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Journalism joins the list of domains that simply don't work as capitalistic institutions, alongside healthcare, education, higher-level academic research, and e

by _bxg1 8y ago

Journalism joins the list of domains that simply don't work as capitalistic institutions, alongside healthcare, education, higher-level academic research, and environmental stewardship. These things serve important public good but aren't sustainable by a consumer-based model. They have to have public funding.

closeparen 8y ago
“Public sector will self report its misdeeds” is almost as good as “market will self regulate.”
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Public sector at least has the pretense of trying to do what's best for society. The market is a race to the bottom; public entities have their goals stated expressly, and there will always be some idealists who genuinely care about living up to those. Either way it comes down to people just deciding to do the right thing; there's no way around that. But capitalism gives otherwise-good people the excuse to do the wrong thing without feeling bad about it, because it's "just business".
  - closeparen 8y ago
    When reasoning about performance, an institution's mission should treated like a student's name. The information is irrelevant, but even for an honest and conscientious reader, the cognitive traps laid by its availability are too dangerous. Incentives are a decent guide.
  - refurb 8y ago
    The private sector has money as a motive. The public sector has motives as well, like money (continued funding), political pressure, etc. You’re just exchanging one motive for another and not really solving the problem.
jcfrei 8y ago
I don't buy into that anti capitalism argument. It suggests that people aren't aware of the value they receive through newspapers and a consumption based model is therefore not working. I do see a danger in monopolies (or even oligopolies) but that can be prevented by competition regulators. But apart from that it seems people simply don't value traditional newspapers enough to keep so many of them running.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  You're right, they don't. But it's not about physical newspapers, it's about journalism itself. Journalism itself is not being funded. This is partly because internet platforms/adtech have broken its financing model. Of course it's possible for the ideologically-minded to counter this by donating to journalism organizations for their public service, without turning to the public sector. But people obviously aren't doing that (enough). The reality is that individuals often don't think in terms of a big enough picture to support abstract public goods with private donations. Capitalism would say "good, people apparently don't want those things, let them die". But "people don't think about it" and "it doesn't have value" are very different things.
- matt4077 8y ago
  It seems plausible that many people do derive value from journalism without paying for it. Among those are, for example, people profiting from others making more informed choices at the ballot box, or being freed from corrupt politicians uncovered by newspapers they don’t subscribe to, or, more directly, getting some information for free on TV even though they are just piggybacking on some other medium’s investigation.
mtberatwork 8y ago
Yes, but the larger macro economic issue here is that many jobs which once provided a middle class income are now unable to do so as the cost of living skyrockets. How do we fund jobs that provide essential services but may not necessarily be deemed critical enough for public funding? Income inequality is a problem for all of us.

by _bxg1 8y ago

closeparen 8y ago

“Public sector will self report its misdeeds” is almost as good as “market will self regulate.”

_bxg1 8y ago
Public sector at least has the pretense of trying to do what's best for society. The market is a race to the bottom; public entities have their goals stated expressly, and there will always be some idealists who genuinely care about living up to those. Either way it comes down to people just deciding to do the right thing; there's no way around that. But capitalism gives otherwise-good people the excuse to do the wrong thing without feeling bad about it, because it's "just business".
- closeparen 8y ago
  When reasoning about performance, an institution's mission should treated like a student's name. The information is irrelevant, but even for an honest and conscientious reader, the cognitive traps laid by its availability are too dangerous. Incentives are a decent guide.
- refurb 8y ago
  The private sector has money as a motive. The public sector has motives as well, like money (continued funding), political pressure, etc. You’re just exchanging one motive for another and not really solving the problem.

jcfrei 8y ago

I don't buy into that anti capitalism argument. It suggests that people aren't aware of the value they receive through newspapers and a consumption based model is therefore not working. I do see a danger in monopolies (or even oligopolies) but that can be prevented by competition regulators. But apart from that it seems people simply don't value traditional newspapers enough to keep so many of them running.

_bxg1 8y ago
You're right, they don't. But it's not about physical newspapers, it's about journalism itself. Journalism itself is not being funded. This is partly because internet platforms/adtech have broken its financing model. Of course it's possible for the ideologically-minded to counter this by donating to journalism organizations for their public service, without turning to the public sector. But people obviously aren't doing that (enough). The reality is that individuals often don't think in terms of a big enough picture to support abstract public goods with private donations. Capitalism would say "good, people apparently don't want those things, let them die". But "people don't think about it" and "it doesn't have value" are very different things.
matt4077 8y ago
It seems plausible that many people do derive value from journalism without paying for it. Among those are, for example, people profiting from others making more informed choices at the ballot box, or being freed from corrupt politicians uncovered by newspapers they don’t subscribe to, or, more directly, getting some information for free on TV even though they are just piggybacking on some other medium’s investigation.

mtberatwork 8y ago

Yes, but the larger macro economic issue here is that many jobs which once provided a middle class income are now unable to do so as the cost of living skyrockets. How do we fund jobs that provide essential services but may not necessarily be deemed critical enough for public funding? Income inequality is a problem for all of us.