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A shallow, one-sided take on what happened to the news business. I mean, here's a guy who quotes himself (!) saying, "I’d go further: I think we as a society a

A shallow, one-sided take on what happened to the news business. I mean, here's a guy who quotes himself (!) saying, "I’d go further: I think we as a society are in a far stronger place when it comes to knowing the truth than we have ever been previously, and that is thanks to the Internet" As his example of this, he appears to the New York Times as his exemplar of a company that's been relatively successful online. Relative to newspapers that have basically failed that is. Comparted to Breitbart, Fox News, and other non-fact based journalism, relatively, well, less successful. Google is in a sense an aggregator but according to algorithms that it's careful to keep secret. Its main financial goal in doing this is to maximize ad revenue it can extract from the feed, and Google is more successful in that regard than any of the sources of the news it aggregates. Leaving other concerns aside, this does drain ever more revenue out of the business of creating news, since advertisers now choose between buying ads from the aggegator or ads from the source, and no, Google's work hasn't doubled marketing budgets of advertisers. Facebook controls what people see -- it doesn't aggregate, it segregates. You see what Facebook has determined you want to see, and usually they're right (It would be much better for us as a community if they were wrong much more often and showed everyone things they don't want to see.) Facebook financial goal in choosing what to put in user feeds is maximizing ad revenue for Facebook. This has further drained ad revenue away from sources of content. The piece claims, hey, the internet was making it harder on news sources before the ascendency of Facebook and Google, though as late as the 1990's newspapers were still a very profitable business. Yeah, Craig's List grabbed a huge share of the classified ad business which traditionally was a major part of newspaper revenue, and newspapers stupidly failed to mount any significant effort to get that revenue back. But Google and Facebook have vastly more effective methods of siphoning off revenue as they've dominated market share and therefore become indispensable for all news outlets. It not only starves news sources of revenue but favors sources that tell people what they want to hear in a way that excites the audience. In other words, the current sorry state of our political world.

derefr 6y ago
> It would be much better for us as a community if they were wrong much more often and showed everyone things they don't want to see. Tangent to this, "Tumblr is the best social media site of 2021": https://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/post/639134013230088192/i-love-tumblr-i-love-that-tumblr-is-the-best https://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/post/639134013230088192/i-l...
pdonis 6y ago
> Comparted to Breitbart, Fox News, and other non-fact based journalism You're assuming that the NYT is "fact based journalism". I don't think it is. They are pushing a point of view, just as every other media source is. > indispensable for all news outlets I know the news outlets claim this, but I find the claim to be either very stupid (highly unlikely) or very disingenuous (much more likely). If I want to know what the NYT published today, I can go to their website. If I want to know what CNN is saying today, I can just watch them (or go to their website). Everyone knows these news sources exist and where to find them; it's not like they're new startups trying to acquire users. So the idea that the news outlets need to be visible in Google searches or Facebook feeds for people to know what they are saying is ludicrous.
- Booktrope 6y ago
  Google and FB have a huge share of the internet reading market; polls repeatedly show that over 30% of the population gets its news from Facebook posts, and another large share get info from Google searches. Twitter also plays a huge role, and soon to be added, stuff like Gab where no you will not be served up any liberal stuff. With the market dominated by a few "aggregators" it's not quite accurate to say, oh, news sources can just get their own following. Of course they can get some market share; the NYT has done better than most newspapers at that, and Breitbart even better, due I think to its much better alignment with social media (sensationalism, tribalism, etc.) Just because you can find CNN(or even MSNBC) on your TV or go to their website, doesn't address the role of FB and Google in dissemination of news. Let me repeat, over 30 percent of Americans get news from their Facebook feeds. Facebook uses these feeds to attract advertising on a scale no media producer can even dream of, and it comes from the same advertising budgets. I have to say, when you name call people who disagree with you (very stupid or disingenuous), it's a good indicator, your argument doesn't have a very solid foundation. You say, it's "ludicrous" to say news outlets need visibility in Google or FB for people to know what they're saying, you totally miss the point. Yeah, I can set up a web site with my opinions, and anyone can come and find out what I'm saying too. We're talking about how to make economically viable newspapers that provide fact-based reporting (no, not perfectly factual or "true" but a serious effort), and that does require having a presence where a huge share of the potential audience finds their news sources. If someone could actually build a successful media business on the scale of a serious newspaper without relying on social media to send readers in today's market, why, they'd be the most successful newspaper exec since, oh, I dunno, Joe Pulitzer, who incidentally was famous for something called "yellow journalism," meaning sensationalized, not very factual stuff. No, NYT isn't some paragon of "truth", but it does make a much more serious effort to report facts than the non-fact based media. Yes there's some slant to its reporting, but its not always the same (news tends to be less liberal than editorial, for example, and they publish quite a few right wing op ed pieces for variety. If you think the quality of journalism on Brietbart and NYT are equivalent, well, you must not think of "facts" in quite the way I do, you know, stuff that actually happened and can be verified.

derefr 6y ago

> It would be much better for us as a community if they were wrong much more often and showed everyone things they don't want to see. Tangent to this, "Tumblr is the best social media site of 2021": https://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/post/639134013230088192/i-love-tumblr-i-love-that-tumblr-is-the-best https://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/post/639134013230088192/i-l...

pdonis 6y ago

> Comparted to Breitbart, Fox News, and other non-fact based journalism You're assuming that the NYT is "fact based journalism". I don't think it is. They are pushing a point of view, just as every other media source is. > indispensable for all news outlets I know the news outlets claim this, but I find the claim to be either very stupid (highly unlikely) or very disingenuous (much more likely). If I want to know what the NYT published today, I can go to their website. If I want to know what CNN is saying today, I can just watch them (or go to their website). Everyone knows these news sources exist and where to find them; it's not like they're new startups trying to acquire users. So the idea that the news outlets need to be visible in Google searches or Facebook feeds for people to know what they are saying is ludicrous.

Booktrope 6y ago
Google and FB have a huge share of the internet reading market; polls repeatedly show that over 30% of the population gets its news from Facebook posts, and another large share get info from Google searches. Twitter also plays a huge role, and soon to be added, stuff like Gab where no you will not be served up any liberal stuff. With the market dominated by a few "aggregators" it's not quite accurate to say, oh, news sources can just get their own following. Of course they can get some market share; the NYT has done better than most newspapers at that, and Breitbart even better, due I think to its much better alignment with social media (sensationalism, tribalism, etc.) Just because you can find CNN(or even MSNBC) on your TV or go to their website, doesn't address the role of FB and Google in dissemination of news. Let me repeat, over 30 percent of Americans get news from their Facebook feeds. Facebook uses these feeds to attract advertising on a scale no media producer can even dream of, and it comes from the same advertising budgets. I have to say, when you name call people who disagree with you (very stupid or disingenuous), it's a good indicator, your argument doesn't have a very solid foundation. You say, it's "ludicrous" to say news outlets need visibility in Google or FB for people to know what they're saying, you totally miss the point. Yeah, I can set up a web site with my opinions, and anyone can come and find out what I'm saying too. We're talking about how to make economically viable newspapers that provide fact-based reporting (no, not perfectly factual or "true" but a serious effort), and that does require having a presence where a huge share of the potential audience finds their news sources. If someone could actually build a successful media business on the scale of a serious newspaper without relying on social media to send readers in today's market, why, they'd be the most successful newspaper exec since, oh, I dunno, Joe Pulitzer, who incidentally was famous for something called "yellow journalism," meaning sensationalized, not very factual stuff. No, NYT isn't some paragon of "truth", but it does make a much more serious effort to report facts than the non-fact based media. Yes there's some slant to its reporting, but its not always the same (news tends to be less liberal than editorial, for example, and they publish quite a few right wing op ed pieces for variety. If you think the quality of journalism on Brietbart and NYT are equivalent, well, you must not think of "facts" in quite the way I do, you know, stuff that actually happened and can be verified.