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Traditional TV and Print News Media gets the most eyeballs when they are controversial. Fox, CNN, MSNBC all do everything they can to coddle their specific segm

Traditional TV and Print News Media gets the most eyeballs when they are controversial. Fox, CNN, MSNBC all do everything they can to coddle their specific segment. They phrase and comment on the news in a way that'll either excite their segment when they think it'll benefit and soften the blow whenever they think it'll hurt. And no, none of them appeal to a general audience. The ads that each network displays will tell you exactly who their specific audience is. Twitter's audience is narrow: Most of the people I know (across countries, religions, genders, professions) do not have a Twitter account. So, they make decisions that suit their userbase, which is significantly narrower than Facebook's. Facebook user base is closer to the general public. Unfortunately, their platform also enables an echo chamber. So, they have a tough job to do and in this regard. They have to be careful about whom to censor. Whatever they choose will be closer the law. I think they're trying their best.

wrsh07 6y ago
I tend to think that the business model of a cable news room is pretty fundamentally broken. Insofar as you value investigative journalism or pieces with some depth, you will be disappointed by organizations that host ESPN style shout fests, but they're produced for exactly the same reasons. It's cheap to make garbage filler content. When you see that all of the channels are deeply flawed, it's because they're incentivized to be flawed in exactly the way that they are. Curiously, John Oliver (say what you will about his biases) has found a way to fund real investigative journalism. This marks an interesting counterpoint to the 24 hour news room which extends what comedy central (daily show etc) had begun
- strategyanalyst 6y ago
  John Oliver is also focused on a sub-segment and is also at least misleading at times. There are no sources of information that are credible with more than 45-55% of US Gen pop. We really need a source that can at least be relied upon as accurate source by 70-80% to avoid total collapse of democratic order in US.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    Find a business model that works for independent journalism, then. Advertising pays more with more controversy. Patronage (having a rich person pay the journalists) comes with strings. Consumers appear willing to pay for journalism only when it supports their political beliefs.
    - DubiousPusher 6y ago
      Yeah, the solution isn't to find a single fount of truth we can all sup from. We are where we are because that mid-century model was fragile. Not to mention it allowed Americans to overlook any wrongs that didn't blip on the radar of the NorthEast intellectual hegemony. The real solution is a healthy ecosystem of independent news.
    - jaredwiener 6y ago
      We're trying! https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/ https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/
      - marcus_holmes 6y ago
        Interesting! What business model are you going for?
        jaredwiener 6y ago
        Think of it sort of Twitter-meets-Substack. It's still advertising/freemium, but with some big differences. We syndicate out the internal updates that reporters are already writing within their own newsroom, so while they work on their current formats, we just piggyback off of existing work. Then we revenue share from those ads/subscriptions back to support the reporters and news orgs doing the reporting. There is money being spent on ads now, its just going to the wrong people. We're trying to fix that -- and align the incentives back so that everyone -- readers, reporters, us -- succeeds when we have good journalism, not clickbait.
- autokad 6y ago
  John Oliver? are you kidding me? he purposely takes things out of context, cartoonizes and dehumanizes the opposition, uses comedy as a shield to make substantial counter points, etc etc. His goal is less about engagement (like a news media) and more abut driving a deeper wedge between people. John Oliver is a curse upon humanity, he makes this world worse.
  - amrangaye 6y ago
    “A curse upon humanity”? Aren’t you getting a bit carried away? You may not like the contents of the show but fact is he presents a lot of really complex issues in an easily digestible, shareable format, for people who only follow the 24/7 (shallow) news cycle and get their understanding from sound bites. Not to mention the hyperbole of “all of humanity” - his audience is not even all of America :)
hi5eyes 6y ago
>Twitter's audience is narrow: Most of the people I know (across countries, religions, genders, professions) do not have a Twitter account. most of the people in media are on twitter 247, talking heads take from twitter discourse and export that to other media
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Twitter has a really high membership ratio in journalism and politics - pretty much every professional journalist and politician is very active. Whether this is a good thing for society is a different question. (I'd argue that it's not and that Twitter should be closed down. But I know that's an unpopular opinion)
  - oooooooooooow 6y ago
    I reckon it's not as unpopular as you might think.
    - afiori 6y ago
      Twitter is very popular among influential people
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - owl57 6y ago
    Twitter should be closed down It probably can't be closed down in a way that's not even worse than current situation. Even if there's no coercion and management just has the revelation and decides to close shop, some (probably Chinese-owned) clone will probably reach the same position soon, what's the win?
  - jeresuikkila 6y ago
    Does your closing down suggestion only apply to Twitter or also other social media platforms? What would the effect be?
saurik 6y ago
While I actually agree that they are "trying their best" (though I feel like "their best" isn't that great ;P), I feel like they have also--on purpose--built something that requires super human levels of "trying" to get right... content recommendation is something that, even at that scale, should have ramifications attached to it, even if it means people don't build them (as the world would probably be better off without them anyway, and it ain't like causing harm at a larger scale is somehow less harmful than doing it on a smaller scale). Until such point, I am at least glad they have discovered a new source of truth: https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-all-of-facebook-s-future-deci-1839169061 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-all-of-fa...
rchaud 6y ago
I do not use Twitter, and yet I have been seeing screenshots of his half-formed sentences strewn across every news channel for the past 5 years. At least that will come to an end.
siruncledrew 6y ago
This is a culmination of many things, and overall it shows we’ve really fucked ourselves as a country over the years. Capitalism dictates how our communication and news operates, and this is a side effect of changing circumstances where TV and print media are dying, people aren’t paying for news, and companies are relying on ad revenue for their business models - which means having to attract and hold on to consumers. I’m not trying to paint capitalism as the devil. Just saying it’s not like this was a total surprise given we could see the road we went down. It’s pretty fucking unfortunate the most prevalent sources of current events and information equate to the ‘McDonalds of news and Walmarts of TV’. I know people get spooked about propaganda at the thought of government funded news... though clearly having a bunch of rich assholes ‘run news’ hasn’t been so good either. Idk, I guess this is an eye-opener of the importance of publicly funded places like PBS?

wrsh07 6y ago

I tend to think that the business model of a cable news room is pretty fundamentally broken. Insofar as you value investigative journalism or pieces with some depth, you will be disappointed by organizations that host ESPN style shout fests, but they're produced for exactly the same reasons. It's cheap to make garbage filler content. When you see that all of the channels are deeply flawed, it's because they're incentivized to be flawed in exactly the way that they are. Curiously, John Oliver (say what you will about his biases) has found a way to fund real investigative journalism. This marks an interesting counterpoint to the 24 hour news room which extends what comedy central (daily show etc) had begun

strategyanalyst 6y ago
John Oliver is also focused on a sub-segment and is also at least misleading at times. There are no sources of information that are credible with more than 45-55% of US Gen pop. We really need a source that can at least be relied upon as accurate source by 70-80% to avoid total collapse of democratic order in US.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Find a business model that works for independent journalism, then. Advertising pays more with more controversy. Patronage (having a rich person pay the journalists) comes with strings. Consumers appear willing to pay for journalism only when it supports their political beliefs.
  - DubiousPusher 6y ago
    Yeah, the solution isn't to find a single fount of truth we can all sup from. We are where we are because that mid-century model was fragile. Not to mention it allowed Americans to overlook any wrongs that didn't blip on the radar of the NorthEast intellectual hegemony. The real solution is a healthy ecosystem of independent news.
  - jaredwiener 6y ago
    We're trying! https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/ https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/
    - marcus_holmes 6y ago
      Interesting! What business model are you going for?
      - jaredwiener 6y ago
        Think of it sort of Twitter-meets-Substack. It's still advertising/freemium, but with some big differences. We syndicate out the internal updates that reporters are already writing within their own newsroom, so while they work on their current formats, we just piggyback off of existing work. Then we revenue share from those ads/subscriptions back to support the reporters and news orgs doing the reporting. There is money being spent on ads now, its just going to the wrong people. We're trying to fix that -- and align the incentives back so that everyone -- readers, reporters, us -- succeeds when we have good journalism, not clickbait.
autokad 6y ago
John Oliver? are you kidding me? he purposely takes things out of context, cartoonizes and dehumanizes the opposition, uses comedy as a shield to make substantial counter points, etc etc. His goal is less about engagement (like a news media) and more abut driving a deeper wedge between people. John Oliver is a curse upon humanity, he makes this world worse.
- amrangaye 6y ago
  “A curse upon humanity”? Aren’t you getting a bit carried away? You may not like the contents of the show but fact is he presents a lot of really complex issues in an easily digestible, shareable format, for people who only follow the 24/7 (shallow) news cycle and get their understanding from sound bites. Not to mention the hyperbole of “all of humanity” - his audience is not even all of America :)

hi5eyes 6y ago

>Twitter's audience is narrow: Most of the people I know (across countries, religions, genders, professions) do not have a Twitter account. most of the people in media are on twitter 247, talking heads take from twitter discourse and export that to other media

marcus_holmes 6y ago
Twitter has a really high membership ratio in journalism and politics - pretty much every professional journalist and politician is very active. Whether this is a good thing for society is a different question. (I'd argue that it's not and that Twitter should be closed down. But I know that's an unpopular opinion)
- oooooooooooow 6y ago
  I reckon it's not as unpopular as you might think.
  - afiori 6y ago
    Twitter is very popular among influential people
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- owl57 6y ago
  Twitter should be closed down It probably can't be closed down in a way that's not even worse than current situation. Even if there's no coercion and management just has the revelation and decides to close shop, some (probably Chinese-owned) clone will probably reach the same position soon, what's the win?
- jeresuikkila 6y ago
  Does your closing down suggestion only apply to Twitter or also other social media platforms? What would the effect be?

saurik 6y ago

While I actually agree that they are "trying their best" (though I feel like "their best" isn't that great ;P), I feel like they have also--on purpose--built something that requires super human levels of "trying" to get right... content recommendation is something that, even at that scale, should have ramifications attached to it, even if it means people don't build them (as the world would probably be better off without them anyway, and it ain't like causing harm at a larger scale is somehow less harmful than doing it on a smaller scale). Until such point, I am at least glad they have discovered a new source of truth: https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-all-of-facebook-s-future-deci-1839169061 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-all-of-fa...

rchaud 6y ago

I do not use Twitter, and yet I have been seeing screenshots of his half-formed sentences strewn across every news channel for the past 5 years. At least that will come to an end.

siruncledrew 6y ago

This is a culmination of many things, and overall it shows we’ve really fucked ourselves as a country over the years. Capitalism dictates how our communication and news operates, and this is a side effect of changing circumstances where TV and print media are dying, people aren’t paying for news, and companies are relying on ad revenue for their business models - which means having to attract and hold on to consumers. I’m not trying to paint capitalism as the devil. Just saying it’s not like this was a total surprise given we could see the road we went down. It’s pretty fucking unfortunate the most prevalent sources of current events and information equate to the ‘McDonalds of news and Walmarts of TV’. I know people get spooked about propaganda at the thought of government funded news... though clearly having a bunch of rich assholes ‘run news’ hasn’t been so good either. Idk, I guess this is an eye-opener of the importance of publicly funded places like PBS?