Julia Carrie Wong: kind of embarrassing not to understand that there is a difference between “things the public is interested in” and “thing that is in the public interest”

kind of embarrassing not to understand that there is a difference between “things the public is interested in” and “thing that is in the public interest”

Said reporters seem pretty annoyed to be prevented from doing it

ok I dunno if this dude is actually dumb or just pretending to be dumb but pretty much every jury selection process involves requiring people to disclose whether they/their family have been the victim of a crime or accused of a crime so, no, it’s not usually just “fun and funny”

These are the whitest whites. Anything involving real life and its messiness is strange and neat to them even though they are FUCKING REPORTERS

So many people showing they've never interacted with the criminal justice system outside of SVU marathons on TNT.

i want to hit him with a brick

Nothing could matter less than the neighbourhoods the jurors live in! A lot of people in the media never cover trials and do so for the first time on high profile shit like this

There is a time tested way to explain who is on a jury panel well known to journalists who cover trials: after selection cover the demographics of the jury as a body. Not talking about them as individuals. But when you gotta tweet all fuckin day every day, you can’t cover it like that. Need content!

Political reporters are the ones largely covering the trial. They're so lost in the game they see politics as that they can't possibly fathom the stakes are anything other than the esoteric concept of outcomes they've reduced political conflict to.

I've always low-key felt political reporting is for people who couldn't even hack sports reporting, so finding out they think "public interest" means "juicy gossip" isn't that surprising to me

Sports reporting requires facts. And even if a sports reporter wants a specific team to win, they can't spread lies to help their favorite. Political reporters are by and large lying scum who want Trump back in office.

See also: Her Emails, the Podesta emails, Climate gate, really any out of context statements in FOIA material.

You had to know there was already a pratchett book about this very idea

I did. I've read almost all of them, and Sir Pterry (GNU) rarely missed a topic.

when the trolley meme is the guiding principle of your journalism

it is at best a tantrum about not getting to do whatever they want.

Just really well said. They're like a pack of jackals.

this is SO well-put

there are very few real journalists - there are mostly mouthpieces of empire, meant to create rage bait and disseminate misinformation and manufacture consent in real time; this is yet another example of the mainstream media working against the public

I've never covered a trial but it seems to me the public interest angle would be "is the jury biased" and you don't have to doxx the jurors for that? That assumes you can tell if they're willing to set aside their political leanings by talking about where they live and stuff and like No? Duh?

I don’t think there is much of a role for the press in testing the potential bias of a jury, and certainly not at this early stage. That’s what voir dire is for. Juror anonymity is a separate issue, and in this case the judge decided it was in the interest of justice, and therefore the public.

Yes, and in fact reporting on it this way, as if it were in the public interest for readers to judge for themselves, only serves to validate Trump's "it's impossible for me to get a fair trial in NY" whining. They are eagerly cooperating with his attempt to undermine the system.

just can't wait to compare & contrast the press insinuations about what sorts of things make an individual juror potentially biased versus what sorts of things cannot be in any way considered to make an individual journalist or editor biased

The idea that Trump can only get justice from a jury of people who have not had any personal reaction to his presidency is just so stupid.

As a simple, humble member of the press, it is my understanding that for a fair trial, a juror in a Donald Trump trial must be a centuries-old philosopher, be of incalculably independent wealth, and also must have lived the last decades in an isolation chamber protected from any anti-Trump thoughts.

It’s not uncommon for journalists to balance these kinds of competing interest. Also happens with, for example, underage victims of sexual assault. The public might be interested in knowing the victims name, but it is in the interest of society that the information be withheld.

Newsroom should be in a constant state of reevaluating traditions and policy. Always used to remind my former boss that we ran the newsroom, and if we didn’t like some dusty old way of doing things, then we could simply decide to stop doing it. Of course you can do things, but do you really need to?

🎯

Props. The "journalist" fails to understand that the complexity of protections for all under the US Constitution and legal system DO NOT evaporate when he chooses to exercise a single right for himself.

Have you not heard? Equivocation is the new false equivalence! All the cool journos are doing it

Hard to get a man to understand something when…

I wonder if the economically precarious position of journalism is driving this to some extent, if journos now have a "dog eat dog" mentality that short-circuits their judgement. If I don't do this someone else will anyway and we'll lose out.

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