5 ms·

Maybe getting rid of professional journalism, and crowd sourcing the news via secret algorithms, isn't such a great idea after all...

zpeti 6y ago
We as consumers should be valuing real journalism and actually paying money for it. Otherwise this carries on going downhill. Journalism, at least some of it, should not be about clicks and sound bites.
- turtleturtle 6y ago
  The idea of free journalism sounds great until it's all ad driven and click bait-y. A digital news subscription cost less than $1 daily and it's still a challenge to convince people to commit to one. I'm glad some long form journalists are moving to substack.
  - lanstin 6y ago
    I have subscribed to like seven newspapers this year and i have to say their use of technology is awful. They should get a revenue sharing system like ASCAP for music - I pay so much per year and then they distribute it amongst the sites I view. I only want to check Houston papers when they have flooding but I don’t want them to die out. I only want to read Wilmington paper when they get a hurricane or a spike in Covid cases in the nursing homes, but I can’t see paying $1000 per year for all of the places I click in on from time to time.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  They don't want this. Most of today's journalists are activists and they want the widest audience possible, whether it pays handsomely or not.
- clairity 6y ago
  having watched the media landscape over the past two decades, the market for real journalism is apparently small and shrinking. there's not enough such money available to support it at its desired size. "real news" loses to social media because it can't compete on the novelty dopamine feedback loop (otherwise known as popularity): being the first to bring up new info or make a novel comment about it, getting a dopamine hit (esteem), then going back to the trough for more. old journalism is comparatively too slow and sparse at this. so traditional news, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to join the fray instead of being crowded out. this won't change until good journalism can compete for (enough) attention without being subsumed by the social novelty feedback loop. it's not so much about value or even actualizing journalists' activist stances (as others seem to be arguing), but the competitive dynamics of the market they're in.
- dkackman11 6y ago
  We need to consider that some things are a public good that must be paid for as such, not as merely a commodity. Public broadcasting is the model that works best and achieves the correct balance between public good and market forces.It can be neither entirely one (state controlled media) nor the other (click bait drivel).
- octoberfranklin 6y ago
  I tried paying money for it. I fought with one newspaper's website for an hour to figure out how to buy one year of access without recurring charges to my credit card. When I finally figured out that I needed to buy a gift subscription for myself it turns out their credit card form only has the next four years as expiration date options (my credit card expires six years from now). The media isn't interested in financial support from their readership. Too many of us to deal with. They prefer a few powerful interests and a small number of big checks written.
rayiner 6y ago
The “professional journalists” aren’t that great either. The field has been overtaken by 20 year olds. Even Matt Yglesias, who has spent most of his career to the left of Democrats as a whole, has been grumbling on his podcast about journalists these days failing to respect the difference between journalism and advocacy. Matt Taibbi (who I don’t like as a person but who is at least a real journalist) has written an entire book about it: https://intpolicydigest.org/2020/02/19/review-matt-taibbi-s-hate-inc/ https://intpolicydigest.org/2020/02/19/review-matt-taibbi-s-...
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  The field being taken over by 20 year olds is a consequence of the field's revenue being eaten by tech. There's not enough money to make a decent living on now, so those filling the void will be more ideologically motivated.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - spikels 6y ago
    Many journalists today come from wealthy families and have went to schools like Harvard and Princeton. They don’t need the shitty pay (although many are well paid) and are driven by the desire to be influential (i.e. power) more than any coherent ideology.
- president 6y ago
  It's about hiring people that will blindly follow orders, hence young and impressionable 20 year olds. Same thing that's been happening in Silicon Valley for years now.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    You can quite easily judge the quality of a workplace by how young the workforce is.
- tptacek 6y ago
disown 6y ago
> Maybe getting rid of professional journalism That is why we are in this mess. Social media was fun before "professional journalism" started getting involved. Think about it. The toxicity on social media is entirely driven by the news media. The culture wars and everything from smollet to "culture of rape on campus". The news blames social media but it's actually the news traveling within social media that is the problem.

zpeti 6y ago

We as consumers should be valuing real journalism and actually paying money for it. Otherwise this carries on going downhill. Journalism, at least some of it, should not be about clicks and sound bites.

turtleturtle 6y ago
The idea of free journalism sounds great until it's all ad driven and click bait-y. A digital news subscription cost less than $1 daily and it's still a challenge to convince people to commit to one. I'm glad some long form journalists are moving to substack.
- lanstin 6y ago
  I have subscribed to like seven newspapers this year and i have to say their use of technology is awful. They should get a revenue sharing system like ASCAP for music - I pay so much per year and then they distribute it amongst the sites I view. I only want to check Houston papers when they have flooding but I don’t want them to die out. I only want to read Wilmington paper when they get a hurricane or a spike in Covid cases in the nursing homes, but I can’t see paying $1000 per year for all of the places I click in on from time to time.
ravenstine 6y ago
They don't want this. Most of today's journalists are activists and they want the widest audience possible, whether it pays handsomely or not.
clairity 6y ago
having watched the media landscape over the past two decades, the market for real journalism is apparently small and shrinking. there's not enough such money available to support it at its desired size. "real news" loses to social media because it can't compete on the novelty dopamine feedback loop (otherwise known as popularity): being the first to bring up new info or make a novel comment about it, getting a dopamine hit (esteem), then going back to the trough for more. old journalism is comparatively too slow and sparse at this. so traditional news, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to join the fray instead of being crowded out. this won't change until good journalism can compete for (enough) attention without being subsumed by the social novelty feedback loop. it's not so much about value or even actualizing journalists' activist stances (as others seem to be arguing), but the competitive dynamics of the market they're in.
dkackman11 6y ago
We need to consider that some things are a public good that must be paid for as such, not as merely a commodity. Public broadcasting is the model that works best and achieves the correct balance between public good and market forces.It can be neither entirely one (state controlled media) nor the other (click bait drivel).
octoberfranklin 6y ago
I tried paying money for it. I fought with one newspaper's website for an hour to figure out how to buy one year of access without recurring charges to my credit card. When I finally figured out that I needed to buy a gift subscription for myself it turns out their credit card form only has the next four years as expiration date options (my credit card expires six years from now). The media isn't interested in financial support from their readership. Too many of us to deal with. They prefer a few powerful interests and a small number of big checks written.

rayiner 6y ago

The “professional journalists” aren’t that great either. The field has been overtaken by 20 year olds. Even Matt Yglesias, who has spent most of his career to the left of Democrats as a whole, has been grumbling on his podcast about journalists these days failing to respect the difference between journalism and advocacy. Matt Taibbi (who I don’t like as a person but who is at least a real journalist) has written an entire book about it: https://intpolicydigest.org/2020/02/19/review-matt-taibbi-s-hate-inc/ https://intpolicydigest.org/2020/02/19/review-matt-taibbi-s-...

freewilly1040 6y ago
The field being taken over by 20 year olds is a consequence of the field's revenue being eaten by tech. There's not enough money to make a decent living on now, so those filling the void will be more ideologically motivated.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- spikels 6y ago
  Many journalists today come from wealthy families and have went to schools like Harvard and Princeton. They don’t need the shitty pay (although many are well paid) and are driven by the desire to be influential (i.e. power) more than any coherent ideology.
president 6y ago
It's about hiring people that will blindly follow orders, hence young and impressionable 20 year olds. Same thing that's been happening in Silicon Valley for years now.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  You can quite easily judge the quality of a workplace by how young the workforce is.
tptacek 6y ago

disown 6y ago

> Maybe getting rid of professional journalism That is why we are in this mess. Social media was fun before "professional journalism" started getting involved. Think about it. The toxicity on social media is entirely driven by the news media. The culture wars and everything from smollet to "culture of rape on campus". The news blames social media but it's actually the news traveling within social media that is the problem.