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Remember Reddit's Boston Bomber fiasco after all.
Every time some of these YouTube people call themselves "Media" I think of that. It also reminds me of the early 2000s when blogs called themselves "New Journalism."
People. Never. Fucking. Learn no matter how hard they get burnt over and over and over. These "new media" people don't belong to any professional association. They don't have to abide by any journalistic code of ethics decided by their profession. They never trained to be journalists. Hey guess what it turns out that shit matters? And when you DON'T have any of that, Jayson Blairs become the rule instead of the exception, and when they're caught they hide behind "But I'm Not A Rapper" until people stop paying attention and then they go back to playing Internet Pixel Detective.
None of these people are worthy of any more repute than their $20 Amazon mics. "New Media" isn't even really news, it's just an online transposition of shock-jock op-edding that has been shitting on our public discourse since Rush took over radio in the late eighties.
To all supporters of Ethan I have a simple question, what should the career consequences be for this slander and witch-hunt he started against this reporter (and still has not fully retracted)?
Cuz if your answer is "Ethan doesn't have to do shit, it was just an understandable mistake," then you aren't actually holding Ethan to the standards of journalism. You're just holding him up as your hero because he reifies a momentary, convenient narrative that's only motivated by your stupid, identitarian loyalties. This cancer has taken over our media, sure it all started with FOX in the '90s but at this point it's metastasized so hard that an entire generation is infected from left to right. You could probably find the exact same posters slamming WSJ for "attacking Youtube" in /r/videos and then see them upvoting WSJ articles in /r/politics because they "attack Trump." Whatever serves the narrative must be true and doublethinking a source to be brilliant investigative journalism and tabloid garbage, in the exact same issue, depending on which headline you're reading, is now apparently an effortless feat for most of America.
It's all become a search for that sweet sweet BTFO. SJWs Cucked! Trump Obliterated! Maddow Eviscerates! Jon Stewart was making fun of it 10 years ago, but now it's our entire media culture. "Consider the source" no longer exists. It was blasted into fucking oblivion by Twitter and by Reddit and by Youtube and by Blogger and yes, however much you post-millennials might resist it, by the sad attributionary-equivalent-of-a-fucking-hangnail that is Wikipedia. The concept of credible vs tabloid media, of news vs editorial, of FACTS vs hallucinatory nonsense, aaaaall evaporates behind the only markers that matter on a newspiece anymore: WHAT'S THE NARRATIVE and WHO ARE WE STRINGING UP. The exact same Media Obscurantism ("Ya can't trust anybody, it's all profit driven, and everyone has been discredited at one point or another!") that people are replying to THIS POST with in droves, is nothing but a pathetic excuse for only believing the headlines that reify your biases. The same Redditors who are lightning quick to point out a story they don't like is sourced anonymously, then turn around and post a fucking Google translate of a Wordpress blog hosted in Neo-Elbonia as proof of a far reaching international conspiracy.
And so an august national paper, one of America's top three papers of record, an institution that - whatever you think of its op-ed page - has been doing hard hitting, truly investigative, truly accountability-creating journalism since before most of Reddit first masturbated to Minecraft Creeper Rule 34, this paper that prints news is now considered to be no more trustworthy than some dickbag's Youtube channel for creating neoconfederate AMV's, all because the latter is siding with your two favorite Content CreatorsTM and their FUCKING GANG BEAST LET'S PLAYS AND VAPE NATION PARODIES.
We as a citizenry are so fucking beyond saving when it comes to truth as a public, civic concept. The Donald people are just ahead of the curve.
I gotta say that this is a pretty accurate description of modern internet media and its perception by young folks.