So I lurk a lot, both keep sane during the week, and to pick up some story ideas. I wanted to make this post a while ago and chickened out, but seeing that post about Maddow fawning over Biden's new dog made me want to try with this account again.

US media is absolutely a big-L Liberal institution. But you'd be surprised how many socialists, or socdems at least, write for smaller and mid-size newsrooms. So AMA about trying to be a reporter with leftist views in a decidedly anti-left racket, or about the inner workings of American news outlets that aren't CNN, MSNBC or Fox.

  • poopoobanana [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Have you actually picked up story ideas from here? lmao

    What are typical ways in which editors "liberalize" stories?

    • TheFreshestHell [he/him,any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Yes; actually I sent a DM to that guy who was here a month ago talking about how MidAmerica Energy is one bad blizzard away from having its entire network go down, but he never got back to me.

      A good example of "liberalization" in my own work is from when the pandemic started, I wrote a feature piece on the history of mutual aid and brought up Kropotkin, Goldman, etc. All such references were removed and replaced with a general allusion to "reformers."

          • LeninWeave [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Unfortunately, I'm sure that's on the more benign side of things feditors do to articles. :agony-shivering:

          • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            In your experience, were your editors true believers in the company line, just trying to avoid a red scarce shit storm, or cynically manipulating a narrative? Are the larger organizations, like NYT, more cynical than organizations with less reach?

            • TheFreshestHell [he/him,any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              I've never worked for NYT so I can't say about them, but most of the time its a combo of being true believers and wanting to avoid controversy. Controversy can lose you subscriptions, which can hurt the paper's bottom line.

      • Parent [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        What does the editor say when you bring a piece like that? Do they explicitly say that our readers won't like mentions of Kropotkin so you have to take it out?

        • TheFreshestHell [he/him,any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yeah. The exact quote my editor gave me on that one is "I'm worried readers will think you have an agenda above just telling the story."

          Like no shit Sherlock, how am I gonna talk about an explicitly political topic without bringing the originators of that political movement's agenda into it?

          • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            :blob-no-thoughts: "Sweaty that's biased reporting! True news is completely unbiased and detached from reality."