5 ms·

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (2009)

38 points by wallflower 8y ago

dang 8y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=515749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=515749
- dmfdmf 8y ago
  My 9 year old comment from that thread; >I used to think that the problem with newspapers and journalism was a revenue problem. (e.g. CL took their classified ad revenue). Like a lot of people, I thought that eventually someone would figure out a new source of stable revenues and all would be fine. I now see that the problem is much bigger than that. >I think the important point that is easy to miss is that we are in the very early stages of a major social revolution, probably the biggest in human history. Institutions like the Catholic Church or the NYT and the MSM (today) are what communicate and sustain the culture (whether you agreed with them or not). This is what the internet has broken. It takes time for new institutions to form but that is the process that is underway right now and that process will probably take decades. This article is not really about newspapers and is a must-read if you want to understand the current crazy social and political milieu we live in. My comment is still true; we are still in an historical social revolution and knowing this helps me cope. It is hard to see the big picture sometimes and this article helps me understand. NB: Fun fact, I emailed Clay Shirky with my comment at the time and thanked him for writing it. He emailed me back and wrote (paraphrased) "Yep!" and thank me for reading it.
sparkzilla 8y ago
Very interesting article. I believe the next major change in the news industry is the change from news articles -- which were designed for paper -- to structured news data, designed for interactivity. My project, NewsBlocks [1], puts this idea into practice by aiming to convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data and storing it on a censor-resistant blockchain. Anyone will then be able to use the data - which will be the first global, permanent news archive -- to create new kinds of trusted news applications, such as unbiased news feeds, fake news checkers, voice and chat apps and more, creating a global marketplace for news. We just launched and would love to hear your feedback. [1]https://newsblocks.io https://newsblocks.io
- yesenadam 8y ago
  convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data What is 'unbiased' news?
  - jay_kyburz 8y ago
    It's a list of things that actually happened, without interpretation of those events.
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      There are all kinds of problems with wanting 'unbiased' anything. As if values can be cleanly separated from facts in the world. (There's a lot of philosophy written on these subjects.. e.g. Hilary Putnam has a lot of interesting essays exploring these topics, collected in his books) Ok, there are facts like "X is the president of the USA", I think uncontroversial. But most 'things that happened' don't fit in that category, 'news' especially. And the dividing line between which things and which don't is itself a matter of interpretation... What appears on tv/print/internet news has to be selected from 'all the things that actually happened' according to some view of what's significant, which depends on someone's values, or impression of other peoples' values etc etc. What gets to be included already is interpretation, value-laden, not to mention how its described. A list of bare uncontroversial facts would be trivia - that's what trivia is. Like in the writing of history, where the facts must be selected, interpreted etc, only a tiny fraction can be included in the writing. This element of personal values, sense of what is important, is what is called 'bias'. I don't believe it's possible or desirable to be rid of it.
      - jay_kyburz 8y ago
        An interesting experiment would be to separate the trivia from the interpretation. The world is so noisy, so crowded, it would be refreshing to be able to take a step back and look at the trivia. It would be nice if there were good tools we could use sift through the data and paint our own picture. We would need some tools to evaluate how controversial, or how established a fact is. Are there experts that have testified to something? Are there multiple eye witnesses with sworn statements to an event.
bkohlmann 8y ago
I just tried to order the book he mentioned on my kindle - The Printing Press as an Agent of Change - and it doesn’t exist! (Well, it’s in paperback...published in 1980).
snowwrestler 8y ago
Love the references to Craig Newmark and Caterina Fake. How many people in 2018 could say what they're known for without looking it up? It just shows how perishable the contemporary wisdom is... which is of course Clay's main point. It looks right now like the thing that might save journalism is the revolution itself. A stable society actually doesn't need much journalism, but people didn't object to it because the cost was invisible to them; it was buried in the decimal places of the price of everything. Now, in a society in which social upheaval has become obvious, people are seeking out journalism and paying for it. We're in the process of finding out how much journalism people actually want--i.e. how much they are willing to directly pay for. It might not be very much, in terms of jobs. A person who just wants to know what is going on does not necessarily need 15 news organizations competing to be 1 sec faster to tell them. And as national upheaval attracts attention, there's not as much left to spend locally. For many folks, corruption on the school board pales before corruption at the highest ranks of the federal government. More attention and money for the NY Times, less for the local paper.
jay_kyburz 8y ago
I can see an answer, but is very unpopular, and conflicts with what many of consider the very principles of the internet. People need to be held accountable for what they post publicly online. Aggregators such as Facebook and Google should be sued, fined, or otherwise punished for publishing incorrect facts, and copyrighted material. They should not be extended special exemptions. Aggregators will need to verify the identity of anybody they are allowing to post, so they can in-turn sue, fine, or punish users. Might be the death of the internet as we know it today, but I'm not sure I will miss it.
- zepto 8y ago
  We’d need some public body to do the fact checking. Perhaps we could call it ‘The Ministry of truth’.
- CptFribble 8y ago
  Here is a corollary: public debate will have to be accompanied by real, verified identities. Maybe not the whole internet, but there will have to be a de-anonymized, trusted place.
  - dexen 8y ago
    This idea has been tested extensively over several years, on many popular platforms, and failed all the way, every time it's been tried. Two prominent examples being Facebook and Twitter; the former requires real names and photos (fakery is grounds for ban), while the later provides "Verified" checkmark to verified users. In spite of that, FB carries a lot of mis-information and objectionable opinions, while the verified Twitter users engage in the same underhanded, despicable tactics and name-calling we got to expect from the anonymous accounts. Contrast that with HN, which accommodates the full spectrum from anonymous, through pseudonymous, to fully-linked to offline identity. The quality of discourse here is high, and yet the costs and burdens to both users, and moderators, are reasonably low. The idea of enforcing identities has been proven unhelpful. Plus, there are strong voices among unpopular and persecuted minorities that it puts them at elevated risk, both on- and offline. Just say no to this PII gathering scheme masquerading as "accountability".

38 points by wallflower 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=515749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=515749

dmfdmf 8y ago
My 9 year old comment from that thread; >I used to think that the problem with newspapers and journalism was a revenue problem. (e.g. CL took their classified ad revenue). Like a lot of people, I thought that eventually someone would figure out a new source of stable revenues and all would be fine. I now see that the problem is much bigger than that. >I think the important point that is easy to miss is that we are in the very early stages of a major social revolution, probably the biggest in human history. Institutions like the Catholic Church or the NYT and the MSM (today) are what communicate and sustain the culture (whether you agreed with them or not). This is what the internet has broken. It takes time for new institutions to form but that is the process that is underway right now and that process will probably take decades. This article is not really about newspapers and is a must-read if you want to understand the current crazy social and political milieu we live in. My comment is still true; we are still in an historical social revolution and knowing this helps me cope. It is hard to see the big picture sometimes and this article helps me understand. NB: Fun fact, I emailed Clay Shirky with my comment at the time and thanked him for writing it. He emailed me back and wrote (paraphrased) "Yep!" and thank me for reading it.

sparkzilla 8y ago

Very interesting article. I believe the next major change in the news industry is the change from news articles -- which were designed for paper -- to structured news data, designed for interactivity. My project, NewsBlocks [1], puts this idea into practice by aiming to convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data and storing it on a censor-resistant blockchain. Anyone will then be able to use the data - which will be the first global, permanent news archive -- to create new kinds of trusted news applications, such as unbiased news feeds, fake news checkers, voice and chat apps and more, creating a global marketplace for news. We just launched and would love to hear your feedback. [1]https://newsblocks.io https://newsblocks.io

yesenadam 8y ago
convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data What is 'unbiased' news?
- jay_kyburz 8y ago
  It's a list of things that actually happened, without interpretation of those events.
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    There are all kinds of problems with wanting 'unbiased' anything. As if values can be cleanly separated from facts in the world. (There's a lot of philosophy written on these subjects.. e.g. Hilary Putnam has a lot of interesting essays exploring these topics, collected in his books) Ok, there are facts like "X is the president of the USA", I think uncontroversial. But most 'things that happened' don't fit in that category, 'news' especially. And the dividing line between which things and which don't is itself a matter of interpretation... What appears on tv/print/internet news has to be selected from 'all the things that actually happened' according to some view of what's significant, which depends on someone's values, or impression of other peoples' values etc etc. What gets to be included already is interpretation, value-laden, not to mention how its described. A list of bare uncontroversial facts would be trivia - that's what trivia is. Like in the writing of history, where the facts must be selected, interpreted etc, only a tiny fraction can be included in the writing. This element of personal values, sense of what is important, is what is called 'bias'. I don't believe it's possible or desirable to be rid of it.
    - jay_kyburz 8y ago
      An interesting experiment would be to separate the trivia from the interpretation. The world is so noisy, so crowded, it would be refreshing to be able to take a step back and look at the trivia. It would be nice if there were good tools we could use sift through the data and paint our own picture. We would need some tools to evaluate how controversial, or how established a fact is. Are there experts that have testified to something? Are there multiple eye witnesses with sworn statements to an event.

bkohlmann 8y ago

I just tried to order the book he mentioned on my kindle - The Printing Press as an Agent of Change - and it doesn’t exist! (Well, it’s in paperback...published in 1980).

snowwrestler 8y ago

Love the references to Craig Newmark and Caterina Fake. How many people in 2018 could say what they're known for without looking it up? It just shows how perishable the contemporary wisdom is... which is of course Clay's main point. It looks right now like the thing that might save journalism is the revolution itself. A stable society actually doesn't need much journalism, but people didn't object to it because the cost was invisible to them; it was buried in the decimal places of the price of everything. Now, in a society in which social upheaval has become obvious, people are seeking out journalism and paying for it. We're in the process of finding out how much journalism people actually want--i.e. how much they are willing to directly pay for. It might not be very much, in terms of jobs. A person who just wants to know what is going on does not necessarily need 15 news organizations competing to be 1 sec faster to tell them. And as national upheaval attracts attention, there's not as much left to spend locally. For many folks, corruption on the school board pales before corruption at the highest ranks of the federal government. More attention and money for the NY Times, less for the local paper.

jay_kyburz 8y ago

I can see an answer, but is very unpopular, and conflicts with what many of consider the very principles of the internet. People need to be held accountable for what they post publicly online. Aggregators such as Facebook and Google should be sued, fined, or otherwise punished for publishing incorrect facts, and copyrighted material. They should not be extended special exemptions. Aggregators will need to verify the identity of anybody they are allowing to post, so they can in-turn sue, fine, or punish users. Might be the death of the internet as we know it today, but I'm not sure I will miss it.

zepto 8y ago
We’d need some public body to do the fact checking. Perhaps we could call it ‘The Ministry of truth’.
CptFribble 8y ago
Here is a corollary: public debate will have to be accompanied by real, verified identities. Maybe not the whole internet, but there will have to be a de-anonymized, trusted place.
- dexen 8y ago
  This idea has been tested extensively over several years, on many popular platforms, and failed all the way, every time it's been tried. Two prominent examples being Facebook and Twitter; the former requires real names and photos (fakery is grounds for ban), while the later provides "Verified" checkmark to verified users. In spite of that, FB carries a lot of mis-information and objectionable opinions, while the verified Twitter users engage in the same underhanded, despicable tactics and name-calling we got to expect from the anonymous accounts. Contrast that with HN, which accommodates the full spectrum from anonymous, through pseudonymous, to fully-linked to offline identity. The quality of discourse here is high, and yet the costs and burdens to both users, and moderators, are reasonably low. The idea of enforcing identities has been proven unhelpful. Plus, there are strong voices among unpopular and persecuted minorities that it puts them at elevated risk, both on- and offline. Just say no to this PII gathering scheme masquerading as "accountability".