrative, without rooting out the cause, leads to the rise of those dictatorships.
My point is that the problem is the system that incentives a group of people to game it as, you rightly mentioned, in order to be more successful. They have to get the most viewers, reader, clicks, impressions, you name it. It’s all the same.
The ways things work lead to emergence of toxic “journalism” and rotten social media platforms. These are side effects.