2017 CEO vs worker compensation

[MU82]

Actually, JB's comment unintentionally supplies a perfect bow to this conversation. Because it demonstrates how lots of folks will easily take the bait in being distracted by our fractured mediascape: two of the president's men were found guilty of federal crimes today, including one in a way that directly implicates the president. But I just looked at foxnews.com and the headline story is about...the Iowa girl and the suspect being an illegal immigrant. Ditto Breitbart. JB only represents the millions of people who are willingly misdirected toward distractions.

On Tuesday, I learned a term I had not heard before:

Unindicted Co-Conspirator

I like learning new things.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Did they find her dead?  Over the weekend they were optimistic.

And Chico's attempts to catch the pathetic hail mary.

[mu03eng]

This is largely a good post, and as one who's worked in the profession, I hardly consider myself a hero, though I do consider my work important and essential. (And, for the record, I have been threatened with violence on several occasions for doing my job).
That said, I do wonder about a couple things you write here.
Like, when you say journalists "flood the zone" and blur the line between reporting and opining, what exactly are you referring to? I'm having a difficult time knowing how to respond to that without some actual examples to go on.
And, of course, where do you draw the line between opining and reporting. For example, if a political figure makes a potentially misleading statement, does the reporter merely regurgitate that statement, or does the reporter explain why it's questionable? And is that opining - calling into question the veracity of the statement?
I suspect everyone draws the line on these questions somewhere different, and that line likely shifts from story to story and media outlet to media outlet based on one's political allegiances.

I'm certain a lot of this is that reality depends on where you stand type of thing. There is a lot more nuance to this then time or a message board allows for you so I will grant a couple of things: it is largely an opinion of mine based on anecdotal observation/discussion, flooding the zone and opining/reporting are unrelated "issues", and I think these phenomenon are more prevalent in the A/V media than print given that print by definition almost has to be more deliberate and less reactionary.

I'll give two examples of flooding the zone (one of which actually serves the opining one but we'll get there):

The first example was the recent revocation of John Brennan's security clearance which was covered ad nasuem when it was floated several weeks ago and was covered extensively again last week when it was actually done. This is an important political story as it represents an example of Trump seeking to punish those that speak out, however it was nearly universally framed in the media as an attack on the intelligence community and with a fundamental lack of understanding of how security clearances work. The amount of coverage the situation got without anyone truly articulating the practical impact of one person losing his security clearances (I still have a security clearance for god sake, they are over issued and under managed but whatever). IMO, the story was impactful enough about Trump targeting political enemies without turning it into a referendum on national security and certainly didn't require the wall to wall coverage.

The second example is from early January I think, back when I still had time to read the NYT exhaustively. This was the early days of the Russia collusion stories, back when Mike Flynn was going to bring Trump down, etc. I'm going to try and find the actual date, but in the Times in early January there were 8 unique stories on the Russia story, which isn't terrible given the uncertainty and impact, but within a week critical information or details in 4 of the stories had to be walked back or corrected in follow on stories. 100% anecdotal but it just struck me as remarkable how much media was pushing stories out without truly knowing what was going on.


I think the opining thing is trickier because as I think about it, I think some of my impression of the narrative pushing comes from the mix of stories and social media of the people writing the stories. A fair number of journalists are active on social media pushing back against the administration, which as members of a free society, is perfectly legitimate but then I also think that has an impact on how their reporting is perceived. There were a couple of stories on the Brennan revocation that I read last week that were written in a way that conclusions were presented as facts when it is not factual at all. I'll try to find an example or two but it's escaping me right now (maybe I'm consuming too much content and it's my problem )

It's all very tricky and when you combine it with the media being competitive with itself it starts to feel a little hyperbolic but as you said, it's probably all in the eye of the beholder.

[Lennys Tap]

On Tuesday, I learned a term I had not heard before:

Unindicted Co-Conspirator

I like learning new things.

I'm going to assume you're kidding and say well played. The alternative is too depressing.

[Pakuni]

Did they find her dead?  Over the weekend they were optimistic.

If only there was some way for a person already online to find out.

[forgetful]

The first example was the recent revocation of John Brennan's security clearance which was covered ad nasuem when it was floated several weeks ago and was covered extensively again last week when it was actually done. This is an important political story as it represents an example of Trump seeking to punish those that speak out, however it was nearly universally framed in the media as an attack on the intelligence community and with a fundamental lack of understanding of how security clearances work. The amount of coverage the situation got without anyone truly articulating the practical impact of one person losing his security clearances (I still have a security clearance for god sake, they are over issued and under managed but whatever). IMO, the story was impactful enough about Trump targeting political enemies without turning it into a referendum on national security and certainly didn't require the wall to wall coverage.

I think it largely depends on where you obtain your news/information from.  My read on the Brennan reporting was very different.  I felt they did a very good job of providing all the background information regarding what it meant, how they work, and what the practical impact was.  I actually learned a good bit on the process from the news (and I also still have a useless security clearance).  Now I may have had a different take if I was using other sources/media outlets. 

Which is why I largely agree with you on "flooding the zone."  The problem I see is that the line between journalist and blogger has been blurred, and with unlimited print space online, focused, deliberate and accurate articles are largely a thing of the past and are now often filled with fluff, that can border on pure opinion. 

[TSmith34, Inc.]

If only there was some way for a person already online to find out.

You know, this is a good idea.  If one were to invent such a tool, say, one might make a lot of money.

Chico's prevarication at it finest.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

The second example is from early January I think, back when I still had time to read the NYT exhaustively. This was the early days of the Russia collusion stories, back when Mike Flynn was going to bring Trump down, etc. I'm going to try and find the actual date, but in the Times in early January there were 8 unique stories on the Russia story, which isn't terrible given the uncertainty and impact, but within a week critical information or details in 4 of the stories had to be walked back or corrected in follow on stories. 100% anecdotal but it just struck me as remarkable how much media was pushing stories out without truly knowing what was going on.

Seems to me this is simply going to happen in today's media landscape, where being first to the story is important and the news cycle runs 24/7.  Not that that is a good thing, it just seems inevitable that people are going to report on something before all facts are nailed down with certainty.

[mu03eng]

Seems to me this is simply going to happen in today's media landscape, where being first to the story is important and the news cycle runs 24/7.  Not that that is a good thing, it just seems inevitable that people are going to report on something before all facts are nailed down with certainty.

don't disagree at all, just think it's an area of focus that if I were "media" I would be concerned/mindful about because it certainly gives a lever for the #fakenews types.

[MU82]

I'm certain a lot of this is that reality depends on where you stand type of thing. There is a lot more nuance to this then time or a message board allows for you so I will grant a couple of things: it is largely an opinion of mine based on anecdotal observation/discussion, flooding the zone and opining/reporting are unrelated "issues", and I think these phenomenon are more prevalent in the A/V media than print given that print by definition almost has to be more deliberate and less reactionary.

I'll give two examples of flooding the zone (one of which actually serves the opining one but we'll get there):

The first example was the recent revocation of John Brennan's security clearance which was covered ad nasuem when it was floated several weeks ago and was covered extensively again last week when it was actually done. This is an important political story as it represents an example of Trump seeking to punish those that speak out, however it was nearly universally framed in the media as an attack on the intelligence community and with a fundamental lack of understanding of how security clearances work. The amount of coverage the situation got without anyone truly articulating the practical impact of one person losing his security clearances (I still have a security clearance for god sake, they are over issued and under managed but whatever). IMO, the story was impactful enough about Trump targeting political enemies without turning it into a referendum on national security and certainly didn't require the wall to wall coverage.

The second example is from early January I think, back when I still had time to read the NYT exhaustively. This was the early days of the Russia collusion stories, back when Mike Flynn was going to bring Trump down, etc. I'm going to try and find the actual date, but in the Times in early January there were 8 unique stories on the Russia story, which isn't terrible given the uncertainty and impact, but within a week critical information or details in 4 of the stories had to be walked back or corrected in follow on stories. 100% anecdotal but it just struck me as remarkable how much media was pushing stories out without truly knowing what was going on.


I think the opining thing is trickier because as I think about it, I think some of my impression of the narrative pushing comes from the mix of stories and social media of the people writing the stories. A fair number of journalists are active on social media pushing back against the administration, which as members of a free society, is perfectly legitimate but then I also think that has an impact on how their reporting is perceived. There were a couple of stories on the Brennan revocation that I read last week that were written in a way that conclusions were presented as facts when it is not factual at all. I'll try to find an example or two but it's escaping me right now (maybe I'm consuming too much content and it's my problem )

It's all very tricky and when you combine it with the media being competitive with itself it starts to feel a little hyperbolic but as you said, it's probably all in the eye of the beholder.

I don't know how you get past the whole "flooding the zone" or "piling on" thing. There are just so many content providers now, and the news cycle has gone from 24 hours to 12 hours to 6 hours to 10 minutes to 10 seconds.

As for the mistakes made by journalists ...

Each media outlet has always wanted to be first. In the olden days, they weren't called "media outlets" or "content providers"; they were called newspapers. Even decades after radio and TV became relevant, newspapers still did almost all investigative reporting and still broke most news.

In sports, after ESPN became legit, TV started being real competition in the "scoop" game, but newspapers still drove the news cycle. They still do. Look at how often TV outlets have to quote newspapers, and look at how many newspaper people appear on TV.

As more and more households/individuals gained access to the interwebs, obviously things changed -- I'm the master of the obvious here.

But it's interesting (to me, anyway) how recent much of this trend is. In 2005, I had a long interview with Ozzie Guillen in which he said, among other things, that he'd get so upset that he had to puke all the time, that the fans pissed him off, and that he would seriously considering quitting if the White Sox won the World Series. It was a 1-on-1 interview, so I wasn't worried about getting "beat," I took my time, and the column hit our site at about 10:30 p.m. CT. The next day, everybody else had to play catch-up. I'll always have a soft spot for Ozzie because he could have done what a lot of people did and claimed he was misquoted or taken out of context; instead, he owned up to every word.

Nowadays, that story wouldn't have had nearly the shelf life that it did just 13 years ago. ESPN or AP or somebody else would have jumped all over it.

Nowadays, a "scoop" is measured in minutes, or even seconds. There has always been pressure on the NTY or WaPo to be first on these big political stories (and even the little ones), but the pressure is bigger now. Hell, sometimes the huge news providers  get "scooped" by some dude with a cellphone. For that matter, many "scoops" about the current resident of the White House come from the man himself, often while he's taking a dump at 3:30 a.m.

This was a long-winded way of saying that the intense competition to get a story 10 seconds before the other person certainly can and does lead to mistakes. There is no way to spin that as a good thing. Most of the time, the mistakes are small and are corrected in write-throughs, but sometimes they are big and that sucks for everybody.

Interestingly, as huge as the landscape has become, most of the best investigative reporting is STILL provided by the major newspapers, whose owners and publishers continue to provide the resources to do it despite the fact that most don't make money.

Here in Charlotte, our newspaper has shrunk and shrunk, but they still occasionally do some incredibly important investigative work on the state and local level.

Even though I could read the Observer online for a fraction of the price (or even for free if I pirate it), I pay full price to get the paper delivered every day. I consider it one of my charitable contributions! I gift some money to the free local weekly in our area, too.

Obviously, I believe that the free press must stay viable for the good of our country, and I believe we are seeing why these past couple of years.

[jesmu84]

I don't know how you get past the whole "flooding the zone" or "piling on" thing. There are just so many content providers now, and the news cycle has gone from 24 hours to 12 hours to 6 hours to 10 minutes to 10 seconds.

As for the mistakes made by journalists ...

Each media outlet has always wanted to be first. In the olden days, they weren't called "media outlets" or "content providers"; they were called newspapers. Even decades after radio and TV became relevant, newspapers still did almost all investigative reporting and still broke most news.

In sports, after ESPN became legit, TV started being real competition in the "scoop" game, but newspapers still drove the news cycle. They still do. Look at how often TV outlets have to quote newspapers, and look at how many newspaper people appear on TV.

As more and more households/individuals gained access to the interwebs, obviously things changed -- I'm the master of the obvious here.

But it's interesting (to me, anyway) how recent much of this trend is. In 2005, I had a long interview with Ozzie Guillen in which he said, among other things, that he'd get so upset that he had to puke all the time, that the fans pissed him off, and that he would seriously considering quitting if the White Sox won the World Series. It was a 1-on-1 interview, so I wasn't worried about getting "beat," I took my time, and the column hit our site at about 10:30 p.m. CT. The next day, everybody else had to play catch-up. I'll always have a soft spot for Ozzie because he could have done what a lot of people did and claimed he was misquoted or taken out of context; instead, he owned up to every word.

Nowadays, that story wouldn't have had nearly the shelf life that it did just 13 years ago. ESPN or AP or somebody else would have jumped all over it.

Nowadays, a "scoop" is measured in minutes, or even seconds. There has always been pressure on the NTY or WaPo to be first on these big political stories (and even the little ones), but the pressure is bigger now. Hell, sometimes the huge news providers  get "scooped" by some dude with a cellphone. For that matter, many "scoops" about the current resident of the White House come from the man himself, often while he's taking a dump at 3:30 a.m.

This was a long-winded way of saying that the intense competition to get a story 10 seconds before the other person certainly can and does lead to mistakes. There is no way to spin that as a good thing. Most of the time, the mistakes are small and are corrected in write-throughs, but sometimes they are big and that sucks for everybody.

Interestingly, as huge as the landscape has become, most of the best investigative reporting is STILL provided by the major newspapers, whose owners and publishers continue to provide the resources to do it despite the fact that most don't make money.

Here in Charlotte, our newspaper has shrunk and shrunk, but they still occasionally do some incredibly important investigative work on the state and local level.

Even though I could read the Observer online for a fraction of the price (or even for free if I pirate it), I pay full price to get the paper delivered every day. I consider it one of my charitable contributions! I gift some money to the free local weekly in our area, too.

Obviously, I believe that the free press must stay viable for the good of our country, and I believe we are seeing why these past couple of years.

I like a lot of this. One of the consequences of the rapid news cycle is things getting buried (as well the obvious errors that occur with quick reporting). For instance, the Panama papers or the long investigation and release of the Hollywood/Weinstein report. Both were long-term investigative journalism in print. Both should have led to a LOT of change in society. But we quickly moved on to the next "thing" and forgot to do much besides fire Harvey and say rich people are bad.

[mu03eng]

I don't know how you get past the whole "flooding the zone" or "piling on" thing. There are just so many content providers now, and the news cycle has gone from 24 hours to 12 hours to 6 hours to 10 minutes to 10 seconds.

As for the mistakes made by journalists ...

Each media outlet has always wanted to be first. In the olden days, they weren't called "media outlets" or "content providers"; they were called newspapers. Even decades after radio and TV became relevant, newspapers still did almost all investigative reporting and still broke most news.

In sports, after ESPN became legit, TV started being real competition in the "scoop" game, but newspapers still drove the news cycle. They still do. Look at how often TV outlets have to quote newspapers, and look at how many newspaper people appear on TV.

As more and more households/individuals gained access to the interwebs, obviously things changed -- I'm the master of the obvious here.

But it's interesting (to me, anyway) how recent much of this trend is. In 2005, I had a long interview with Ozzie Guillen in which he said, among other things, that he'd get so upset that he had to puke all the time, that the fans pissed him off, and that he would seriously considering quitting if the White Sox won the World Series. It was a 1-on-1 interview, so I wasn't worried about getting "beat," I took my time, and the column hit our site at about 10:30 p.m. CT. The next day, everybody else had to play catch-up. I'll always have a soft spot for Ozzie because he could have done what a lot of people did and claimed he was misquoted or taken out of context; instead, he owned up to every word.

Nowadays, that story wouldn't have had nearly the shelf life that it did just 13 years ago. ESPN or AP or somebody else would have jumped all over it.

Nowadays, a "scoop" is measured in minutes, or even seconds. There has always been pressure on the NTY or WaPo to be first on these big political stories (and even the little ones), but the pressure is bigger now. Hell, sometimes the huge news providers  get "scooped" by some dude with a cellphone. For that matter, many "scoops" about the current resident of the White House come from the man himself, often while he's taking a dump at 3:30 a.m.

This was a long-winded way of saying that the intense competition to get a story 10 seconds before the other person certainly can and does lead to mistakes. There is no way to spin that as a good thing. Most of the time, the mistakes are small and are corrected in write-throughs, but sometimes they are big and that sucks for everybody.

Interestingly, as huge as the landscape has become, most of the best investigative reporting is STILL provided by the major newspapers, whose owners and publishers continue to provide the resources to do it despite the fact that most don't make money.

Here in Charlotte, our newspaper has shrunk and shrunk, but they still occasionally do some incredibly important investigative work on the state and local level.

Even though I could read the Observer online for a fraction of the price (or even for free if I pirate it), I pay full price to get the paper delivered every day. I consider it one of my charitable contributions! I gift some money to the free local weekly in our area, too.

Obviously, I believe that the free press must stay viable for the good of our country, and I believe we are seeing why these past couple of years.

Totally agree and I'm not criticizing in the pejorative sense (this is a perfect application of Hanlon's Razor) as I don't think there is intent as it is absolutely a function of the technology/times. However, I do think it is something that the industry does need to think about how do they manage as they are open (fair or not) to criticism from all sides

Here is a relevant overview about the increasing need for fact checkers and what pressure that has put on the industry that I found fascinating:
https://www.theringer.com/2018/7/23/17601346/independent-fact-checkers-facebook-google

I'm spent some time thinking on it and one of my many billion dollar ideas that I've never gotten around to get someone to code for me is applying analytics to news sources as well as journalist that can give someone a quick idea of how they rate compared to their peers along three main factors: factual accuracy, factuality(letting the facts be the facts), and partisanship. I hate that partisanship is in there but it's a factor the times plus there has always been partisanship in journalism....it's why we have multiple newspapers in the same city,etc. It would be a couple of algorithm results that via app or a browser extension put the analytics on whatever blog/newspaper/article you are browsing at the time.

Side note, I've almost exclusively turned to "print" media for my news, I just have lost all faith in TV news/commentary.

[rocket surgeon]

Where were these "heroes" the previous 8 years?  Were they just worn out from the 8 years before that?  (Clintons' presidency is a different story)

I get it, you are a journalist, so you of course are going to defend your profession, but you have to admit that the NYT, WaPost, etc were not putting anywhere close to this kind of pressure on the previous administration.  Instead it was fluff pieces and hero worship.

I'm not defending the current administration, as they have made their own bed.  But the wall to wall "bombshells", "devistating news", and other hyperbolic writing/reporting has really jumped the shark.

(I'll take my day off for politics now, mods.)

  no matter what they say about you zigg'ster!!  you are the man!! 

[MU82]

Totally agree and I'm not criticizing in the pejorative sense (this is a perfect application of Hanlon's Razor) as I don't think there is intent as it is absolutely a function of the technology/times. However, I do think it is something that the industry does need to think about how do they manage as they are open (fair or not) to criticism from all sides

Here is a relevant overview about the increasing need for fact checkers and what pressure that has put on the industry that I found fascinating:
https://www.theringer.com/2018/7/23/17601346/independent-fact-checkers-facebook-google

I'm spent some time thinking on it and one of my many billion dollar ideas that I've never gotten around to get someone to code for me is applying analytics to news sources as well as journalist that can give someone a quick idea of how they rate compared to their peers along three main factors: factual accuracy, factuality(letting the facts be the facts), and partisanship. I hate that partisanship is in there but it's a factor the times plus there has always been partisanship in journalism....it's why we have multiple newspapers in the same city,etc. It would be a couple of algorithm results that via app or a browser extension put the analytics on whatever blog/newspaper/article you are browsing at the time.

Side note, I've almost exclusively turned to "print" media for my news, I just have lost all faith in TV news/commentary.

Let me know when you get that app up and running, mu03! I'll be an investor ... as long as you guarantee 200% return in writing.

I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary of cutting the cord. I do not miss checking CNN, Fox and MSNBC very much. The Big 3 national newspapers deliver.

[Benny B]

Let me know when you get that app up and running, mu03! I'll be an investor ... as long as you guarantee 200% return in writing.

I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary of cutting the cord. I do not miss checking CNN, Fox and MSNBC very much. The Big 3 national newspapers deliver.

Spoken like a true Democrat.... None of the risk, all of the reward. 

-or-

Spoken like a true Republican.... Peddle the risk, pocket the reward. 

Careful, 82, the world is round... Go too far left, you’ll come out on the right.

[MU82]

Spoken like a true Democrat.... None of the risk, all of the reward. 

-or-

Spoken like a true Republican.... Peddle the risk, pocket the reward. 

Careful, 82, the world is round... Go too far left, you’ll come out on the right.

Wait ... f%ck ... the world is round?

Damn ... been watching Alex Jones for too many years. Now where's that pedophile pizza parlor? I've got my AR locked and loaded!!

[Jay Bee]

Where were these "heroes" the previous 8 years?  Were they just worn out from the 8 years before that?  (Clintons' presidency is a different story)

I get it, you are a journalist, so you of course are going to defend your profession, but you have to admit that the NYT, WaPost, etc were not putting anywhere close to this kind of pressure on the previous administration.  Instead it was fluff pieces and hero worship.

I'm not defending the current administration, as they have made their own bed.  But the wall to wall "bombshells", "devistating news", and other hyperbolic writing/reporting has really jumped the shark.

(I'll take my day off for politics now, mods.)

He was* a journalist, @1na

[MU82]

He was* a journalist, @1na

I still do journalism.

Besides, if a person can be a senator for 10 days and then everybody has to call him or her Senator So-And-So for the rest of his/her life, I think I could still be a journalist even if I no longer was a writer.

But I am.

[Benny B]

I still do journalism.

Besides, if a person can be a senator for 10 days and then everybody has to call him or her Senator So-And-So for the rest of his/her life, I think I could still be a journalist even if I no longer was a writer.

But I am.

Nobody’s calling Trump “Mr. President” in ten years.  Hell, they barely call him that today.

[MU82]

Nobody’s calling Trump “Mr. President” in ten years.  Hell, they barely call him that today.

The only thing he deserves to be "called" is before a grand jury.

[Benny B]

The only thing he deserves to be "called" is before a grand jury.

Yeah... I don’t think he’s going to be testifying against anyone anytime soon.

[Jay Bee]

The only thing he deserves to be "called" is before a grand jury.

^^^ ban dis guy

[Silkk the Shaka]

Yeah... I don’t think he’s going to be testifying against anyone anytime soon.

[MU82]

^^^ ban dis guy

Hypocrite.

[GGGG]

Hypocrite.

More snowflake than hypocrite...