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One of the dangers is that it turns out audiences actually prefer writers constrained and filtered and checked by editors. But by the time they realize that, e
by jameshart 6y ago
One of the dangers is that it turns out audiences actually prefer writers constrained and filtered and checked by editors.
But by the time they realize that, editors won’t exist any more.
- soneca 6y agoVery unlikely that they won’t exist anymore. And whichever low number they are reduced to, they will start to grow again because there will be people willing to pay for their services.
- Meekro 6y agoI'd like my journalists to be constrained by the truth, and paid editors in the context of a "traditional" newspaper are one possible way to achieve that. However, if you believe the stats on this, trust for traditional news sources is at record lows. I personally don't trust traditional news sources very much. Therefore, I'm open to trying something different. I've been a happy subscriber to a handful of Substack journalists for a few months now. It's too soon to say whether this will be a lasting improvement, but it's hard to do worse than the mainstream media.
- jimkleiber 6y agoI'm curious, as I tend to trust many of the large media outlets, especially the NYT and WaPo. 1) Which outlets do you consider to be the "mainstream media" or "traditional media"? And 2) why don't you trust them?
- Meekro 6y agoRather than annoy the HN mods by derailing this conversation into politics, I can answer in detail to you directly. If you want that, could you update your bio on HN to include your email address?
- jimkleiber 6y agoI appreciate that both for helping me keep it non-politics on HN and also for being willing to reach out. I've updated my email in my bio, hope to hear from you soon.
- haberman 6y agoGlenn Greenwald gets into this a lot. As one recent example, WaPo misquoted Trump's comments on his infamous phone call with the Georgia secretary of state and this was not corrected until two months later when the Wall Street Journal obtained a recording of the call: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so-often https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- refurb 6y agoIndeed. Readers of WaPo should be outraged the paper took one source at their word when it came to statements from the President. Zero confirmation. And it turns out it was all made up.
- GeekyBear 6y ago> why don't you trust them? Have we already forgotten the NYT and WaPo pushing to get us into the Iraq War on false pretenses?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 1123581321 6y agoDo we know how many writers on Substack/Medium/independent blogs employ an editor or researcher in some capacity? I've only seen occasional mention, e.g., Kevin Kelly has said that he employs a librarian as a full time researcher. But the absence of mention isn't necessarily a strong indicator to the negative.
- BurningFrog 6y agoIf substack stars need an editor, I assume they hire one. Some probably already do.
- jrsj 6y agosome of the more successful writers on substack are hiring people to do editorial work so even with this model it doesnt go away entirely