5 ms·

The interesting thing to me is that supposedly reputable news sites like The Washington Post [1] were taken in by this piece of disinformation, when it took the

The interesting thing to me is that supposedly reputable news sites like The Washington Post [1] were taken in by this piece of disinformation, when it took the author "all of 10 minutes to figure out the truth". Have they sacked all their journalists and now just copy random crap off social media, or what? [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/05/an-anguished-dutch-teenager-who-was-raped-child-is-euthanized-her-request/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.37c2432cc3e4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/05/an-anguishe...

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure. Many "journalists" are no longer on staff with adequate pay, but are underpaid freelancers with no benefits. Local papers are shutting down in droves. Etc. It's a huge crisis and there's no good way to talk about it. I do freelance writing and blogging and I've been dirt poor for years. There is a long history of me either commenting on how the world expects good writing for free, which simply doesn't work, or me complaining about my situation in specific. The reaction on HN is pretty consistently hostile. I've often basically been told to STFU and go get a real job. I have yet to find some means to adequately convey that it's a system-wide issue. It's not just one whiny loser. This is a global crisis impacting the quality of our journalism, and that impacts political freedom and many other important things.
- antisemiotic 7y ago
  Do you think that aggregate subscriptions like Inkl make sense, or are they too cheap to leave any money for the actual journalists?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'm not familiar with that service.
    - antisemiotic 7y ago
      Thanks for raising the issue anyway, it's too often framed on HN as "these evil news companies are out to get me", disregarding people who just want to get paid for their work.
- lotu 7y ago
  You would think that techies who constantly complain about crap documentation would realize quality writing is not free. (Best of luck BTW)
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Come on, they're paid to do that, among other things.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Thank you. It's especially crazy making because my writing sometimes spends time on the front page of HN, but I'm still talked at like a leech who is trying to "panhandle the internet," a thing someone (on a different forum, not here) literally accused me of for trying to monetize my websites while homeless. Like if you are poor enough, working for a living is not allowable and your work can't have value and you are merely a beggar. This piece took about two weeks to write, did fairly well on HN, got dramatically more traffic and discussion than anything else I've done and made zero money: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-licking-incident.html https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-li... I used to have ads on everything. HN hates that and uses ad blockers more aggressively than most traffic sources. I've removed ads from most of my sites and moved to tip jars and Patreon. I get told I'm begging. HN actively looks for ways around pay walls. Etc ad nauseum ad infinitum. That mental model of "get traffic and somehow magically make money from it without charging anything" is rooted in using ads to monetize it. Even before the ad blocker wars tanked earnings worldwide on that model, HN aggressively used ad blockers. Everyone says "Well, not my problem. I'm not paying you. Figure it out your damn self." while actively sabotaging every possible pathway to making money off of producing good content. If you point out that this boils down to an expectation of slave labor to fill the front page with engaging content, you can count on downvotes and ugly replies. This is actually one of the things that makes me suicidal. I feel like I can't breath. I'm poor because in part because of this shit, then told my poverty is evidence of incompetence, thus reason to justify not hiring me, etc. It's a trap I can find no way out of, no matter what I do. Playing along with what people demand, such as removing all ads, makes no real difference. There is no point at which good writing independently created etc etc that HN/the world says it wants actually leads to a middle class income. Then classism kicks in and you might as well go kill yourself. The world won't allow you to make your life work. Fuck you. If you complain, expect a beat down. 0_o
- cpach 7y ago
  “Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure.” I know I could do more, but this is one of the reasons that I subscribe to both our local newspaper and one of the two large nation-wide newspapers in my country. If the local journos don’t get paid, there will be no one keeping an eye on what happens in municipal council. When I start working full-time again I will strongly consider subscribing to more publications, perhaps the other nation-wide newspaper. [Slightly edited]

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure. Many "journalists" are no longer on staff with adequate pay, but are underpaid freelancers with no benefits. Local papers are shutting down in droves. Etc. It's a huge crisis and there's no good way to talk about it. I do freelance writing and blogging and I've been dirt poor for years. There is a long history of me either commenting on how the world expects good writing for free, which simply doesn't work, or me complaining about my situation in specific. The reaction on HN is pretty consistently hostile. I've often basically been told to STFU and go get a real job. I have yet to find some means to adequately convey that it's a system-wide issue. It's not just one whiny loser. This is a global crisis impacting the quality of our journalism, and that impacts political freedom and many other important things.

antisemiotic 7y ago
Do you think that aggregate subscriptions like Inkl make sense, or are they too cheap to leave any money for the actual journalists?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm not familiar with that service.
  - antisemiotic 7y ago
    Thanks for raising the issue anyway, it's too often framed on HN as "these evil news companies are out to get me", disregarding people who just want to get paid for their work.
lotu 7y ago
You would think that techies who constantly complain about crap documentation would realize quality writing is not free. (Best of luck BTW)
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Come on, they're paid to do that, among other things.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Thank you. It's especially crazy making because my writing sometimes spends time on the front page of HN, but I'm still talked at like a leech who is trying to "panhandle the internet," a thing someone (on a different forum, not here) literally accused me of for trying to monetize my websites while homeless. Like if you are poor enough, working for a living is not allowable and your work can't have value and you are merely a beggar. This piece took about two weeks to write, did fairly well on HN, got dramatically more traffic and discussion than anything else I've done and made zero money: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-licking-incident.html https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-li... I used to have ads on everything. HN hates that and uses ad blockers more aggressively than most traffic sources. I've removed ads from most of my sites and moved to tip jars and Patreon. I get told I'm begging. HN actively looks for ways around pay walls. Etc ad nauseum ad infinitum. That mental model of "get traffic and somehow magically make money from it without charging anything" is rooted in using ads to monetize it. Even before the ad blocker wars tanked earnings worldwide on that model, HN aggressively used ad blockers. Everyone says "Well, not my problem. I'm not paying you. Figure it out your damn self." while actively sabotaging every possible pathway to making money off of producing good content. If you point out that this boils down to an expectation of slave labor to fill the front page with engaging content, you can count on downvotes and ugly replies. This is actually one of the things that makes me suicidal. I feel like I can't breath. I'm poor because in part because of this shit, then told my poverty is evidence of incompetence, thus reason to justify not hiring me, etc. It's a trap I can find no way out of, no matter what I do. Playing along with what people demand, such as removing all ads, makes no real difference. There is no point at which good writing independently created etc etc that HN/the world says it wants actually leads to a middle class income. Then classism kicks in and you might as well go kill yourself. The world won't allow you to make your life work. Fuck you. If you complain, expect a beat down. 0_o
cpach 7y ago
“Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure.” I know I could do more, but this is one of the reasons that I subscribe to both our local newspaper and one of the two large nation-wide newspapers in my country. If the local journos don’t get paid, there will be no one keeping an eye on what happens in municipal council. When I start working full-time again I will strongly consider subscribing to more publications, perhaps the other nation-wide newspaper. [Slightly edited]