4 ms·

and how much you think journalists should earn? 10k/yr?

by 5etho 6y ago

MattGaiser 6y ago
Newsrooms probably pay for too many things. You could probably get most opinion for free, lifestyle content for next to nothing, etc. The weekly jobless claims articles could be handled by cheap content mills. A lot of columns like personal finance and restaurants could easily be purchased freelance on the market. The Huffington Post demonstrated that non-investigative content can be had for free. So there should probably be far fewer middle skill journalists.
- hootbootscoot 6y ago
  But this is the same "race to the bottom" rhetoric that justified the entire "disruption" to the music and publishing industries that gave us Netflix and Amazon, respectively. I'm less and less convinced that we are doing the world any service by demonetizing all content and cutting the heads of all tall talent, hence the authors presumption of a sort of public UBI or other non-private-sector basis as a condition to liberating the content. The IP systems certainly are byzantine and punitive towards actual free information flow, as outlined in the article. However, if one approaches this as a typical Free Market Libertarian American (tm), as the author expressly does NOT, one arrives at different economic conclusions, and basically, journalism will not survive the complete demonetization of all content for ONE reason: content will become even more corruptly tied to out-of-band payment than is currently the case. why bother writing articles against the big bad polluter, when you can get paid to write apologism for them?
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Having run a newsroom, there is some very small truth in this. But the old motto of "you get what you pay for" is still true. The free stuff is uncontrollable - and is usually cloaked (or not so cloaked) advertising. There's lot of "free" stories on the wire, but if your paper just runs wire stories then it ruins its reputation. And the reputation is what attracts advertisers. In the end, you have to pay people to write good stuff. And that costs money. However, Journalists do have to get over themselves. The days of journalists being the only people with a voice are long gone and never coming back.

and how much you think journalists should earn? 10k/yr?

by 5etho 6y ago

and how much you think journalists should earn? 10k/yr?

Newsrooms probably pay for too many things. You could probably get most opinion for free, lifestyle content for next to nothing, etc. The weekly jobless claims articles could be handled by cheap content mills. A lot of columns like personal finance and restaurants could easily be purchased freelance on the market. The Huffington Post demonstrated that non-investigative content can be had for free. So there should probably be far fewer middle skill journalists.

hootbootscoot 6y ago
But this is the same "race to the bottom" rhetoric that justified the entire "disruption" to the music and publishing industries that gave us Netflix and Amazon, respectively. I'm less and less convinced that we are doing the world any service by demonetizing all content and cutting the heads of all tall talent, hence the authors presumption of a sort of public UBI or other non-private-sector basis as a condition to liberating the content. The IP systems certainly are byzantine and punitive towards actual free information flow, as outlined in the article. However, if one approaches this as a typical Free Market Libertarian American (tm), as the author expressly does NOT, one arrives at different economic conclusions, and basically, journalism will not survive the complete demonetization of all content for ONE reason: content will become even more corruptly tied to out-of-band payment than is currently the case. why bother writing articles against the big bad polluter, when you can get paid to write apologism for them?
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Having run a newsroom, there is some very small truth in this. But the old motto of "you get what you pay for" is still true. The free stuff is uncontrollable - and is usually cloaked (or not so cloaked) advertising. There's lot of "free" stories on the wire, but if your paper just runs wire stories then it ruins its reputation. And the reputation is what attracts advertisers. In the end, you have to pay people to write good stuff. And that costs money. However, Journalists do have to get over themselves. The days of journalists being the only people with a voice are long gone and never coming back.