5 ms·

Ah yes the bastion of journalistic quality that is local news...wait...what? FB gets a lot of flak for fake news and then decides to invest in local news? Why

by lquist 8y ago

Ah yes the bastion of journalistic quality that is local news...wait...what? FB gets a lot of flak for fake news and then decides to invest in local news? Why not in institutions that set the standard for journalism and bring accountability such as Pro Publica?

dylan604 8y ago
Would you trust a Pro Publica article "sponsored by" FB? Or NPR programs supported by contributions from FB? That's right up there with 1950s TV programming sponsored by cigarette companies. After all 9 out of 10 doctors...
porpoisely 8y ago
Pro Publica was created by billionaire bankers a little more than 10 years ago. They aren't in need of any funding. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to say that pro publica is the standard of journalism or accountability. Pro Publica is an advocacy institution.
- rhcom2 8y ago
  I think you could call any investigative journalism "advocacy".
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  You may not intend it, but when you write, "created by billionaire bankers" it doesn't add to the conversation much (specific behavior influenced by that funding would be more useful, if it exists) and is recalls some kind of unpalatable language/imagery used by far right groups - which I'm definitely not accusing you of, to be clear. One thing you may not know is that they publish their full financials, in accordance with the mission statement around transparency. You can see their full 2017 finances here: https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-Pro-Publica-Inc.pdf https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-... (and you can see they are financially conservative, but are very much in need of funding to support their operations). I have no connection to them other than admiration for how they are operated and their mission.
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    We were discussing whether facebook should fund pro publica like they are supporting struggling local news companies. Since pro publica is supported by billionaire bankers, they aren't struggling for money and if they need it, they can tap the foundation that the billionaire bankers set up for them. Frankly, I don't think facebook should be supporting either, but given the choice between struggling local news and pro publica, I think struggling local news is the proper choice. Also, I'm not accusing you of being a far leftist to be clear, but it's an unpalatable tactic used by the far left to label everything as being far right and it really doesn't add much to the conversation. Also, if a company is financially conservative, they wouldn't be in need of additionally funding. That's the central idea of financial conservatism, the budget drives your needs rather than your needs driving the budget.
    - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
      That preamble in his post was most likely drawing a a connection between "billionaire bankers" and the far-right triple parentheses anti-banker sentiment (to be a bit euphemistic).
      - throwaway5752 8y ago
        Yeah. And your response to my original comment is fair. It is definitely a dog-whistle for some people, but I had ceding ground to people trying to steal common usage words to encode hate speech. I was on the fence about mentioning it.
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      First, not accusing you of being far right (to the contrary I specifically stated I was not). I was responding to specific point in your comment. They don't have a huge trust fund, they have a public budget. They don't run a deficit, but they have areas they would invest in if they had more donations. If they ceased getting donations, they would not be able to operate. To the point of this article, I think Facebook has approximately zero credibility in this area, whether they donate to local news companies or anyone else. They have done as much as anyone to kill local news (by moving the content into the newsfeed as by creating bad metrics that caused many news companies to pivot to video content). https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/data-lords-the-real-story-of-big-data-facebook-and-the-future-of-news https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/data-lords-the-real-sto... is an interesting article from a small media company if it's interesting to you. ps - upvoted you, I don't see why you've been downvoted.
- gowld 8y ago
  Former bankers who are now dead. A billionaire once donated to my local food bank; that doesn't make the food bank financially independent.
naravara 8y ago
The decline in local news likely plays a big part in the decline in American civic life and social capital. That said, $300M isn't nearly enough to even mitigate the damage Facebook does to American civic life simply by virtue of being a data-mining, misinformation spreading behemoth. Their business model is at cross purposes with the ideal of having an informed citizenry. The entire point of marketing and advertising is to construct a reality in which people are motivated to buy what you're selling. It is utterly indifferent to truth. You can't have a medium whose every design pattern is geared towards empowering bullshit artists and fostering susceptibility to said bullshit and then just try to paper it over by throwing some cash in the direction of "local journalism." Seriously, $300M is the equivalent of spare change found between couch cushions for Facebook. This is nothing. This is just image laundering.
- j-c-hewitt 8y ago
  Name me a war the US entered that isn't World War II that wasn't coincident with a misinformation campaign published on dead tree legacy media. The truth is that mass media IS edutainment at best and completely misleading fiction most of the time. You get to pick two: fast, cheap, and good/true. If it is fast and cheap it is fake. If it is cheap and true it will take time to attain. If it is true and fast, it won't be cheap to get the information.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    National media is the problem there. Anything at that level is a target for misinformation campaigns. Local newsrooms are too many to thoroughly corrupt as easily as a national (or in the case of FB, international) media system. I'm not sure your "pick 2 of 3" is valid here. Do you have actual examples to support your hypothesis?
    - j-c-hewitt 8y ago
      It's just an old saying that is basically accurate about any human endeavor that is used to deflate sham projects that can never succeed at their stated ends. E.g. "I'll build a hydroelectric dam in 24 hours that will power the whole state and it will cost $1." Local news is even more beholden to big local advertisers who dictate coverage. So few people actually care about local political news that even if you threw resources at it, you would not find that many people who cared enough to pay attention to it. C-SPAN's ratings aren't as good as almost any other cable network you can think of, for example, and the same theme is repeated in local news. People care much more about things like real estate, crime, arts&leisure, and fluffy health coverage.
zoul 8y ago
Here in the Czech Republic, around 70 % of all people live in municipalities under 50 thousand people, and I think that’s rather the norm than an exception. Doesn’t that put local media in a different perspective?
Dirlewanger 8y ago
The whole thing reeks of damage control to make it look like they're doing something. $60m/yr for 5 years is a measly fraction of their $40b in revenue. It also fails to understand why local journalism has completely collapsed in the past decade. A big portion of that is people moving to cities. Politico did a great article on this which showed why the media does have a decidedly liberal slant. Regardless this is a societal problem that a private company such as FB throwing money at will not make a noticeable difference.
- gowld 8y ago
  1.5% of revenue (3% of profit) for one area of the product is non-trivial.
petulla 8y ago
ProPublica operates a local reporting network with 14 partners. https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-picks-local-reporting-network-year-2 https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-picks-loc...
wj 8y ago
Seriously. Last night St. Louis local news aired a story about an elderly woman who walks around her apartment. Good for the woman but I couldn't believe what I was seeing. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/no-gym-no-problem-senior-loses-120-pounds-by-walking-in-her-living-room-every-day/63-1f52ca15-b7bb-4dbe-84c3-b5a93f8bcdc3 https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/no-gym-no-problem-s...
tivert 8y ago
Is Pro Publica going to cover your city council meetings or keep your state legislature accountable? What those government bodies do is important, and corruption can hide in them. Local TV news does suck, but local newspapers are vitally important.
- gowld 8y ago
  Pro Publica does a lot of that, yes: https://www.propublica.org/topics/ https://www.propublica.org/topics/

by lquist 8y ago

dylan604 8y ago

Would you trust a Pro Publica article "sponsored by" FB? Or NPR programs supported by contributions from FB? That's right up there with 1950s TV programming sponsored by cigarette companies. After all 9 out of 10 doctors...

porpoisely 8y ago

Pro Publica was created by billionaire bankers a little more than 10 years ago. They aren't in need of any funding. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to say that pro publica is the standard of journalism or accountability. Pro Publica is an advocacy institution.

rhcom2 8y ago
I think you could call any investigative journalism "advocacy".
throwaway5752 8y ago
You may not intend it, but when you write, "created by billionaire bankers" it doesn't add to the conversation much (specific behavior influenced by that funding would be more useful, if it exists) and is recalls some kind of unpalatable language/imagery used by far right groups - which I'm definitely not accusing you of, to be clear. One thing you may not know is that they publish their full financials, in accordance with the mission statement around transparency. You can see their full 2017 finances here: https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-Pro-Publica-Inc.pdf https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-... (and you can see they are financially conservative, but are very much in need of funding to support their operations). I have no connection to them other than admiration for how they are operated and their mission.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  We were discussing whether facebook should fund pro publica like they are supporting struggling local news companies. Since pro publica is supported by billionaire bankers, they aren't struggling for money and if they need it, they can tap the foundation that the billionaire bankers set up for them. Frankly, I don't think facebook should be supporting either, but given the choice between struggling local news and pro publica, I think struggling local news is the proper choice. Also, I'm not accusing you of being a far leftist to be clear, but it's an unpalatable tactic used by the far left to label everything as being far right and it really doesn't add much to the conversation. Also, if a company is financially conservative, they wouldn't be in need of additionally funding. That's the central idea of financial conservatism, the budget drives your needs rather than your needs driving the budget.
  - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
    That preamble in his post was most likely drawing a a connection between "billionaire bankers" and the far-right triple parentheses anti-banker sentiment (to be a bit euphemistic).
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      Yeah. And your response to my original comment is fair. It is definitely a dog-whistle for some people, but I had ceding ground to people trying to steal common usage words to encode hate speech. I was on the fence about mentioning it.
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    First, not accusing you of being far right (to the contrary I specifically stated I was not). I was responding to specific point in your comment. They don't have a huge trust fund, they have a public budget. They don't run a deficit, but they have areas they would invest in if they had more donations. If they ceased getting donations, they would not be able to operate. To the point of this article, I think Facebook has approximately zero credibility in this area, whether they donate to local news companies or anyone else. They have done as much as anyone to kill local news (by moving the content into the newsfeed as by creating bad metrics that caused many news companies to pivot to video content). https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/data-lords-the-real-story-of-big-data-facebook-and-the-future-of-news https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/data-lords-the-real-sto... is an interesting article from a small media company if it's interesting to you. ps - upvoted you, I don't see why you've been downvoted.
gowld 8y ago
Former bankers who are now dead. A billionaire once donated to my local food bank; that doesn't make the food bank financially independent.

naravara 8y ago

The decline in local news likely plays a big part in the decline in American civic life and social capital. That said, $300M isn't nearly enough to even mitigate the damage Facebook does to American civic life simply by virtue of being a data-mining, misinformation spreading behemoth. Their business model is at cross purposes with the ideal of having an informed citizenry. The entire point of marketing and advertising is to construct a reality in which people are motivated to buy what you're selling. It is utterly indifferent to truth. You can't have a medium whose every design pattern is geared towards empowering bullshit artists and fostering susceptibility to said bullshit and then just try to paper it over by throwing some cash in the direction of "local journalism." Seriously, $300M is the equivalent of spare change found between couch cushions for Facebook. This is nothing. This is just image laundering.

j-c-hewitt 8y ago
Name me a war the US entered that isn't World War II that wasn't coincident with a misinformation campaign published on dead tree legacy media. The truth is that mass media IS edutainment at best and completely misleading fiction most of the time. You get to pick two: fast, cheap, and good/true. If it is fast and cheap it is fake. If it is cheap and true it will take time to attain. If it is true and fast, it won't be cheap to get the information.
- r00fus 8y ago
  National media is the problem there. Anything at that level is a target for misinformation campaigns. Local newsrooms are too many to thoroughly corrupt as easily as a national (or in the case of FB, international) media system. I'm not sure your "pick 2 of 3" is valid here. Do you have actual examples to support your hypothesis?
  - j-c-hewitt 8y ago
    It's just an old saying that is basically accurate about any human endeavor that is used to deflate sham projects that can never succeed at their stated ends. E.g. "I'll build a hydroelectric dam in 24 hours that will power the whole state and it will cost $1." Local news is even more beholden to big local advertisers who dictate coverage. So few people actually care about local political news that even if you threw resources at it, you would not find that many people who cared enough to pay attention to it. C-SPAN's ratings aren't as good as almost any other cable network you can think of, for example, and the same theme is repeated in local news. People care much more about things like real estate, crime, arts&leisure, and fluffy health coverage.

zoul 8y ago

Here in the Czech Republic, around 70 % of all people live in municipalities under 50 thousand people, and I think that’s rather the norm than an exception. Doesn’t that put local media in a different perspective?

Dirlewanger 8y ago

The whole thing reeks of damage control to make it look like they're doing something. $60m/yr for 5 years is a measly fraction of their $40b in revenue. It also fails to understand why local journalism has completely collapsed in the past decade. A big portion of that is people moving to cities. Politico did a great article on this which showed why the media does have a decidedly liberal slant. Regardless this is a societal problem that a private company such as FB throwing money at will not make a noticeable difference.

gowld 8y ago
1.5% of revenue (3% of profit) for one area of the product is non-trivial.

petulla 8y ago

ProPublica operates a local reporting network with 14 partners. https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-picks-local-reporting-network-year-2 https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-picks-loc...

wj 8y ago

Seriously. Last night St. Louis local news aired a story about an elderly woman who walks around her apartment. Good for the woman but I couldn't believe what I was seeing. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/no-gym-no-problem-senior-loses-120-pounds-by-walking-in-her-living-room-every-day/63-1f52ca15-b7bb-4dbe-84c3-b5a93f8bcdc3 https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/no-gym-no-problem-s...

tivert 8y ago

Is Pro Publica going to cover your city council meetings or keep your state legislature accountable? What those government bodies do is important, and corruption can hide in them. Local TV news does suck, but local newspapers are vitally important.

gowld 8y ago
Pro Publica does a lot of that, yes: https://www.propublica.org/topics/ https://www.propublica.org/topics/