Journalism is about hurting people: locating ways to expose them to ridicule, shame, financial loss, prosecution, ostracism, sometimes threats to life and family. We can pretend otherwise, but itโs true in the way that law is based on violence- an uncomfortable unstated premise.
What justifies journalism is a mix of individual rights and a set of values and ethics that pledge those who engage in the practice to only hurt those who deserve it. The problem isnโt Lorenz individually, itโs that the shared social context and values of the industry are gone.
With the loss of those values and assumptions, the corresponding shared narrative of journalists as defenders of democracy and human rights turns to ashes; the underlying aggression of the pursuit becomes too obvious. Thus what journalism is has to change, or who it serves.
There are two choices: journalists can confront this fracturing of values and report as accurately and reservedly as possible on competing views; or they can become select horsemen in a cause, scouts and outriders whose job it is to pick out targets, same as ever, for one master.
Most outlets will choose the latter: itโs the same old role theyโre used to playing with just a few minor adjustments, and anyway it pays better and makes more friends than the alternative. In a shrinking industry, thatโs the ballgame. Lorenz is just a product of this process.
Much as with law (and literature, and art, and faith, and etc.) the failure to confront and take seriously the unspoken premises of the endeavor are ultimately the seeds of the ruin of what it once was. That which time will destroy, it first makes terribly familiar.
Loading suggestions...