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In my opinion, once-objective mainstream journalism is now about writing content to please target audiences and catch trending topics on social media, as well a

• batty_alex 6y ago
  > In my opinion, once-objective mainstream journalism is now about writing content to please target audiences and catch trending topics on social media, as well as keep fast cycles going to appease the algorithms on news aggregation sites and search engines. That’s an awfully cynical take when all you have to ask is how these publications could stay afloat without drawing readers in. They’re in a tough spot when people are opting for their Facebook feed over paying for articles from proper journalists.
  • benlumen 6y ago
    I'm not suggesting they had a choice - I believe they had to do it to survive. But there is now a void for the objective journalism of old. It's why I'm excited about the resurgence of the newsletter model - if journalists don't need to catch passing trade and can instead rely on being delivered direct, perhaps the incentives that have skewed their writing so much can be mitigated.
    • bilbo0s 6y ago
      "But there is now a void for the objective journalism of old." I don't know man? Many have tried, all have failed. Even newsletters, in the end, write what readers want to hear. Some of the most radical and extremist information out there, is disseminated by newsletters. I think OP hit on the crux of the issue, technology, or "the smartphone" if you want to pin it on that, has changed not only methods of consumption, but consumption behavior and expectations on a fundamental level. And I think that applies to all media, not only news. The seeming efficiency of information and media delivery on a smartphone just makes us think differently about the value of information and media. We start wanting the information we want, and we start blocking the information we don't want. After a while, information and media we don't want won't even show up for us. It's massively efficient customer service on a global scale. I'm not sure what can reasonably be done about it?
  • phkahler 6y ago
    >> That’s an awfully cynical take when all you have to ask is how these publications could stay afloat without drawing readers in Cynical? It seems accurate to me, and you even say they're in a tough spot. The sad part is whatever drove them this direction is destroying them, but I think it came from inside, not twitter.
    • pharke 6y ago
      It came from inside as far as their failure to adapt to a new ecosystem. They're still stuck in the print mindset where they think that a newspaper should be words printed on a page. They're stuck in the printing press mindset when they need to be in the digital media mindset. If they want to re-capture their audience they need to put their journalists to work creating more audio content that people can consume in their "found time" along with their other podcasts. They have the infrastructure to one up everyone in this field. If a journalist were to apply the same techniques of deep research, interviews with relevant sources, and the basic footwork necessary to find newsworthy material they could take their market back. People would pay for a subscription to a "paper" that was actually a basket of well researched and news-breaking podcasts. For God's sake though don't invite the radio and TV people in, just throw out your goddamn typewriter already and get a decent microphone and do it yourself.
      • bilbo0s 6y ago
        Again, just pointing out in fairness that places like NPR and CSpan do the sort of thing your comment suggests. I think some people might listen to NPR in their car, some may even donate, but I'm not sure how many people would pay enough to fund the groundwork necessary for stories like the Wirecard series for instance. In the end, that sort of journalism may need to rely on donations. We're simply no longer wired to pay for that sort of information and media. If everyone changed at once, we might be retrained to pay, but I doubt that would happen.
      • soco 6y ago
        I see that donation model turning out pretty swell for The Guardian. There might be more, no idea...
  • dahfizz 6y ago
    Implicit in your comment is the idea that mainstream media needs to survive. The news corporations chose money over morals. They decided to become clickbait tabloids to chase ad revenue. I don't think anything of value would be lost if we saw some of these media giants go under.
    • ben_w 6y ago
      I believe that some kind of free investigative press, one which the electorate pays attention to, is a requisite for anything that can be reasonably called a democracy. I would go further than you and say that publishing fiction based loosely on current events under the guise of “news” has negative utility, and much would be gained by getting rid of it. That said, I don’t know how to solve this! It — along with every other case where capitalism produces suboptimal outcomes — is an example of Goodhart's law, so the issue will come back fast if we tried any simple and obvious solutions.
      • dahfizz 6y ago
        I think what is needed is a change of perspective around news / media. IMO, the money and the passion is there. I don't see why there can't be an NRA / Sierra Club / Red Cross type organization for true investigative, insightful, trustworthy journalism. The issue is that people can already get "news" for free, so they wouldn't see the need to support such an organization. We as a society need to rebrand Fox, CNN, etc as current events based entertainment media.
      • baddox 6y ago
        I won't pretend to be an expert or even necessarily a proponent, but it's worth nothing that there are public broadcasting agencies that supposedly are independent of government other than being legally bound to certain journalistic standards.
    • munificent 6y ago
      In a capitalistic ecosystem where the fitness function is profitability, the only organizations that survive are the ones that choose money. Choosing morals simply means you'll be outcompeted and go out of business. > I don't think anything of value would be lost if we saw some of these media giants go under. I do. Democracy requires citizens to know the facts at a level of understanding that is actionable. It takes a lot of work and skill to distill the chaos of mass human behavior into something that voters can make sense of and journalists are the closest we have to experts at that process.
  • etangent 6y ago
    > They’re in a tough spot when people are opting for their Facebook feed over paying for articles from proper journalists. Indeed, because they are in such a tough spot, it suggests that they might be pushing towards doing unethical things in order to stay afloat.
  • gowld 6y ago
    If journalism dies, that's awful, but no reason to support the anti-journalism garbage that replaces it. WaPo and NYT dishonest political activism is far far worse than BuzzFeed's entertainment listicles.
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• goalieca 6y ago
  I'm not a sophisticated sociologist or anything by any means but I'd wager that social media originated and continues to drive the trend in popularism. The "upvote", "like", "retweet", and "share" buttons are a huge enabler for popular content to rise up and drown out all other. The only editorial review are the algorithms which are designed only to proliferate it even further. Yesterday I suggested that we need to get rid of the downvote button. I see a problem where prevailing opinions only become reinforced with double the efficiency. It may even be greater because of the psychological effect of "grey = bad" or "collapsed = bad". edit: typo desired->designed.
  • benlumen 6y ago
    I agree - the system gamifies conversation and literally rewards saying the popular thing with points. That's great for funny comments on memes, but it's not ideal for politics. Obviously, we're doing it here right now, which brings me onto a second point - I have found that Hacker News is frequented by similar-minded people who will take my ideas in good faith, so I take time to post here. But I no longer bother with other platforms that would downvote me for saying the same thing. And so, we're becoming inexperienced with ideas we disagree with.
    • newen 6y ago
      Hacker News has a very specific techno-libertarian Silicon Valley type outlook and you get downvoted pretty quickly when you express other types of views, especially in politics and controversial topics.
      • _jal 6y ago
        If this is the sort of thing you like, you'll like it here. Choose your bubble.
      • deleted 6y ago
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      • Bjartr 6y ago
        I find that if such opinions are communicated civilly, they are much, much less likely to be downvoted. It's not like no one here will knee jerk downvote, but most often I see aggressive posts downvoted much more consistently than "merely" controversial ones
• save_ferris 6y ago
  > once-objective mainstream journalism is now about writing content to please target audiences and catch trending topics on social media, as well as keep fast cycles going to appease the algorithms on news aggregation sites and search engines. This is spot on. The major problem here is that content is now largely generated based on maximizing ad revenue. News publications developing content aren’t all that different from SEM campaigns. When editors and publishers use article clicks as a performance benchmark, as many do these days, this is bound to happen.
  • benlumen 6y ago
    > News publications developing content aren’t all that different from SEM campaigns. Exactly - the have to please the same platforms and systems.
  • dimitrios1 6y ago
    This is also true from the other angle as well: SEO-driven content marketing companies are now becoming the "new media"
  • zentiggr 6y ago
    Hooray for Goodhart's Law... Now all we need to do is convince marketers and advertising that it applies to them as well.
  • raxxorrax 6y ago
    It is an attention economy. That is why news for nerds are dead, not only slashdot. They just use too much ad blockers and ate tio greedy to pay.
  • Sgt_Apone 6y ago
    > The major problem here is that content is now largely generated based on maximizing ad revenue. When has news content not been about maximizing ad revenue? That's been the model for decades before the internet.
    • philipkglass 6y ago
• orbifold 6y ago
  I agree and ironically I still find reading the paper edition of a high quality news paper to be much more pleasurable than scrolling through a news feed or navigating the ad-laden webpages of a newspaper. In fact the user experience on most of them is so much worse that it is almost laughable. Also since the articles are laid out physically before you in a predetermined order, far more of your senses are engaged. You are also more likely to serendipitously read an article far from what you would normally be interested in.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    >navigating the ad-laden webpages of a newspaper. Another HN-reader who doesn't use an ad-blocker? Occasionally, I get to see things like the NYT on someone's computer who doesn't have an ad-blocker installed, and it is deeply shocking and quite disturbing. With an ad-blocker, however, it's a remarkably pleasant experience, with almost zero distractions. There's even a "physical layout" that works more or less the same way as the paper version. Caveat: I do pay for a subscription to the NYT, which may change my experience somewhat.
    • SilasX 6y ago
      I use uBlock origin and still find a lot of news sites cancerous on desktop.
    • tomjen3 6y ago
      Having paid for newspapers and running an adblocker, you really can't compare the experience. An adblocker doesn't give you descriptive headlines, a sensible layout of articles or even content that is meant to give you a reasonable overview of the world. I remember the Economists app, having layout with sensibly named articles in sections that are relevant (so I can skip the style section), and first paragraphs that layout the meat of the article so I could skim it. Very good for me, but terrible for "engagement". I can subscribe to them, unfortunately because they also run dark-patterns: you can subscribe online, but have to call a number during British Business hours to unsubscribe (I sent an angry email to their support, but still).
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• zzzcpan 6y ago
  > once-objective mainstream journalism Objective journalism was never ever a thing. That's why Manufacturing Consent happened and all the works from Edward Bernays and all the way to Noam Chomsky. What journalism had before though is just more consistency in worldview, because mass media was very centralized and pushed much more consistent propaganda with nothing to oppose it.
  • benlumen 6y ago
    There might never have been some noble objective, but there were at least the business incentives to appeal to a broader audience because of the centralized distribution methods, no? I think Matt Taibbi wrote about this. Market forces then and now.
    • watwut 6y ago
      I mean, as much as Matt Taibbi articles are fun to read, he never came across to me as objective nor trying to be objective. A lot of what he writes is all about showing his viewpoint and appealing to people with similar viewpoint.
  • flr03 6y ago
    Objectivity will be subjective even outside of the communication model described in Manufacturing Consent. Ie, you can read the French newspaper, "Canard Enchaine" and verify that it doesn't tick the checkboxes of the five filters of editorial bias. Nonetheless that's a very opinionated newspaper. Opinions are by definition subjective. And, as even Chomsky acknowledged, journalists intentions are in the majority good. But, like we are, are very much trapped in an unavoidable ideology.
  • godelzilla 6y ago
    Don't you know that The Economist is completely unbiased and objective? lmao. Be careful going against the dominant ideologies here. I've been warned that it's a bannable offense.
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
• cryptica 6y ago
  People will always point to technology as the root cause for this problem but I think that the problem is in fact related to our fiat monetary system and 0% interest rate policy. The way technology evolves is just a symptom of our monetary environment. Would Facebook have been as successful as it is today if it wasn't for our insane monetary environment? I don't think so. My theory is that the Fed is printing so much easy money that money has become effectively worthless to those who already have it. Some people can throw it out the window and it will come right back to them. In such an artificial environment, the only assets that have real value are those which can transcend the current monetary reality. If interest rates ever go up, fiat currency will become more valuable. That means that the price of everything would drop (since prices are determined relative to fiat)... One of the few assets whose value would not drop so much if fiat becomes more valuable is "brand awareness" aka "consumer mindshare". That's why value creation is worthless and everyone is focused on zero-sum games and why some of the most valuable startups in the world don't make any profits. Their rich investors are not interested in today-money (of which they have an unlimited amount), that's worthless, they want tomorrow-money! They will throw away as much money as necessary on advertising to secure their current economic position in tomorrow-land. Also, I think that the reason why the quality of journalism degraded is also because consumer mindshare has become too valuable relative to everything else to let the truth get in the way. The truth doesn't efficiently align with the goals of corporate sponsors to increase brand awareness and gain consumer mindshare. Fed money-printing broke investors' financial compasses such that most of them can't tell the difference between creating real economic value and flushing money down the toilet. If anything, flushing money down the toilet tends to yield higher returns; this is because corporate exits at the end of the VC funnel are fueled by corporate debt which is freshly printed by the Fed.
• godelzilla 6y ago
  There's nothing objective about feeling vindicated by Bari Weiss.
• hintymad 6y ago
  Journalism should have been all the more important than before given so much misleading information and controversies on social media. Did X really say Y? Under which context? Why would A push policy B? What's A's rationale? How did the policy work? What are the trade-offs? What are the data, facts, and logic that support claim C? And of course all kinds of cover-ups by local government. Deep and comprehensive reports can shed lights in this confusing world. For instance, is the US K-12 education system really this bad? I think it is, and it is even worse than the gloomy situation depicted in the documentary Waiting for Superman? But is my frustration really founded? A former secretary of education, whose name I forgot, also claimed that the documentary was detrimental to the teacher's union and the K-12 education system. What was her angle? Why did he say so? And this is probably the least controversial topic I have in my mind. Instead, journalism got marginalized and polarized. It's sad.
• tmaly 6y ago
  I am reminded of this topic of availability cascade in Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow: "An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by 'availability entrepreneurs,' individuals or organizations who work to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines."
• zug_zug 6y ago
  I feel like this is a "preach to your base" response that doesn't address any of the salient points the article raises. So I think the challenge is well illustrated by the example they gave of when a president says "Go back to where you came from" to X-th generation immigrants. - I feel like I'd be kidding myself not to read this as nationalist/racist. However, newspapers have traditionally been hesitant to make "value judgements" about current politicians. How can the press be honest and realistic, without condoning or condemning such remarks? (Or to make the example harder, could you hypothetically write an article about Hitler without legitimizing nor condemning him? Would failure to condemn him in a "purely objective" historical piece not read as an endorsement?) - Or, just as easily, take Bush an Iraq. What was the correct phrasing to describe a war in Iraq based on evidence that proved to be false? Is there a way to communicate the facts without anchoring the value judgements?
  • thu2111 6y ago
    So I think the challenge is well illustrated by the example they gave of when a president says "Go back to where you came from" to X-th generation immigrants. Was it though. That this is considered some staggeringly deep philosophy-of-journalism challenge says a lot about the level of corruption in the media. I wasn't familiar with that quote. I had read Scott Alexander's post about how Trump is constantly painted by the media as overtly racist but actually isn't, so I was curious what the context was and what caused him to say this. The quote comes from a couple of tweets: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381394234941448 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11503813942349414... "So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly...... ....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how...." Although the media repeated the "go back" part with a megaphone, they entirely dropped the bit where he asks them to come back later, once they figured out how to better run a country. In these tweets Trump is making a political point about culture and government, not race. If he hated people based on race he wouldn't be telling them to come back to the USA when they become (in his view) less left wing and more governmentally-aware. It's a minor spin on a well worn right-wing talking point: socialist ideas have been tried in socialist republics and they're bad places to live, full of corruption and poverty. Yet this two tweet statement, easily quotable in full anytime someone wants to refer to it, is presented as a challenge of the form "how do we say Trump is racist even more loudly than we already do". It's this kind of thing that means I don't subscribe to the Economist anymore, nor do I care about other formerly respectable media outlets. I want objective facts that don't tell me what to think, with clearly separated analysis and context (ideally, separate outlets). Yet they're all engaged in massive amounts of selective quoting, manipulation, pushing their own extremist agendas on the reader base, and they're all desperate to find pseudo-intellectual justifications for even more fully embracing the total corruption of their industry.
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