Semafor Joins A Very Broken US Media Industry Claiming To Have Found The Cure For Eroded Trust In News. But Have They Really?

Journalism

from the reinventing-the-wheel dept

Former New York Times reporter Ben Smith and friends have launched a new media company named Semafor on the back of $25 million in donations. You might recall that one of the organization’s launch events didn’t go particularly well: a “trust in news” event that somehow didn’t see the problem with platforming and amplifying millionaire propagandist Tucker Carlson as a respectable voice in media.

From the start, Semafor has tried to portray itself as a truly unique take on news, and their introductory post by Smith once again takes this tack. Smith goes through what he believes are the major pitfalls in modern news (too many reporters with opinions! too many outlets telling people what they want to hear! too much focus on the U.S.! not enough outward bound linking to other reporters’ work!).

Many of these problems are true. And both Semafor and Smith claim to have a new formula that will fix all of them in one fell swoop. But when you read the paragraph about what Semafor is specifically doing differently to restore trust in news, it’s filled with fairly routine observations and ideas — presented as if nobody on Earth had ever had them before:

Our approach is more literal, and it’s built from the core principles of journalism. We take people seriously when they say they know that reporters are human beings — and experts in their beats — who have views of their own. But they’d also like us to separate the facts from our views. They’d like us to be humble about the possibility of disagreement. And they’d like us to distill differing views, and gather global perspective.

That’s all fine and good, but again, nothing here is particularly unique. A focus on more international stories is particularly welcome in an understandably U.S.-obsessed press (especially tech), but again, outlets like RestofWorld have already made this observation and are doing a good job serving that underserved market (and in a not particularly dissimilar font).

Fairly routine concepts are portrayed as foundationally revolutionary:

Some of them think we can pull this off. Others think we’re a little nuts. Our approach “flies completely in the face of what most people are currently doing,” Morgan said.

Granted the work will speak for itself, and many of the reporters they’ve collected (including Smith himself) are incredible scoop machines. But the specific claim you’re going to single-handedly restore trust in news — without actually presenting any original thoughts on that front — is bizarre hubris.

The outlet claims one of the key ways they’ll differentiate themselves is by separating out a reporter’s view from the established facts using what they claim is a revolutionary new design for articles that breaks out journalist opinion and analysis into its own section:

But when you actually read some of the pieces in question, the changes in question aren’t particularly revolutionary, and many of the reporters (so far) aren’t being given a long enough leash to truly explore this supposedly newfound freedom:

As Techdirt has pointed out on constant occasions, one of the biggest problems with U.S. news is the “he said, she said,” “view from nowhere” style of reporting that’s prevalent at outlets like Politico, Reuters, Axios, and many others. Reporting that takes a pseudo-objective approach to news, framing everything with a bizarre false-symmetry that buries factual reality in a pile of perfectly balanced quotes.

This kind of reporting spent decades burying the truth on subjects like racism, climate change, and corruption. It’s also been just mercilessly exploited by fascist propagandists and white supremacists the world over who are eager to “flood the zone with shit,” degrade trust in established institutions and the press, and befuddle the public before introducing their easy solution (hate anyone who isn’t like them).

Calling a spade a spade (in this case a massive, effective right wing conspiracy and propaganda apparatus built over 45 years across old and new media) will cost you readership, so it’s arguable that Semafor literally can’t fix (much less honestly identify) a major source of the trust in news erosion they claim to have a solution for. David Roberts offered up this thread that gets at a lot of what’s frustrating me:

The real money is in sacrificing truth to placate everybody — most especially the U.S. right wing — lest you lose Conservative viewers. You can see outlets like CNN and CBS embracing this pivot. It results in a sort of mushy Axios/Politico “both sides” journalism that again normalizes fascism because it’s financially disadvantageous to honestly and candidly call out conspiratorial authoritarianism as what it is.

You’re simply going to make more money placating authoritarians and hoovering up the ad-engagement bucks created by the controversial, divisive bile they’re pumping into the discourse.

It’s all underpinned by a myopic institutionalism that thinks reporters should be fired for expressing human opinions on Twitter (or for having done some activism in college), but is happy to pander to Amazon during Prime Day, or remain blithely obtuse to how the inherent bias of white, affluent, male, editorial leadership helped normalize everything from climate disaster to creeping U.S. authoritarianism.

Again, there’s very little indication from Smith’s post that Semafor and its editorial leadership understand any of this. And again, the outlet’s very first event, specifically focused on “restoring trust in news,” platformed a key far right propagandist as a legitimate journalist without, at any time, calling a duck a duck or holding his feet to the fire for a decade of dangerous and ignorant propaganda.

That doesn’t portend great things editorially, and while hopefully the outlet’s quality reporting truly does restore some faith in the press at a very dangerous time in U.S. politics, there’s also a very real possibility this is just Axios in a new font, run by trust fund DC access brunchlords with an overpowering allergy to upsetting powerful advertisers, event sponsors, and sources when it truly matters.

Filed Under: ben smith, corruption, editorial, fascism, he said she said, journalism, media, media criticism, reporting, semafor, trust in news, tucker carlson
Companies: semafor