Came to the comments to find an exchange like this. Rob, I liked the article, and also my thought while reading it was that I didn't think you were being cynical enough about motivations. There may be a conflict v. mistake theory thing here: in your article, the phenomenon is treated as a mistake or bad habit by people unaware of its consequences, rather than as an intentional strategy. My guess is that it is an intentional strategy (in fact, it'd be crazy if it weren't), and it's important to see it as that in order to figure out what function it's serving (and for whom).
Or both: for journalists, the focus on meta is an intentional strategy, but for the rest of us (people who read journalism), it's mostly a bad habit (maybe, or something).
Another, broader thing here, which is that there are really two different conversations your post sparks for me. One is, what is the existing media/news doing, really, and how, and why? And the other is, what does actually good and effective media/news look like?
Came to the comments to find an exchange like this. Rob, I liked the article, and also my thought while reading it was that I didn't think you were being cynical enough about motivations. There may be a conflict v. mistake theory thing here: in your article, the phenomenon is treated as a mistake or bad habit by people unaware of its consequences, rather than as an intentional strategy. My guess is that it is an intentional strategy (in fact, it'd be crazy if it weren't), and it's important to see it as that in order to figure out what function it's serving (and for whom).
Or both: for journalists, the focus on meta is an intentional strategy, but for the rest of us (people who read journalism), it's mostly a bad habit (maybe, or something).
Another, broader thing here, which is that there are really two different conversations your post sparks for me. One is, what is the existing media/news doing, really, and how, and why? And the other is, what does actually good and effective media/news look like?