This is ultimately a consequence of the attention economy, which is absolutely harmful for most everyone in the long term, with the exception of, you know, Elon, Sam, Mark and the like.
I'm confident this phenomenon exists in other industries too.
Is there a term that's equivalent to "reactionary" but applies to leftist/liberal ideals or is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary" save that I apply some sort of qualifier like "leftist" or "liberal" before or afterwards?
Uncritically regurgitating what sources tell you is not journalism. It's too lazy to rise to the level of propaganda. It's more like writing them a press release for free.
Like media reporting about Trump. Trump is a (mostly) fake-news generator. The problem is that the traditional media is largely structued to suit different goals, often the owner (make more money), in part to send out a certain narrative (propaganda). Or both.
I don't have a good work-around for this either. I try to gather news from different sources and use my brain, but even then my brain is influenced a lot by what information is given. Youtube is kind of great and awful here; great because you may have critical content (e. g. I like Vlad Vexler's thinking and reasoning, even if I may not always agree with the rationale, analysis, premise or outcome), but there is also soooo much propaganda on youtube. Tons of parrots repeating a certain narrative. Peter Zeihan is my personal disfavourite right now (the recent "How to Break Iran" is pure propaganda IMO) but there are so many more examples, influencers too. One day I'll need to disconnect myself from youtube (and, in the process, Google); right now I admit I am too addicted to some of it (the content, not the platform; the platform pisses me off. It is not even usable anymore without ublock origin).
I've come to the conclusion recently that if a tech CEO is pushing for something , it's probably something normal people should be fighting against. To the point where "Elon/Mark/Jensen/Peter wants society to do [thing]" is a pretty strong signal that [thing] is actually a terrible idea.
The thing this article does not cover is that the average journalist has no sway. Most readers don't want the opinion of some random person covering a space, so "CEO Said a Thing" is the headline that draws the reader in. Many times the journalist also is not getting paid enough to inject any sort of counterpoint or unique perspective. This just seems like the natural outcome of the click-whoring online "news" structure we've created.
Then a better approach would be to not report on CEO's ramblings, and instead focus journalistic resources on topics of more interest to society. But, as the article points, that is not the purpose of journalism (at least in the United States).
Another restatement of Brandolini’s Law. The cost of parroting this kind of information is very low, while the cost of refuting it is very high. And the value an outlet can extract from its readership to fund that refutation is nowhere close to cover its outlay. Maybe a counter is the occasional take-down article can sometimes go more viral than the original claim, but chasing those is probably unprofitable too.
This is all a result of the techbro "genius" worship culture that YC & co are definitely guilty in helping to create. Writing code on a computer doesn't make anyone smarter than anyone else, and hopefully people will wake up to that fact sooner rather than later.
>I'd end with some noble call for the U.S. media industry to do better, but it's abundantly clear they don't want to.
Yeah, shrinking revenue, lawsuits, death threats, buyouts and takeovers, government strong-arming all contribute to not really wanting to fight the fight that they need to.
There isn't a solution to this as you can't bankroll media outlets or journalists and not expect to be considered biased. The revenue has to come from every day people. So if the revenue isn't there to pay the best people, you're simply not going to have a good, independent media industry any more. Any very-rich person bankrolling that probably also has political affiliations, which again introduces bias.
With rising cost of living, the population will clearly cut out the media subscriptions thinking that the free journalism slop is enough to keep them informed.
It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe.
> You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers).
That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit.
Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
As an aside, Mark Zuckerberg claiming that you’ll be at a “cognitive disadvantage” if you don’t use Meta Glasses is hilarious and beyond out of touch. If anything, you’re at a social advantage for not constantly recording your peers like some pervert. They really are “creeper glasses”
> The result is a sort of alternative reality journalistic simulacrum that kind of looks like journalism, but genuinely isn't interested in any context or truth that upsets the apple cart. It's a sort of journalistic Ken Doll with the genitals sanded off to a smooth hump to avoid offending anyone.
> This lazy simulacrum tends to be a death knell for genuine public interest reporting, resulting in a press that broadly normalizes (or just outright ignores) rampant corruption and real world impact.
Amazing article, and beautifully crafted conclusion. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Your sentiment is shared by many, even if the media wants you to believe otherwise with all the “CEO said a thing!” journalism.
"What Elon Musk think or at least pretend to think" is indeed an useful/interesting piece of information, and I don’t see why a commentary on it is necessary or particularly useful ?
I mean, I can do the "critical reading of CEO claim" part myself, thank you very much.
And it’s not just CEOs. Politicians, spokepersons of foreign nations, academics, journalists also do that "X said a thing" thing. It’s perfectly fine. I don’t need or desire the personal take of the journalist on that declaration. They have opinion pieces for that.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 35.8 ms ] threadJensen thinks DLSS 5 works at "the geometry level", for instance. Oh and he pays engineers $500,000 to spend $250,000 on Claude tokens.
Is there a term that's equivalent to "reactionary" but applies to leftist/liberal ideals or is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary" save that I apply some sort of qualifier like "leftist" or "liberal" before or afterwards?
I don't have a good work-around for this either. I try to gather news from different sources and use my brain, but even then my brain is influenced a lot by what information is given. Youtube is kind of great and awful here; great because you may have critical content (e. g. I like Vlad Vexler's thinking and reasoning, even if I may not always agree with the rationale, analysis, premise or outcome), but there is also soooo much propaganda on youtube. Tons of parrots repeating a certain narrative. Peter Zeihan is my personal disfavourite right now (the recent "How to Break Iran" is pure propaganda IMO) but there are so many more examples, influencers too. One day I'll need to disconnect myself from youtube (and, in the process, Google); right now I admit I am too addicted to some of it (the content, not the platform; the platform pisses me off. It is not even usable anymore without ublock origin).
If you are half wrong with your first examples, maybe you should focus on yourself first?
I get the point you are trying to make, but you can't do that spreading misinformation. Jesus.
Yeah, shrinking revenue, lawsuits, death threats, buyouts and takeovers, government strong-arming all contribute to not really wanting to fight the fight that they need to.
There isn't a solution to this as you can't bankroll media outlets or journalists and not expect to be considered biased. The revenue has to come from every day people. So if the revenue isn't there to pay the best people, you're simply not going to have a good, independent media industry any more. Any very-rich person bankrolling that probably also has political affiliations, which again introduces bias.
With rising cost of living, the population will clearly cut out the media subscriptions thinking that the free journalism slop is enough to keep them informed.
> A CEO trying to reindustrialize America says blue-collar pay is headed for ‘massive hyperinflation’ and kids should skip college to become welders
> Trump said the Iran war was ‘very complete’ three weeks ago.
> Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says ‘We’ve achieved AGI.’
It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe.
> You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers).
That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit.
Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
> This lazy simulacrum tends to be a death knell for genuine public interest reporting, resulting in a press that broadly normalizes (or just outright ignores) rampant corruption and real world impact.
Amazing article, and beautifully crafted conclusion. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Your sentiment is shared by many, even if the media wants you to believe otherwise with all the “CEO said a thing!” journalism.
Let’s recognize those bait posts as what they are, which for sure is not journalism.
I mean, I can do the "critical reading of CEO claim" part myself, thank you very much.
And it’s not just CEOs. Politicians, spokepersons of foreign nations, academics, journalists also do that "X said a thing" thing. It’s perfectly fine. I don’t need or desire the personal take of the journalist on that declaration. They have opinion pieces for that.