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And to add on to your point, what makes a news organization successful is not just good writing, but good journalism, which comes from journalistic and beat exp

by danso 7y ago

And to add on to your point, what makes a news organization successful is not just good writing, but good journalism, which comes from journalistic and beat experience – i.e. you couldn't produce a successful news org by hiring English PhDs. The original commenter's thought process is as absurd as a layperson bragging they could just as easily produce a functioning website with production-ready code because they've learned how to write the <link> and <script> tags needed to include Bootstrap and jQuery. It's not the code itself that makes a tech company. Just as it is not just words strung together in paragraph form that makes a news org.

PeterisP 7y ago
I'd argue that you can have a successful news organization through producing lots of profitable content that has poor journalism and poor writing, but is sufficiently aggressively optimized clickbait - and that's the cause of the current degradation of news quality; good news and good writing have become neither sufficient nor absolutely necessary for success in news (or "news") industry. And that's even not that new, already a hundred years ago there were highly successful news organizations that thrived not despite but because of bad journalism, exploiting misleading sensationalism to its full potential.
- danso 7y ago
  This has already been attempted for nearly a decade, by traditional journalists and outsiders (e.g. Demand Media), and the number of successful/sustainable/functional such companies is as infrequent as any tech unicorn, so the empirical evidence does not support your argument. > And that's even not that new, already a hundred years ago there were highly successful news organizations that thrived not despite but because of bad journalism, exploiting misleading sensationalism to its full potential. No argument there. And the golden era of American journalism – e.g. the 1970s to 1990s – produced great journalism and printed money for its owners (30%+ profit margins were not unheard of), but it's because established outlets had a virtual monopoly in their regions, especially newspapers (because TV/radio killed the need for evening newspapers, and in smaller cities, multiple newspapers). But it has never been easy to create a successful/functional news org by just doing journalism. Just as it has never been easy to build a useful tech startup by creating production ready code.
spats1990 7y ago
Thank you. I write and edit professionally and am constantly amazed by how often people overestimate their own writing abilities, especially if they are very skilled in other fields. There is a difference between "using words" and "writing". The thought process usually goes: we all do the former every day, so how hard can the latter be? (Also, there are non-writing skills that are hugely important in journalism.) The original post about journalists vs. SWEs is a comment on the content-mill, lowest common denominator nature of huge swathes of the current online publishing landscape, not about the difficulty(??) of Journalism vs. Coding or whatever.
wolco 7y ago
Aren't we passed the point where good journalism drives a successful news org? The mainstream media is controlled by a few large companies. They buy up chains and hire like minded writers. Journalism has become a cog in a bigger machine.

by danso 7y ago

PeterisP 7y ago

I'd argue that you can have a successful news organization through producing lots of profitable content that has poor journalism and poor writing, but is sufficiently aggressively optimized clickbait - and that's the cause of the current degradation of news quality; good news and good writing have become neither sufficient nor absolutely necessary for success in news (or "news") industry. And that's even not that new, already a hundred years ago there were highly successful news organizations that thrived not despite but because of bad journalism, exploiting misleading sensationalism to its full potential.

danso 7y ago
This has already been attempted for nearly a decade, by traditional journalists and outsiders (e.g. Demand Media), and the number of successful/sustainable/functional such companies is as infrequent as any tech unicorn, so the empirical evidence does not support your argument. > And that's even not that new, already a hundred years ago there were highly successful news organizations that thrived not despite but because of bad journalism, exploiting misleading sensationalism to its full potential. No argument there. And the golden era of American journalism – e.g. the 1970s to 1990s – produced great journalism and printed money for its owners (30%+ profit margins were not unheard of), but it's because established outlets had a virtual monopoly in their regions, especially newspapers (because TV/radio killed the need for evening newspapers, and in smaller cities, multiple newspapers). But it has never been easy to create a successful/functional news org by just doing journalism. Just as it has never been easy to build a useful tech startup by creating production ready code.

spats1990 7y ago

Thank you. I write and edit professionally and am constantly amazed by how often people overestimate their own writing abilities, especially if they are very skilled in other fields. There is a difference between "using words" and "writing". The thought process usually goes: we all do the former every day, so how hard can the latter be? (Also, there are non-writing skills that are hugely important in journalism.) The original post about journalists vs. SWEs is a comment on the content-mill, lowest common denominator nature of huge swathes of the current online publishing landscape, not about the difficulty(??) of Journalism vs. Coding or whatever.

wolco 7y ago

Aren't we passed the point where good journalism drives a successful news org? The mainstream media is controlled by a few large companies. They buy up chains and hire like minded writers. Journalism has become a cog in a bigger machine.