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My worry is that writers writing on popular topics get paid (good), but those doing important work (e.g. investigative journalism) but w/o popular demand dont g
by TuringNYC 6y ago
My worry is that writers writing on popular topics get paid (good), but those doing important work (e.g. investigative journalism) but w/o popular demand dont get paid sufficiently. Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work.
A good analogy might be a university - the EMBA, CS, Applied Sciences departments end up subsidizing the humanities departments. This is good. Classics are important. So is literature.
- BurningFrog 6y ago> Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work I know news organizations like to claim they unselfishly use their money to do God's Work. And I know some of that happened. But I also know people like to exaggerate their civic mindedness.
- TuringNYC 6y agoThis is a great point. I think the biggest problem is revenue going into a large news org, getting skimmed by non-value-add portions of the org, and writers ending up with crumbs. Though I guess that is true of most corporations, except some industries pay the producers far less. This used to be true for many tech orgs in the past, but I think that has been solved over time where the makers actually get a good share.
- linuxftw 6y agoPeople pay for what's important to them. Breaking, big exposes, they make for nice headlines, but nobody cares. What most people want is to be 'plugged in' to whatever the topic du jour is so they can emote with their coworkers at the water cooler, which helps them feel like they're 'good people.' It's super hard for people to internalize that they actually don't care about stuff, what they care about is their appearance. The people making real impacts are non or not for profit organizations that battle corporations in court and sue them for things like pollution. Journalists are worthless.