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Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

The article belongs in an Opinion section, not in a (Technology) News section.

>Journalism and activism can’t be separated.

They should and they can. Either have a separate publication, or at the very least have a separate, clearly delineated "Opinion" section. Otherwise you run the risk of media trust becoming very low, and thus media losing its ability to guard the republic (or the democracy).

Consider a similar assertion - "journalism and advertising can't be separated" - it's obviously false. Granted, there is some undue influence from advertisers to be expected. However this is considered a negative that should be avoided. And indeed the good practice is to have a "firewall" between the advertising department, and the news desk, in any publication.

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> They should and they can. Either have a separate publication, or at the very least have a separate, clearly delineated "Opinion" section. Otherwise you run the risk of media trust becoming very low, and thus media losing its ability to guard the republic (or the democracy).

Practically it is impossible to separate the two. Even news reporting doesn’t usually come free of editorializing. There are places where you can go to get ‘just the facts ma’am’ but newspapers have never and will never be those places.

Just because someone don't do it doesn't mean you cannot separate them. There are plenty objetive publications out there and of course, if you rely on the gossip magazines and yellow newspapers maybe you will never get objetive journaling.

I agree that the mere act of choosing to observe or report something is, in some sense, activism, at least in that it indicates the author thinks the topic has some merit. But it's a sliding scale.

(1) And an author can identify words designed to elicit emotional response and work to minimize them in their writing if they want to focus on the facts vs. their interpretation of the facts.

(2) Listen friend, only an idiot doesn't understand words and phrases have emotional tone, and an author chooses whether they want to piss you off or stay out of your emotions when they choose their words.

... these two sentences have the same conceptual content.

It is impossible to have perfect knowledge, but journalists and authors in general still write articles.

If you show efforts in reporting neutrally, your readers will pick that up.

I agree that media companies, which are part of a large multi-billion industry, have their shortcomings. That makes trying to keep an open mind even more important for journalists. There is a reason why being independent is still a positive qualifier for journalists.

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