4 ms·

When a 9 year old consistently does your job better and more thoroughly than you do purely out of enjoyment maybe it's a sign that you should try harder.

exolymph 11y ago
Granted, she's subsidized by her parents. Real reporters have to serve a business, even if they're not directly involved in discussions of revenue and strategy. Often journalists aren't given the time or resources to dig up stories and vet them thoroughly.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  What is she getting from her parents that helps with digging up stories and vetting them? She's subsidized in the sense of receiving food, clothing, and shelter, but all businesses also provide those things to their employees. This: > Often journalists aren't given the time or resources to dig up stories and vet them thoroughly. (my emphasis) is not a response to the fact that she's publishing stories faster than they are.
  - exolymph 11y ago
    Businesses pay employees with the goal of ROI. Parents typically expect a 0x return on their money (at least in the near term, by which I mean decades). Therefore businesses' employees need to do work that contributes to revenue (listicles) whereas children can do whatever their parents allow them to (in this case, local news). You make a good point about the time competition, but I was responding re: "better" not "faster".
- click170 11y ago
  And they wonder where their subscribers are all going...
- alexmat 11y ago
  "She also publishes and distributes a print edition once a month, with paid mail subscriptions for $10 a year." Doesn't say how many subscriptions, but it wouldn't take too many for her to contribute to rent. Impressive for a 9 year old.
  - exolymph 11y ago
    $10/year would require an enormous number of subscribers before her time was competitively compensated -- 3,000 at least, and that's assuming no overhead. Her town isn't big enough to support that.
- rjbwork 11y ago
  And thus, the sad decline of our media. Beholden to CPMs, CTRs, UPVs, CPAs, CPLs, CRs, and a dozen other acronyms that mean one thing - more eyeballs == more money. So they write in the fastest, most outrageous, most viral manner possible. They're incentivized to do things like clickbait, and outrage/yellow journalism to keep people spreading it, whether they agree with the viewpoint, or dispute the facts, because it's better to get the eyeballs than have any kind of integrity or skill at the profession.
  - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    Why is that? Where does that incentive come from?
    - Sacho 11y ago
      The funding model for journalism is advertisement. Advertisement generally follows the line of more views = more money. We call "clickbait" and "viral" stories that get viewed by the most people, regardless of their content. This means that journalists will focus on "clickbait" rather than a niche story that only a tiny fraction of their viewership will read. Also, sourcing and vetting clearly take time, which could instead be spent producing more "clickbait" stories. Unless you're oversaturating the market, producing more "clickbait" is the rational action over producing quality journalism. Furthermore, quality journalism requires expertise, which costs more. Compared to that, "clickbait" stories require adopting a certain writing skill which is in much larger supply. Thus follows that you would hire "clickbait" writers instead of journalists, because you'd be paying them less for more profit. Really, pretty much every incentive in journalism fights the naivety of "professionalism" and "integrity", so it's little wonder that the state of journalism is as it is. I am reminded of a short anecdote I read on HN the other day. People say they want sugarless yogurt, but every market research shows that they actually prefer the sugared variant. "We" say we want "good journalism", but clearly more people are reading tabloids and "clickbait". Whether that is because "we" are the minority, or because "we" are hypocrites is unclear, but that's reality.
      - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
- deepnet 11y ago
  The actors who play journalist on TV news and the well indoctrinated writers who fill Newspapers on behalf of wealthy owners have no integrity at all. This young woman does; Glen Greenwald, Dan Ellsberg, Bernstein & Woodward do. Telling truth to power is hard labour, maybe jailtime & surveillance, or intimidation to reveal sources. Real journalism is only produced by a passion for truth, it is dangerous work. There are few true believers among those who choose the title journalist. Journalism is not about money; rather determination & cojones.
- JackFr 11y ago
  The true subsidy vis-a-vis real journalists is the lack of consequence she faces for being wrong. It's unlikely she'd face a lawsuit regardless of what she said. If she were badly misinformed or made up elements of her story no one would care (nor should they -- she's nine) But 'real' journalists can have careers and livelihoods ruined by such events.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Sure, some journalists' careers and livelihoods are occasionally ruined for reasons. However, the vast majority of journalists are so routinely wrong about everything that such ruination seems unlikely to be at all related to that.
    - CM30 11y ago
      See, Gawker. Sure, they published thousands of articles that were wrong about their respective subjects. But it was only after someone actually had the money and time to sue them into oblivion that it came back to bite them. The average journalist nowadays seems to have far less fear of being wrong due to not fact checking or poor sources, because it seems consequences for them are nearly non existent.
ank_the_elder 11y ago
I think this may be a situation akin to that 9 year old being Mozart, though. Will love to see what she accomplishes once she is older.
startling 11y ago
Or maybe the 9-year-old is good.
realbarack 11y ago
That's not really fair (maybe you're joking and I'm just really obtuse)—she lives in a town of 5,000 people. Much larger markets than that have proven unable to support a local news industry in the past several years. It's not a better of journalists being lazy, it's a matter of there not being enough demand to support journalists in the first place. (As others have pointed out, this 9-year-old rightly lives with her parents and does not have to support herself.)
- 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
  This sounds like an idea. Get your local school kids to cover local news. A subscription would be fairly cheap since you don't have to really pay the kids a salary. And some of the kids would enjoy it and learn something.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    Yeah, like how to write well. Most adults these days can't seem to do that any more, so it'd be great to have kids learning this by being local journalists. Plus they'd probably do a far better job than adults since they'd be more idealistic and not lazy and not handcuffed by corporate interests.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
hollander 11y ago
> When a 9 year old consistently does your job better and more thoroughly than you do purely out of enjoyment maybe it's a sign that you should try harder. Maybe it's a sign you should find another job.

exolymph 11y ago

Granted, she's subsidized by her parents. Real reporters have to serve a business, even if they're not directly involved in discussions of revenue and strategy. Often journalists aren't given the time or resources to dig up stories and vet them thoroughly.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
What is she getting from her parents that helps with digging up stories and vetting them? She's subsidized in the sense of receiving food, clothing, and shelter, but all businesses also provide those things to their employees. This: > Often journalists aren't given the time or resources to dig up stories and vet them thoroughly. (my emphasis) is not a response to the fact that she's publishing stories faster than they are.
- exolymph 11y ago
  Businesses pay employees with the goal of ROI. Parents typically expect a 0x return on their money (at least in the near term, by which I mean decades). Therefore businesses' employees need to do work that contributes to revenue (listicles) whereas children can do whatever their parents allow them to (in this case, local news). You make a good point about the time competition, but I was responding re: "better" not "faster".
click170 11y ago
And they wonder where their subscribers are all going...
alexmat 11y ago
"She also publishes and distributes a print edition once a month, with paid mail subscriptions for $10 a year." Doesn't say how many subscriptions, but it wouldn't take too many for her to contribute to rent. Impressive for a 9 year old.
- exolymph 11y ago
  $10/year would require an enormous number of subscribers before her time was competitively compensated -- 3,000 at least, and that's assuming no overhead. Her town isn't big enough to support that.
rjbwork 11y ago
And thus, the sad decline of our media. Beholden to CPMs, CTRs, UPVs, CPAs, CPLs, CRs, and a dozen other acronyms that mean one thing - more eyeballs == more money. So they write in the fastest, most outrageous, most viral manner possible. They're incentivized to do things like clickbait, and outrage/yellow journalism to keep people spreading it, whether they agree with the viewpoint, or dispute the facts, because it's better to get the eyeballs than have any kind of integrity or skill at the profession.
- knowaveragejoe 11y ago
  Why is that? Where does that incentive come from?
  - Sacho 11y ago
    The funding model for journalism is advertisement. Advertisement generally follows the line of more views = more money. We call "clickbait" and "viral" stories that get viewed by the most people, regardless of their content. This means that journalists will focus on "clickbait" rather than a niche story that only a tiny fraction of their viewership will read. Also, sourcing and vetting clearly take time, which could instead be spent producing more "clickbait" stories. Unless you're oversaturating the market, producing more "clickbait" is the rational action over producing quality journalism. Furthermore, quality journalism requires expertise, which costs more. Compared to that, "clickbait" stories require adopting a certain writing skill which is in much larger supply. Thus follows that you would hire "clickbait" writers instead of journalists, because you'd be paying them less for more profit. Really, pretty much every incentive in journalism fights the naivety of "professionalism" and "integrity", so it's little wonder that the state of journalism is as it is. I am reminded of a short anecdote I read on HN the other day. People say they want sugarless yogurt, but every market research shows that they actually prefer the sugared variant. "We" say we want "good journalism", but clearly more people are reading tabloids and "clickbait". Whether that is because "we" are the minority, or because "we" are hypocrites is unclear, but that's reality.
    - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
deepnet 11y ago
The actors who play journalist on TV news and the well indoctrinated writers who fill Newspapers on behalf of wealthy owners have no integrity at all. This young woman does; Glen Greenwald, Dan Ellsberg, Bernstein & Woodward do. Telling truth to power is hard labour, maybe jailtime & surveillance, or intimidation to reveal sources. Real journalism is only produced by a passion for truth, it is dangerous work. There are few true believers among those who choose the title journalist. Journalism is not about money; rather determination & cojones.
JackFr 11y ago
The true subsidy vis-a-vis real journalists is the lack of consequence she faces for being wrong. It's unlikely she'd face a lawsuit regardless of what she said. If she were badly misinformed or made up elements of her story no one would care (nor should they -- she's nine) But 'real' journalists can have careers and livelihoods ruined by such events.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Sure, some journalists' careers and livelihoods are occasionally ruined for reasons. However, the vast majority of journalists are so routinely wrong about everything that such ruination seems unlikely to be at all related to that.
  - CM30 11y ago
    See, Gawker. Sure, they published thousands of articles that were wrong about their respective subjects. But it was only after someone actually had the money and time to sue them into oblivion that it came back to bite them. The average journalist nowadays seems to have far less fear of being wrong due to not fact checking or poor sources, because it seems consequences for them are nearly non existent.

ank_the_elder 11y ago

I think this may be a situation akin to that 9 year old being Mozart, though. Will love to see what she accomplishes once she is older.

startling 11y ago

Or maybe the 9-year-old is good.

realbarack 11y ago

That's not really fair (maybe you're joking and I'm just really obtuse)—she lives in a town of 5,000 people. Much larger markets than that have proven unable to support a local news industry in the past several years. It's not a better of journalists being lazy, it's a matter of there not being enough demand to support journalists in the first place. (As others have pointed out, this 9-year-old rightly lives with her parents and does not have to support herself.)

2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
This sounds like an idea. Get your local school kids to cover local news. A subscription would be fairly cheap since you don't have to really pay the kids a salary. And some of the kids would enjoy it and learn something.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Yeah, like how to write well. Most adults these days can't seem to do that any more, so it'd be great to have kids learning this by being local journalists. Plus they'd probably do a far better job than adults since they'd be more idealistic and not lazy and not handcuffed by corporate interests.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

hollander 11y ago

> When a 9 year old consistently does your job better and more thoroughly than you do purely out of enjoyment maybe it's a sign that you should try harder. Maybe it's a sign you should find another job.