3 ms·

Whilst there are obvious downsides to having a few powerful organisations pushing (their version of) "the truth", there are some upsides: those orgs rely on the

Whilst there are obvious downsides to having a few powerful organisations pushing (their version of) "the truth", there are some upsides: those orgs rely on their reputation, and they're great big targets for lawsuits or even just competition (if newspaper A is too blatant with their lies/spin, newspaper B can call them out on it). The difference with social media is that we still have a few powerful organisations, but they're no longer the source of content: if/when blatant lies are spread by Facebook, their reputation isn't at stake because everyone knows they didn't create those lies. With the amount of data moving through these systems, it also seems hard to blame them for not catching things effectively, since that's such a hard problem. Like people asking for YouTube uploads to be viewed by a human before approval: there's no way to make such a scheme workable, so we kind of let them off. Another tricky aspect of social media is the ability to target the audience quite narrowly. With a newspaper, everyone gets the same content, so the news being read by the impressionable or vulnerable is the same as the news being read by the skeptical and the expert. The latter can complain when something seems off, and that protects the former. Yet these days we can specifically target conspiracy theories, propaganda, etc. only to those we think will be vulnerable to it. The well-informed, skeptical experts won't complain, since they never even know it exists.

mc32 9y ago
These days of online "newsmedia/newspapers" are not the same as the old days of print media. They are after clicks and they tend to write to their core audiences. This means HuffPo, WaPo and WaEx write to their audience to the detriment of any semblance of evenness. When it comes to policy they all seem to have pet audiences whose agenda they push rather than examine the pros and cons --these days they seem to push agendas blindly or by cherry picking data.
- danso 9y ago
  > These days of online "newsmedia/newspapers" are not the same as the old days of print media How "old" are we talking about? 10, 20 years ago? The newspapers that inspired the Founding Fathers to give explicit protection to the press? The days of Joseph Pulitzer? Because despite his namesake award, it sounds like he ran his newspapers about as upstandingly as the most clickbait service you can think of today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in_San_Francisco.2C_Pulitzer_in_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in_Sa...
  - mc32 9y ago
    Even 20 years ago. Newsmedia tried to drive the issues of the greater society --at times that meant participating in Mockingbird ops, but I think they honestly did what they thought was for the benefit of the country at large. I think that fell apart during Clinton's second term where things got really partisan and we've not recovered from that. We used to cooperate on things like Gun rights/control, Abortion, Civil Rights, etc. Now there is no overt commonality. They retreat to their corner and vilify the opposing view. Nowadays, it's more about driving issues at the edge --things that will get a rise out of both foe and friend.

mc32 9y ago

These days of online "newsmedia/newspapers" are not the same as the old days of print media. They are after clicks and they tend to write to their core audiences. This means HuffPo, WaPo and WaEx write to their audience to the detriment of any semblance of evenness. When it comes to policy they all seem to have pet audiences whose agenda they push rather than examine the pros and cons --these days they seem to push agendas blindly or by cherry picking data.

danso 9y ago
> These days of online "newsmedia/newspapers" are not the same as the old days of print media How "old" are we talking about? 10, 20 years ago? The newspapers that inspired the Founding Fathers to give explicit protection to the press? The days of Joseph Pulitzer? Because despite his namesake award, it sounds like he ran his newspapers about as upstandingly as the most clickbait service you can think of today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in_San_Francisco.2C_Pulitzer_in_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in_Sa...
- mc32 9y ago
  Even 20 years ago. Newsmedia tried to drive the issues of the greater society --at times that meant participating in Mockingbird ops, but I think they honestly did what they thought was for the benefit of the country at large. I think that fell apart during Clinton's second term where things got really partisan and we've not recovered from that. We used to cooperate on things like Gun rights/control, Abortion, Civil Rights, etc. Now there is no overt commonality. They retreat to their corner and vilify the opposing view. Nowadays, it's more about driving issues at the edge --things that will get a rise out of both foe and friend.