3 ms·
The purpose of news is not to inform, but to make money. Divisive and emotionally charged issues get people to share, respond, and take a more active part in is
by TangoTrotFox 8y ago
The purpose of news is not to inform, but to make money. Divisive and emotionally charged issues get people to share, respond, and take a more active part in issues. This, in turn, can be monetized -- clicks are money. And it also tends to be easy to keep milking these sort of divisive and emotionally charged issues for days/weeks at a time.
I was even more disappointed in the coverage of the Falcon Heavy. Most news outlets gave it little more than basic coverage, even though it was one of the most significant achievement in space in decades. And that landing footage of multiple rockets separating and autonomously landing, simultaneously, is something that can give anybody goose bumps. And that was a US achievement, which goes against the hypothesis of 'because it was Japanese' many are stating in this thread.
It's pretty sad. We are currently living through what will undoubtedly be seen as one of the most important times in the history of our very species as we develop the technology and ships that will one day go from being just rockets to outright space ships. And you could ask the average person what they know about it, and it would be next to nothing. Yet ask that same person about whether somebody might have drunkenly groped somebody else 35 years ago, and they'll have all the details and dirt. I suppose when it comes to clicks, gropes beat hopes.
- singularity2001 8y ago> The purpose of news … … … … You conflated 'news' with 'for-profit news agencies'
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoBBC, NPR, etc. are not for profit and receive some public funding yet fall into the exact same trappings. News requires resources to publish. Resources require money. You need to make money, or you're not going to exist for long. In times past the monopoly of the traditional media on news had the advantage of basically removing economic concern from the picture. Journalistic ethics come with a cost. One of the few examples of where a monopoly/oligopoly remained relatively benevolent. Of course on the other hand, it also opened the door to important issues being completely ignored - but it's hard to say if that was all that much worse than the vicious rat race that media has turned into today. A really great article I always recommend on these topics is Robert Kaiser's "The Bad News About the News." [1] Kaiser was a 50 year veteran of the Washington Post working as both editor and reporter. He retired briefly after Bezos bought the paper. It's a great article that gives an insider perspective on the rise and fall of traditional media, and how they reacted and failed to react to the internet in time. [1] - http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-news.html http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...
- gmiller123456 8y agoI think he got it right, I think you've assumed that just because a news organization is legally given a "non-profit" tag that they aren't all about making money. The people that work there are still paid a salary just like the "for-profit" agencies, and they still base funding on ratings and how much money a given program brings in. My main news sources are PBS News and NPR News, and I can't tell much of a difference in coverage compared to NBC News or ABC News when I watch those.