Yes – I think he makes some interesting points though is overly extreme – i.e. maintaining that almost everyone will be immediately corrupted in a corporate environment, which seems contradicted by many examples, including those in the post.

That’s a great point. When I worked as a journalist I had the luxury of twice-monthly deadlines. I covered lots of events that were covered by other journalists in television, radio, and daily newspapers who had to file stories every day, and they took very different approaches to mine in covering the same stories. Having more time allowed me to follow up with interviewees and ask deeper questions, and interviewees had the benefit of time and distance from events to process them more fully. Daily journalists often ask interviewees, “what’s your reaction?” I never asked that question.

Editors and publishers drive much of the inaccuracies and sensationalism in daily news reporting, so it’s not always the journalists’ fault. There is pressure from publishers to sell (sell physical newspapers or drive readers’ eyes to television networks or websites), and pressure from editors to deliver compelling stories that people want to read. Long-form readers tend to have different expectations and want more depth and complexity, so the pressures are different.

But the economics of long-form journalism are different as well, and it’s especially difficult for freelancers. When I was a freelancer I wanted to work on long-form stories, but that mean going months without any income while I did my research and interviews. So I had to do quick turnaround stories as well just to bring in money each month, which then made it hard to maintain focus on long-form stories.

It would seem pretty easy for journalists who are constantly churning out politically or socially relevant pieces to often rely on hasty, under-analyzed, or recycled arguments or assumptions that make it relatively easy for skeptics or opponents to dismiss the arguments. Are journalists who post a large amount of content every day or every week much more prone to these types of errors than maybe freelance essayists or book writers who can take more time with their arguments? And how much do these types of errors actually undermine the effectiveness of journalism that wants to do good? Does the kind of precision and accuracy (and possibly over-thinking) that is easier to achieve outside a daily grind of content production not actually contribute all that much? Is just getting the argument out there – even if it’s not the strongest possible version of the argument – good enough?

I’m not thinking of longform essays like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece on reparations, which obviously took a lot of time, thought and research. I’m thinking more of sites like Vox or Business Insider, where much of the content has to be turned around quickly.

Speaking as a former journalist myself, I can understand the dilemma: you have the potential to influence public opinion that can lead the way to change, but in most cases it’s an indirect pathway and you as a journalist play an outsider role: you’ve simply helped initiate the change and it’s up to others to follow through. Since you’re not engaged in the process, you can’t play much of a role in influencing the outcome. That can be frustrating.

I felt that frustration at times myself when I worked as a journalist: my role was as an observer rather than a participant, and I’ve heard this same distinction used by other ex-journalists. They wanted to be in the game rather than “merely” reporting on it.

You can approach journalism as a scientist, driven by objectivity and accuracy, or you can approach it as an advocate, driven by the desire to right wrongs and help change the world. Those are two very different career paths in journalism and it’s worth pondering your motivations. Ultimately, though, as some of the interviewees pointed out, if you hope to make journalism a career you need to enjoy the process of uncovering a story (which in fact is similar to scientific inquiry) and the process of telling that story. You’ll spend most of your 80,000 hours engaged in those activities.