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This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about things that are important, not se
by lordnacho 6y ago
This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about things that are important, not sensational.
All other publications are slowly falling victim to the parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high rep and try to square the circle by staying there and getting people to pay for it.
- dmix 6y ago> Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it daily for over a decade. I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer it everywhere politicially on their website. WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as extensive or big as NYT. I just hope things return to a bit more normal after the US election.
- sumedh 6y ago> WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly I would imagine its probably because their advertising revenue has been falling down because of the internet. You have to be flexible with your standards when your revenue is declining.
- friendlybus 6y agoIt's getting harder to buy this line as their financials keep getting better and better. They have nearly 5 million subscribers and aiming to hit 10mil by 2025. The advertising revenue isn't growing much, but subscriptions are. https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-02-06/ny-times-publishers-4q-profit-grows-as-it-adds-subscribers https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-02-06/ny-...
- sumedh 6y agoWhich could also mean that whatever they are doing when they "fell down" is working for them.
- tannhauser23 6y agoIt supports the OP's point. NY Times has switched from a revenues model to a subscriber model, which means they're strongly incentivized to publish articles that reinforce the worldviews of their paying customers. Before, when they were dependent on advertising, they needed to be objective and represent all viewpoints because they needed to reach as large an audience as possible.
- pdxandi 6y agoWhy would subscriptions over advertising change their target audience? It seems that either way they are trying to get as many eyeballs as possible. Getting repeat subscriptions versus repeat page views (or whatever the ad revenue metric) seems irrelevant to me.
- tlear 6y agoBecause of the publish something that does not say Orange Man Bad they will loose a bunch of their subscribers. Getting subscribers is much harder then loosing them. Let’s say they covered Hunter Biden scandal. How much would that cost them? Quite a bit I bet
- KSteffensen 6y agoIf that's the case there is no way to save the US. Everyone will keep screaming at each other based on the propaganda they buy into until the guns come out. There has to be a way to present alternate ways of interpreting facts without immediately getting accused of partisan censorship. US media can't even agree on what the facts are without the partisan accusation coming out. How to rebuild institutional trust once it's gone?
- kbenson 6y agoYou don't have to, at least if you're private. There's the option to actually stop. That's not necessarily a horrible thing, even if some people think it is. What we're really seeing is the difference between those that actually want to "provide the best X possible as a business" and those that "want to make money in the market for X". Everyone says they are the former, but the difference is that those that actually are sometimes go out of business rather than compromise too far. Those that are the latter may not want to compromise too far but, well, "the goal is to make a profit, right?"
- jerry1979 6y agoNYT also helped sell America into Iraq.
- seppin 6y agoRight that's who to blame not the party/President that actually executed it.
- greesil 6y agoThe op-ed page is not the same as the news, which is what I remember Bill Kristol being hawkish in.
- dragonwriter 6y agoJudith Miller wasn't an op-ed columnist. OTOH, ISTR that she was at least accused of actively deceiving her editors.
- nostromo 6y agoNope, not op-ed. This is a reference to Judith Miller, and others, that published false information in the New York Times about Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction on the front page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#The_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#The_Iraq_War
- greesil 6y ago
- throwre24234 6y ago> WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. As a Indian, I disagree. The reportage on anything India is the usual mix of patronizing caste-curry-cow (and now 'Hindu terror') BS. The morons in-charge of international news at every one of these outlets (incl. Intercept, Twitter, Google..) think that just because they are white, their imagination of the world is the reality.
- thu2111 6y agoThat's interesting. It's not just India and it's not about race. The NYT has a problem with Britain too, believe it or not. This article goes into some examples but they aren't the only ones: https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-against-britain/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-a...
- HashThis 6y agoThe "media" isn't optimizing for clicks or engagement. The media is optimizing for advancing the democratic political party. It blocks stories that cover topics where the political right may be correct. Proof: Stories like the one they are hiding can drive a lot of traffic. They are hidden to advance one political party over another. The stories aren't killed because they want traffic.
- throwaway127849 6y agoAs an Indian who reads NYT's international coverage, I disagree with your comment. NYT's India reports have been excellent and evidence based. The right wing extremism is indeed on the rise[1]. Any report I see, they are presenting their statements with ground report backed by statistics, usually by Govt. data. [1] https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-economist-finds-hate-crimes-against https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-economist-fin...
- jagannathtech 6y agoIf their "ground reporting" had any kernel of truth to it then they would not be covering up the rise of islamic extremism in India using bogeys of "right wing extremism".
- chiefalchemist 6y agoYes. But relativelty that mighty fall makes them reek like trash. At that point, it's a duck. What's worse is they continue to leverage their once-stellar reputations to sell second-rate "stuff" as "news". They've lowered to bar for the accepted definition of journalism. They might not suck, but they're intentional pursuit falling has broad societal and cultural implications. Perhaps not 100% tabloid, but they use that tool enough to make it more and more legitimate. To have a healthy and proper Democracy requires a coherent, honest and transparent Fourth Estate. That ship has sailed, and it was prior to Jan 2017.
- dnh44 6y agoWell the film Network deals with this theme and it came out in 1976 so I'd say that ship has sailed around the world a few times by now. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
- pibechorro 6y agoNYT is not an objective publication, they have a heavy bias.
- bsenftner 6y agoSame with Wall Street Journal - the bias is ridiculously bare.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago> Economist, FT and the WSJ I have print subscriptions to the first 2 but I disagree because what I recall from working in blue collar jobs is that people who would benefit from that world view will not bother. they spend their days thinking about basic survival and when they pick up a paper (on the bog) just want to be entertained. Sadly the typical reader of the Economist never had to deal with anyone from the "lower" classes. They consider them as something they need protection from. A minimum wage, social safety net and working health care system usually goes a long way in preventing this divide from growing into a normal (like in the US - or very poor countries that share that class divide as a common property with the US).
- DLA 6y agoI do very much love the outstanding clear graphics the Economist does with most of their stories. And I agree with others’ comments about the NYT web design team—awesome talents! But the overt bias of the paper is such turn off. They’ve lost all objectivity. Sad.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoThe Economist is quickly losing that reputation. I cancelled my subscription. The FT is still pretty good, though they shy away from anything critical of powerful corporations/individuals.
- brian_cloutier 6y agoWhat about the economist made you cancel? My impression is that they're still doing a great job of providing trustworthy news which avoids sensationalism
- rmrfstar 6y agoWhen I read the Economist, I can't help but feel like I'm reading an advertisement for the center of the Anglo-American neoliberal Overton window, drafted by some recent grad who doesn't know who Allen Dulles was. To rip off a pg-ism, they are intentional moderates. Intentional moderates are boring.
- raxxorrax 6y agoBoring is pretty adequate for news. I think entertainment is better found elsewhere.
- zingplex 6y agoThere are different types of boring. When I read The Economist, I find their writing unchallenging, never broadening my worldview or making me rethink my preconceived notions. Good journalism and opinion writing isn't boring, it's absolutely fascinating, and that's something I find The Economist lacks.
- username90 6y ago> I find their writing unchallenging, never broadening my worldview or making me rethink my preconceived notions. Why would you want that? Amateurs adding a personal spin on topics they don't understand is bad news. Reading that will just make you more misinformed.
- clairity 6y agonote that the economist, ft and wsj are neither impartial nor a well-rounded balance of daily record. but yes, wapo and nyt--and i'll add npr--have largely turned into partisan opinionating (which i'd coin covidizing, if i had any such clout), save a few longer-form investigative pieces (which have a leaning via editorial discretion, but aren't typically editorialized).
- irencecara 6y agoThe Economist has just endorsed Joe Biden for president.
- Bhilai 6y agoWSJ has pretty biased opinion section though where they have almost no standards.
- wrsh07 6y agoI agree (as someone to left of the wsj median), but it's worth knowing that the editorial desk is an entirely different team from the opinion desk (with different standards etc) Is this good? I don't think so, but it's worth being aware of, like to understand "why is that brand diluting itself with an opinion desk?" (I don't have a satisfying answer though) https://www.quora.com/Is-there-anything-structurally-different-about-an-editorial-vs-an-op-ed-piece-other-than-who-writes-it https://www.quora.com/Is-there-anything-structurally-differe...
- phs318u 6y agoWhich is typical of the approach Murdoch takes with his "high brow" media properties. Quality news, batshit crazy opinion.
- temp8964 6y agoWhich one is worse than the NYT "senior administration official" op-ed?
- WillPostForFood 6y agopretty biased opinion section Like, that's what an editorial page is? What you are really saying is, they don't have the same bias as you. As for standards, that's really unfair. They have high standards and are much more apt to invite opposing opinions than the NYT, or WaPo. They refused to endorse Trump in 2016. Good people can disagree with you for real reasons, not because they have lower standards.
- fulafel 6y agoThere's bias and then there's intentional misleading. Providing a platform for the Koch etc funded think-tanks doesn't fit into "just bias". Eg their attempts to undermine climate science.
- juniper_strong 6y agoI've stopped caring about institutions' reputations because I don't need them to gatekeep for me anymore. If I want to read about finance, I can read Matt Levine. If I want to read about law I can read Eugene Volokh. If I want to read about about security I can read Bruce Schneier. In every category I care about, there are writers who are experts who make their expert opinions known without me having to subscribe to the Economist, FT, or the WSJ, all of which are great, all of which I grew up reading. But I think I'm done with their gatekeeping now, I don't need it. WaPo and NYT are trash and that was made nakedly obvious in 2016. It's more blatant now than it was then, but I guess if you didn't notice it then, you won't notice it now.
- ece 6y agoFor general news, I would still prefer the common touchstone, and diversity of an Economist, FT, Post or NYT. Each of these papers has their weak and strong points (ie. some have covered tech better than others). In more specialized fields, sure nothing beats an expert.
- nojito 6y agoThose are opinion writers not journalists. It’s a sad state of affairs when people confuse the two.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bart_spoon 6y agoYou’ve been downvoted but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s lots of debate in these comments about how journalism is dying due to various monetization schemes, organization and lower dynamics, etc. But I personally think the issue is that we, as news consumers, are becoming lazier and are simply looking for someone to tell us what to think, rather than a comparatively dry report on the facts that then requires the reader to make do their own analysis. Opinion articles seem to be what dominates traditional media outlets like the NYT and WP, while 24 hour news networks don’t even label it as opinion, they just bring on pundits to comment on every single thing that happens. Journalism has stopped being about reporting what happened, and has become increasingly focused on telling you what to think about what happened. Perhaps it’s always been that way, but the internet has accelerated and further enabled it to the point where it feels like journalism as an institution is collapsing.
- chaostheory 6y agoThe issue is not everyone can afford to pay for real unbiased journalism
- wussboy 6y agoSurely that has never been true.
- chaostheory 6y agoWhy not?
- meigwilym 6y agoI had never seen the word "parametdynamicser" before. Googling lead me back here. Although it does ask if I meant "parameter dynamics". Could you explain what you meant with it?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DebtDeflation 6y agoI still don't understand why (apart from money) the major cable news networks allow Paid Partner trash to fill up the bottom of the front page of their websites. "Leading gut doctor: I beg every American to throw out this vegetable NOW!" type nonsense.
- mschuster91 6y ago> "Leading gut doctor: I beg every American to throw out this vegetable NOW!" type nonsense. That and obscure investments into shitcoins. I get that the FDA and every other public health agency worldwide has more pressing problems than quacks, but what are the SEC and their European counterparts doing all day? I'd expect them to investigate scams and questionably legal "investment" opportunities.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago>but what are the SEC and their European counterparts doing all day? Raking in the $$$ fining banks for missing technicalities on reporting and whatnot. Look at the incentives and you can predict the outcome. It's the same reason the DOT spends their time harassing scrap haulers and dump trucks for being a few pounds overweight rather than trying to track down the people driving on no sleep or systematically skirting the rules. Fining people for petty BS is the financial meat and potatoes of their operation. Good Old Fashioned Police Work (TM) is just a loss leading sideshow to keep public approval high enough to get money. It's like how Red Bull's primary business is selling energy drinks but they also have a bunch of extreme sports ventures for PR purposes. Pretty much every enforcement agency is like that. You want to see the EPA, OSHA or SEC or whoever levy big company ending fines that scare everyone into compliance then you need to take away the low effort to enforce petty stuff that is the bulk of their revenue stream.
- alxndr 6y agoShort answer is that they pay a lot.
- atmosx 6y ago> This is why the Economist Do you actually read the economist? The publication has downgraded quality enormously since 2004, when I first start reading the economist as a subscriber and not casually. For the economist to make sense you have to accept reality in very simplistic terms, e.g. "US/NATO good, Iran/Russia/China bad". If you can live with this simple worldview, than the ecconomist is fine.
- knolax 6y ago> Economist The economist has some of the worst journalism I have ever seen. Lots of snark and no information.