{"id":243719,"date":"2023-09-11T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=243719"},"modified":"2023-09-05T06:20:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:20:13","slug":"access-journalism-at-its-most-pernicious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/09\/access-journalism-at-its-most-pernicious\/","title":{"rendered":"Access Journalism at Its Most Pernicious"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern western national security journalism is mostly just writing what a government official tells you to write and then calling it a \u201cscoop\u201d which you got from a nameless \u201csource\u201d in the government. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5 Sep 2023<\/em> – New York Times editors changed<\/a> a recent headline from \u201cAs Ukraine\u2019s Fight Falters, It Gets Even Harder to Talk About Negotiations<\/a>\u201d to \u201cAs Ukraine\u2019s Fight Grinds On, Talk of Negotiations Becomes Nearly Taboo<\/a>\u201d, apparently for no other reason than because \u201cgrinds on\u201d advances the information interests of the US empire better than \u201cfalters\u201d.<\/p>\n

A lot of propaganda emphasis goes into crafting headlines, because the vast majority of people read only the headline<\/a> of a news story and not the body of the text. If your interests are in propaganda and narrative control rather than news reporting, headlines are where your focus lies.<\/p>\n

\u2756<\/p>\n

Modern western national security journalism is mostly just writing what a government official tells you to write and then calling it a \u201cscoop\u201d which you got from a nameless \u201csource\u201d in the government.<\/p>\n

One of the many, many problems with this system of news reporting is that it gives the government a tremendous amount of leverage over mass media outlets, because if The New York Times or CNN don\u2019t write what a government agency or official wants them to write, they can lose access to that \u201csource\u201d and all the \u201cscoops\u201d that come with it. If The New York Times started doing actual journalism and closely scrutinizing the US intelligence cartel for example, the CIA could just decide that NYT is now off limits and all the insider \u201cscoops\u201d go to different outlets instead. The New York Times would then immediately lose prominence while someone else gains it, and they\u2019d lose all the clicks and subscriptions they were getting from being a consistent source of breaking news on that front.<\/p>\n

Which is why that never happens. A symbiotic relationship has been created in which news outlets benefit from powerful sources and powerful sources benefit from uncritical news reporting. The news outlets report what they\u2019re told to report in order to keep their steady supply of \u201cscoops\u201d, and in exchange they get all the money and prestige that goes with it. The government gets uncritical regurgitation of talking points which serve the information interests of the western empire in that moment.<\/p>\n

This is access journalism<\/a> at its most pernicious. Access journalism is destructive enough when it\u2019s a prominent official refusing to give interviews to unsympathetic reporters, but once you\u2019ve got entire government agencies driving the entire news media information sphere by determining who does and does not receive \u201cscoops\u201d on foreign conflicts and international affairs, you\u2019ve got a system of straight up state propaganda.<\/p>\n

What is the effective difference between this system and one in which the state owns the media and tells it what to report? In essence, there is no difference.<\/p>\n

\u2756<\/p>\n

Instead of literally going to war with Mexican cartels, has anyone considered simply not having a shitbrained and completely unscientific drug policy that has been in a continuous state of failure since its inception?<\/p>\n

\u2756<\/p>\n

It\u2019s silly to let yourself be pulled from the left to the right. Mainstream liberals are pathetic and the authentic socialist left can be aggravating as fuck, but the values which drew you to the left in the first place are still grounded in deep truth and just as valid as ever.<\/p>\n

Other people on the left and pseudo-left being obnoxious doesn\u2019t magically invalidate the world\u2019s need for peace, justice and equality. Your disagreements and grievances with a given political faction don\u2019t magically cancel out the urgent need to end capitalism and imperialism. Don\u2019t let the failings of other people and the general confused state of our species cause you to lose sight of your healthy vision for this world that got you interested in politics in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u2756<\/p>\n

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Remember, the US is filling Ukraine with depleted uranium and undetonated cluster munitions that will deform and dismember children for generations and perpetuating a war that has turned Ukraine into the largest minefield on the planet in order to save Ukraine from the bad guys. https:\/\/t.co\/CFZY3xIj9S<\/a><\/p>\n

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 3, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n