← Back to context

Comment by wizzwizz4

9 days ago

> But what do I do with them? How do I use that evidence to hold news media to account?

Contact their rivals with the story, have them write a hit piece. "Other newspaper is telling porkies: here's the proof!" is an excellent story: not one I'd expect a journalist to have time to discover, but certainly one I'd expect them to be able to follow up on, once they've received a tip.

That’s not how publishing works. News outlets (especially those of roughly similar political leaning) very rarely call out each other’s misconduct. In fact, they often seem to operate as a quasi-conglomerate rather than competitors.

  • If they're not doing real journalism, why are you paying any attention to them? There are hundreds of small journalism groups who will call each other out just as easily as collaborate, who care primarily for truth and secondarily for putting food on the table (and therefore rarely have anything to call out). Many of their journalists have quit (or been fired from) the big news organisations, or would have been snapped up 50 years ago but are presently unhireable.

    For the record, I'm talking about actual journalism groups, not Substack blogs. Here's one (largely US-centric) list, a ≈dozen links long: https://hcommons.social/@zeblarson/115488066909889058. You almost certainly have local journalists who need your support, which obviously I cannot list here.