When journalists write things like “it [Mueller’s inquiry] would also leave a major blot on Trump’s presidency” (FT) or “the fall of Flynn came on a day that should have been a moment of triumph for the president” (NYT), they’re legacy-flogging — pushing a faux-historical perspective that compensates for the hysteria of the ever-shrinking ‘news cycle.’ Both extremes are destructive. The time scale of news is turning out to be important in ways we’re only beginning to recognize. The negative examples come easy (CNN, Twitter, etc), but what’s the positive model that you’d support? The irony is that pre-cable TV was pretty good: a regular, ritualized focus on daily reporting and weekly analysis. But the people who could make this argument — media scholars, basically — can’t make it effectively because they’d be tarred as apologists, nostalgists, or even reactionaries pining for the good ole days of the American Consensus. That may sound academic, but it really isn’t: it’s a question you can ask yourself as you skim through your social-mediated news feeds every day and decide who and what you’ll take the time to read and share.Dec 02, 2017 11:43:54 am