2 ms·

the best answer to the question “what happened?” is not "why don’t you ask a bunch of your friends what they think, organize their views along a spectrum, and t

the best answer to the question “what happened?” is not "why don’t you ask a bunch of your friends what they think, organize their views along a spectrum, and then decide where to plant yourself" Is the purpose of news and journalism to establish what happened? Or why it happened? Or what's likely to happen next because it happened? Or what's important to pay attention to in the first place?

_rpd 9y ago
> “The institutional values of most really good media companies should transcend any individual opinion,” ... argued Joseph Kahn, the managing editor of The New York Times This seems to be the central dispute. Facebook promotes the opinions of friends and family over articles on nytimes.com. I don't think nytimes would care so much but for the fact that so many people are in fact paying more attention to the opinions of friends and family. More than just the lost advertising revenue, this is an existential issue for nytimes and similar content creators.
- wrs 9y ago
  It's an existential issue for American society. Journalism has a function that has evolved in symbiosis with civil society. Friends and family don't fulfill that function, unless you have a very large family made of journalists. Zuckerberg seems to realize this, given the comment about public funding, but that is just an unrealistic throwaway line in the current moment. I don't much like the idea that you can make billions by destroying the support for a pillar of civilization and then say that's not your problem to solve.
ams6110 9y ago
This is the basic "who, what, where, when, why" that is (or was at one time) taught in journalism school (not sure if that sequence is right). Not a lot of "opinion" fits in there, that I can see. Though of course it's nearly impossible for humans, even journalists, to be opinion-free.
- bonaldi 9y ago
  You might look closer at "why".

_rpd 9y ago

> “The institutional values of most really good media companies should transcend any individual opinion,” ... argued Joseph Kahn, the managing editor of The New York Times This seems to be the central dispute. Facebook promotes the opinions of friends and family over articles on nytimes.com. I don't think nytimes would care so much but for the fact that so many people are in fact paying more attention to the opinions of friends and family. More than just the lost advertising revenue, this is an existential issue for nytimes and similar content creators.

wrs 9y ago
It's an existential issue for American society. Journalism has a function that has evolved in symbiosis with civil society. Friends and family don't fulfill that function, unless you have a very large family made of journalists. Zuckerberg seems to realize this, given the comment about public funding, but that is just an unrealistic throwaway line in the current moment. I don't much like the idea that you can make billions by destroying the support for a pillar of civilization and then say that's not your problem to solve.

ams6110 9y ago

This is the basic "who, what, where, when, why" that is (or was at one time) taught in journalism school (not sure if that sequence is right). Not a lot of "opinion" fits in there, that I can see. Though of course it's nearly impossible for humans, even journalists, to be opinion-free.

bonaldi 9y ago
You might look closer at "why".