Canadian journalists are increasingly under attack online

[the truth]

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[rustled]

Calling out bad journalism is now being termed "bullying" to protect bad journalism.

It's unlikely anyone will stop it, though: it sells, and the gullible and malleable among us seem to vastly prefer it this way.

One can take issue with a journalist's take on something without resorting to threats, bullying, and nonsense.

Of course one can. One can also see when one is being distracted from the very legitimate criticisms about current journalistic practices by the presentation of complaints about journalists being bullied - and one can see when the complaints of bullying are being padded out with complaints that could be worded more diplomatically but wouldn't have been considered bullying by journalists a couple of decades ago.
That is the issue. Journalist's are not immune from making errors any more than you or I. [/quote]
No one expects perfection. We can, and should, expect integrity and honesty.

Any rational person knows that much of reporting is impressions.

Hogwash. You're blending editorial and opinion with reporting.

The facts are often few and thin on the ground. A rational person reads the reporting and seeks out the few facts and sorts it for themselves.

Any journalist worth their salt presents the facts as facts, and understands the difference between presenting their "impressions" and presenting facts.

It is also important to recognize that many reports are what "other people say". So if Denise Batters is making news by saying "blah,blah,blah" with her bias, that does NOT mean that the reporter who reports it holds the same bias, nor the organization that said reporter works for.

Regardless, disagreeing with the reporter or journalist ought not climb down into the gutters and sewers as many extremists do. Yes, the preponderance of reporting will NOT agree with extremists. So what? Yes, rational analysis will not often agree with extremists. So what?

So we can all expect better journalism, instead of pretending it's normal for reporters to present their "impressions" as though these impressions are facts.

We simply can NOT have a permission structure to attack, threaten and bully people whether they are journalists, politicians, or ordinary folk making a comment. That is the heart of the matter - discuss the issue and the facts - don't turn into an excuse for bullying, threats and nonsense. Falling into that bullying/threat/nonsense/intimidation trap plays right into the hands of extremists and threatens our democracy.

No one is doing what you're describing here.

When complaints about a lack of journalistic integrity - and expecting better journalism - are being framed as attempting to excuse attacking, threatening and bullying people, THAT is playing right into the hands of those who present the greatest threat to our democracy.

The heart of the matter is distracting everyone from why there are so many complaints about journalism today, by complaining about how those complaints are sometimes phrased.

[JLives]

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[the truth]

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[JLives]

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[featfan]

Quick send in the social workers the lying journalists are getting verbally attacked.
I love some of the replies on this thread.
Dumb and dumber postings.
Sorta like sending the FBI after parents in Loudon.
When the government and their paid off journalists lie to the voters, bury them with the facts or just bury them.

[foenix]

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[hobbyguy]

Quick send in the social workers the lying journalists are getting verbally attacked.
I love some of the replies on this thread.
Dumb and dumber postings.
Sorta like sending the FBI after parents in Loudon.
When the government and their paid off journalists lie to the voters, bury them with the facts or just bury them.

And that is precisely the kind of permission structure expression that is unacceptable.

Spreading falsehoods to attack the free press and promote out of line attacks on them is simply undemocratic.

[The Green Barbarian]

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[featfan]

Or what the liberals do to Rebel News when the ban them from covering debates and any conventions.
Because they ask hard questions.

[featfan]

Canadian paid off journalists motto.

Journalism is about covering important stories.
With a pillow, until it stops moving.

[hobbyguy]

Largely false extremist views are a large part of the problem. Straight outa the Mussolini-Mao playbook intersection of the far left and far right that culminates in dictatorship.

1. Sow distrust of the free press in the hopes that the gullible will fall for it
2. Use intimidation to weaken the resolve of the press and limit criticism of authoritarians
3. Escalate to violence against any and all critics of the authoritarians
4. Enact censorship laws and use thugs to enforce
5. When all else fails, assassinations

We see plenty of examples today of such things. The Chinese Communist Party, Kim in North Korea, Putin in Russia, Noriega, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Iran, Myanmar... the list goes on.

Unfortunately some politicians within democracies are do a "monkey see, monkey do" with this and attacking the press - and almost always from positions of weakness, where what they want or what the have done or are doing is contrary to the desires of the majority of the people.

The press ain't perfect. We live in an imperfect world. None of us are perfect. We all do the best we can in context.

Extremists by definition will not like like the free press with all its imperfections, but it is fundamental to democracy. The free press most often reports on extremist actions, and when those extremist actions and words come off as undesirable, that isn't the fault of the journalists - it is the fault of the extremists themselves, but they will "blame the press" from a position weakness.

So when we see attacks on the free press, it comes from fundamental weakness. The positions/policies/actions of those who cop out and use the phrases like "lamestream media" are almost always from the crooked and the weak (as defined by by being out of touch with desires the majority of the people). Rather than maintain positions of power by doing good things for the everyday citizen and serving their needs to maintain power/position, attacking the media as the messenger is the go to action of those who are not working for the good of the citizenry, but trying to manipulate the citizenry for their own personal selfish reasons.

In the end, attacking journalists is fundamental to the destruction of democracy. Those who do so are expressing a desire to destroy democracy because they hold views that are unacceptable to the citizenry, are megalomaniacs, or grifters. Nothing good can come out of that.

Democracy is messy, it is imperfect, but it the best form of government available to us. Having a free press is messy and imperfect but is fundamental to democracy.

If you find yourself attacking the free press, then I would suggest it is your views that you should be examining, not the free press.

Attacks on journalists are an attack on democracy, and that is simply unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. Without a free press, there is no democracy.

[rustled]

Largely false extremist views are a large part of the problem. Straight outa the Mussolini-Mao playbook intersection of the far left and far right that culminates in dictatorship.

1. Sow distrust of the free press in the hopes that the gullible will fall for it

Seriously?

The free press is doing a great job of sharing "impressions" as facts, and not correcting their mistakes. They have tossed integrity under the bus and allowed their political biases to show, plain as day, slanting their stories to acquire "clicks", to suit their editorial preferences, and to acquire a like-minded following.

If anyone honestly thinks someone else - someone other than these journalists and the organizations they work for - has had to "sow distrust" for us to realize they have lost their ability to report with the neutrality and lack of bias we should expect - well, IMO anyone who thinks this is living in some kind of fantasyland where journalists are intent on the unbiased delivery of the unvarnished truth, no matter how unsensational or un-useful that truth may be.

Attacks on journalists are an attack on democracy, and that is simply unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. Without a free press, there is no democracy.

Pointing out the utter lack of integrity present in most of today's journalism is NOT an attack on journalists. It's the only correct response to shoddy, biased, slanted journalism.

Conflating standards and expectations with "an attack on journalists" is unacceptable, and going along with this nonsense would only serve to undermine democracy.

[Urban Cowboy]

What's being passed off as "journalism" these days is a joke. Heck half of them can't even spell their story title correctly.

[JLives]

What's being passed off as "journalism" these days is a joke. Heck half of them can't even spell their story title correctly.

But do you agree that threatening them with violence for that is unacceptable?