4 ms·

I get your point but it's still a good thing that the authors are writing about tracking. It's probably a different team working on the website and I'd hope art

• tialaramex 7y ago
  Indeed the firewall at old-fashioned newspapers (between editorial and advert sales) was vital to their independence and dissolving this (today you can buy "native advertising" which only the most careful reader will realise isn't editorial) has been part of their downfall. You actively want the people who write the stories to be shielded from whatever the people making money to pay for those stories do. Every time a journalist even feels like they shouldn't write a story because it'll lose their paper (or TV channel, or website) money that's a problem. That doesn't mean the media aren't worth criticising, but it means you should aim for it to be possible for that critique to come from within. Funding models other than advertising are good, but they're not realistic for very broad media. I might give money to a person who writes (or talks or makes videos) about a subject I care very deeply about, but who is going to give money to the people doing a morning breakfast show or a mid-size city newspaper? Those things are expensive and advertising remains a realistic way to fund them.