Why is hacked material so much more exciting to Americans than investigative journalism?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

I saw this both on the left and the right this cycle, where Podesta and DNC emails were shared so heavily on twitter, whereas good investigative journalism from wapo, nytimes etc were completely ignored.

Why is that?

I have some personal hypotheses about it, but was wondering if you guys had any.

I'm in India with limited access so may not be able to respond until later.

[triron]

1. Because they are stupid is the short answer

Short attention span and lack of deliberation are part of the 'stupidity'.

[democratisphere]

2. They love the seediness of it all.

Same reason they LOVE the National Enquirer

[EffieBlack]

3. Excellent question

[bettyellen]

4. Best question and I've seen so many slink away not answering ...

Something about the packaging these days they want to repeat the same crap that's been handed to them. Maddox was great tonight took a page from DT and proclaimed he lied to us all bigly four times. Because that's what it takes I guess.

I'm hoping it's going to get better. Are you in NYC or DC for the march?

[UCmeNdc]

5. Because the Russian Cyber spies was spreading the email information in a coordinated manner

The Russians made sure the email stuff was everywhere.

[Sunlei]

8. yeah those Republicans sure spammed stolen files everywhere, like they didn't care it was stolen.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. Probably the same kind of people who get upset when science doesn't answer EVERYTHING.

"They won't even say what dark matter is! So much for science! Somebody give me answers, damn it! Ooh... here's a site explaining how NASA faked the Moon landings!"

They're mentally lazy, think everything's "just an opinion" and they're emotional (often angry).

[Sunlei]

7. because it's hell on eyes to read more than headlines on a bitty cellphone.

even email political spams & spams count on headline only readers.

[Lurks Often]

9. Because the NYT & WAPO are considered just as biased

in favor of the Left as Fox News is considered bias in favor of the Right.

[frazzled]

10. Especially when the hacked emails don't really have much content of interest

I'd take your question a step further: why does the fact that emails are hacked and leaked become a story about the victim, redounding negatively onto them, even when there's nothing very damning contained in them?

I agree with those who say it's about a headline. And somehow, getting hacked casts some weird shadow on the hackee, not the hacker. It's as if people's thinking process is: if that person or institution got hacked, there's something in there they wanted to hide. Don't know what it is, but it must be bad.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

11. A greater sense of involvement?

Excitement and adventure, maybe?

I was given a cheapie Chromebook last summer, which allowed me to spend more time reading news and politics during the election cycle. I hate the keyboard on the thing, so I avoided the usual range of sites, where I would want to log in to comment and post. I ended up drawn to the fascinating cesspool of Reddit's r/politics, where I had a chance to observe folks who were really wrapped up in the Wikileaks stuff.

They all seemed to share a tremendous excitement at being able to examine and assess the leaked materials firsthand. Pretty much all of them accepted the interpretations of and conclusions about the material that were handed to them by the RW media, but they seemed to feel like they were doing serious investigative work themselves, and they were thrilled to at least feel like they were contributing to a cause.

Maybe they felt like they were part of a shared project, because of this. I've been active, in the past, at some computer programming forums, where we sometimes collaborated on community projects. These really generated a sense of unity, an excitement at being part of a group that is getting things done. I suppose the same sort of feeling abounds at places like 4chan, with all the memes and whatnot -- and there was plenty of 4channiness present in the online Alt-Right movement during the election. They felt like they were part of something as active participants, by dredging through the hacked material or creating and promoting their memes. The "Deplorables" speech seemed to give them a sense of unity, and even folks who were ostensibly on our side openly rose to the defense of Pepe the frog.

So... maybe folks value the sense of engagement the hacked material offered them. Maybe people just like gossip and other people's dirty laundry. I dunno. It's been interesting, and scary, to watch this happening.