Media Herds, Now and Forever?

This however does not mean that this objective of prioritizing the original over the stale or the heterodox over the myopic is not still a worthwhile one and to be fair some of the outlets that were part of that post2015 media renaissance have fared better than others UnHerd for instance comes to mind As we enter 2022 it is important for media outlets to remember the spirit of those media projects that sought to do things differently even if in the end they fell short To state the obvious actively pursuing the truth of things regardless of ruffling feathers within one39s chosen tribe is both essential for practicing journalism correctly and for maintaining credibility with readers and viewers over time In the short term playing to one39s base might be tenable but eventually outlets will be penalized for sacrificing originality and incisive thinking at the altar of fealty to party orthodoxy especially when said orthodoxy is constantly in fluxClearly human beings are tribal with social psychology eg The Robbers Cave Experiment compelling theories in evolutionary biologyamp160and common sense all working in concert to confirm this Interestingly though in today39s largely secular and ethnically diverse Western democracies ideological tribe has in many ways replaced historical divisions along the lines of race and religion With this in mind it is hardly surprising that profitconscious media outlets would look to cater to each ideological subset of the population as they say in business quotspecializequot quotidentify your target marketquotAnd the Intellectual Dark Web was not the only loosely affiliated group of writers commentatorsamp160and journalists that became an ideological subset of its own For instance I have also discussed what I dubbed quotthe Aaron Matamp233 Clubquot another batch of critics of the critics so to speak who became far too predictableBut that is the nature of how ideological groups operate after all One starts with a good idea or at least a reasonable idea and then takes it too far Historically this has taken many forms from overapplying Darwin39s findings to seeking to extrapolate Einstein39s theory of relativity to cultural questions to taking a few kernels of interesting insights from Marxist interpretations of history way too far In the case of the Intellectual Dark Web its leaders39 laser focus on the value of universally accessible reason and technological advance came at the cost of appreciating other elements of the human condition For the Aaron Matamp233 Club zeroing in on a few neoChomskyite interpretations of American foreign policy and views about how corporations operate has made it difficult to view events individually rather than as part of predetermined patterns However as I wrote in the past and would say again today these criticisms do not detract from my view that both the Intellectual Dark Web and the Aaron Matamp233 Club are largely correct on certain subjects and at times or even frequently have interesting things to sayIn an interview with Nigel Warburton for his podcast Philosophy Bites Back the author and political theorist Chandran Kukathas recalled a dinner he had attended during his student days at Oxford to honor Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek that was organized by young fans of hisquotTowards the end of the evening someone stood up and proposed a toast to Professor Hayek and he of course had to respond He got up rather wearily I think he had had enough of these sorts of occasions by now he was in his eighties He only said one simple thing He said thank you very much and that he appreciated the gesture The only thing he wanted to say was that he hoped that there would never be Hayekians in the world because he thought that followers were always a bad idea and followers were always much worse than the people they followed Marxists were much worse than Marx Keynesians were much worse than Keynes and so he really hoped there wouldn39t be any HayekiansquotSimilarly as Robert Vinten writes quotWhen Rush Rhees said to Wittgenstein that he was thinking of joining the Revolutionary Communist Party Wittgenstein tried to dissuade him from doing so on the basis that as a philosopher you should always be prepared to change direction and being loyal to a party would not allow you the necessary flexibility to change coursequotAs readers of this column by now would surely expect me to say this advice ought to apply to both individual journalists and the media outlets that employ them Although I say the following knowing how unlikely it is to take place I hope that 2022 might finally be a year during which the press begins to learn this lesson And even if outlets do not want to implement these changes for theoretical or purely journalistic reasons it is very much in their best survival interest over time to do soClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Media Herds, Now and Forever?

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Erich J. Prince

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