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Comment by FredPret | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Now that everyone has a megaphone, there will be rockstar economists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and the like that distribute their message directly.

I would much rather get info directly from a popular expert than from an English major who interviewed said expert.

Even better - I get to decide which people I regard as experts, and not the journalist.

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If you know the topic at hand you can somewhat believe you're good at finding the Expert.

If you don't know jack about topic X, you'll end up trusting another newbie, or a charlatan.

Or, you can go around talking to lots of people, go search professors and professionals and ask them. Here you are, welcome to Journalism.

Oh and the same works for photographers (my 24yo son is one of them).

Is picking a newbie or a charlatan that much worse than listening to a journalist who interviews a newbie or a charlatan? Or one who doesn’t understand the subject (as is usually the case) and totally mangles what they get from an actual expert?

I’d rather at least take my chances at picking an actual expert.

You can see how bad journalism is when you read a popular article on something you do understand deeply. Now consider that it’s probably about that bad on every subject.

The problem is that you must understand something deeply to report on it well or describe it well. Only a programmer can be a good journalist on software. Only a former military person can do good war reporting. Etc. If you don’t know what you are talking about you can’t talk about it well.

> Is picking a newbie or a charlatan that much worse than listening to a journalist who interviews a newbie or a charlatan? Or one who doesn’t understand the subject (as is usually the case) and totally mangles what they get from an actual expert?

Given the quality of discourse, and rocketing levels of misinformation on the internet—yes! It’s a lot worse!

How does having "rockstar" experts broadcasting "their message" help unveil the stories of the unfortunate in their daily lives so that society can understand what ails it?

Journalism is not just the repeating of "expert opinions," it's supposed to be about investigation and collecting evidence and taking to normal, not expert people, about the current events affecting their lives.

Truly if we have lost that and it is replaced by "rockstars" with their own message it will be a huge loss to society.

If people only want to listen to experts, then “experts” in poverty will emerge who can honestly talk about the travails of the poor.

Why do we need a journalist to act as society’s eyes when the afflicted part itself can speak? Journalism and newspapers are an emergent property of capitalism, not it’s a feature of society.

This was the hope one or two decades ago. But now that the dynamic has somewhat played out, it's become apparent that when "rockstar mathematicians" complete with rockstar charlatans, the charlatans win most people over. Reality has nuance and details that constrain the earnest actors, while the charlatans can fully focus on telling people what they want to hear.

You don't have time to do that. People don't have time to listen enough different single-area experts all the time. They also don't have the ability to filter through the agendas of these people, which are pushed with no regard to information integrity. That filter is journalism, and it's still important for functioning democracies.

If people “don’t have the time” to learn then they shouldn’t get to participate in our democracy. Education and due diligence, more easily available now than ever before, are the responsibility of citizens.

But what you’re saying is the contrary of what you want to achieve. The single stakeholders who would inform about their own field lack a systemic view, and they act at least on the personal agenda of furthering their own position in a capitalistic society. That’s a clear incentive that’s not mitigated by any journalistic standard or ethical boundary.

Journalists are a broad and diverse bunch, they have agendas and they’re human but they are called to an ethical conduct that is quintessential to their profession.

Many don’t do that, but grouping them all under one category is a populist approach akin to saying that politicians all steal.

Also, journalism is NOT american tv journalism. In Germany we have immensely talented ethically sound journalists in many top positions in news organizations.

The real problem I see as a journalist is that unfortunately the current misfortunes of the journalistic sector are pushing away first and foremost the best and most talented because staying requires a level of commitment that is just not compatible anymore with the measly reward —- and getting pushed into one bad group like it happened here on this thread.

In my case I can afford to still do the most meaningful journalism possible because I am lucky enough to have developed a successful business on the side that sustains myself without interfering with the topics and news I cover. That’s an insane amount of effort that then inevitably gets belittled by the “journalists are all agenda-driven scumbags” brigades of the internet.

Or, on the contrary, the dismal state of much of US media is causing people to seek out and pay more for higher quality journalism than they otherwise would. That seems to be the substack business model in a nutshell. And thank you for doing good despite the hostile public sentiment.

Why is it easier to filter through the agendas of journalists instead of the experts themselves? As professional mouthpieces, journalists are more likely to have agendas, not less. Recent history has show that journalist are more interested in activism than is integrity.

I feel like what you're saying is true in some platonic ideal, but it's very far from reality.

It’s true in my own personal experience of freelance journalist, who is aware of the worrying shortcomings of journalistic institutions, and yet is neither a privileged, nor rich, nor stuck to an activist position about anything. Facts come first. Would you all be ok if I’d generalize saying that programmers are smelly introverted incels?

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