There’s too much to read and watch, too many places to read and watch it. It’s enough to distract you from the biggest news in journalism right now: In 2024, it’s harder than ever to get a tough story out in the United States of America.
A landscape of gleefully revelatory magazine exposés, aggressive newspaper investigations, feral online confrontations, and painstaking television investigations has been eroded by a confluence of factors — from rising risks of litigation and costs of insurance, which strapped media companies can hardly afford, to social media, which has given public figures growing leverage over the journalists who now increasingly carry their water.
The result is a thousand stories you’ll never read, and a shrinking number of publications with the resources and guts to confront power.
One recent example illustrates the difficulty of getting even a modestly negative revelation about a popular public figure into print. Last year, freelance reporter John McDermott discovered that Jay Shetty, a massively popular lifestyle podcaster who recently interviewed President Joe Biden, had fudged biographical details about his life. But months after he began his reporting for Esquire, he wondered: Would any outlet publish it?
Esquire lost interest as the piece took on a critical […]
Sadly, article completely ignores the elephant in the room. First, the US Government continues to push Julian Assange being held in prison for the crime of journalism. Reporting on US troops committing war crimes, the same thing Seymour Hersh reported on regarding Mai Lai in Vietnam. In addition, neither major party believes in the first amendment with the Biden administration arguing in the Supreme Court that the government can communicate to social media to discourage content it doesn’t like. As if imprisoning a journalist has no bearing on the issue. The governments’ argument includes discouraging “malinformation” – that is information that is true but that the government doesn’t like. We saw this on full display during the recent public health emergency. During this recent argument to the supreme court, the newest justice commented that these first amendment concerns “Hamstrings” the Federal Government. One of the jobs of the first amendment is to do just that – constrain the government. These people on the court are supposed to be the best of the best. I wonder where in the world they attended law school.
I agree with you Mr. Eddie.