3 ms·

I mostly agree with your assessment apart from this part: > Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Content that is produc

I mostly agree with your assessment apart from this part: > Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Content that is produced on substack is opinion, not news. It is produced from a comfort of a chair, not from a war zone or a hurricane zone. Nothing wrong with that (if opinion is what you are after), but you actually need to have a news organization to produce news coverage. A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way. Putting aside whether this is even true, there is no requirement for a substack to always be exactly one individual, or for that individual to be unable to hire a third party proof reader or fact checker. That still doesn't require a billion dollar media corporation. There is also no requirement for it to be opinion rather than factual reporting. Most of what existing large media companies produce is not factual reporting.
- freediver 5y ago
  You just defined a news company.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Yet that thing is not a publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation.
    - freediver 5y ago
      Hm I think we have a misunderstanding. Who said that a news company has to be publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation? My local newspaper is a news company. It can not effectively be replaced by someone on substack, let alone a news company with aspirations of more than local news coverage. Substack is OK for opinion, not news. That was my whole argument.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        Why exactly can't your local news company be replaced by "someone on substack"? If the individual reporters who currently work for that company would quit and host the same reporting on substack (either as a team or individually), what would be the major difference to the user?
        freediver 5y ago
        For starters, an individual can not be at two different places at the same time to report (for example about a fire and a football game happening at the same time). If they report about both tomorrow, then it is not news anymore. Also an individual may not have the same knowledge or understanding to report about science, sports, education, economy or crime with same quality. If you propose multiple individuals forming an organization and using substack as a platform, that is fine, you just replaced paper or a website with substack, so the platofrm changes but they would still be running a news organization/news company.
        PeterisP 5y ago
        I consider the reporters as just a part of a local newspaper (IMHO less than half of people working on it), so them moving to substack and abandoning all the non-local-news functions of the local newspaper (syndicated 'external' news, advertising, printing, etc) results in a substantially different kind of news organization than the local newspaper was, not just the same thing on a different distribution channel. It would effectively mean the death of the local news company as a concept, as the replacement is something quite different with a rather different business model, incentives and thus perspective.
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AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way. Putting aside whether this is even true, there is no requirement for a substack to always be exactly one individual, or for that individual to be unable to hire a third party proof reader or fact checker. That still doesn't require a billion dollar media corporation. There is also no requirement for it to be opinion rather than factual reporting. Most of what existing large media companies produce is not factual reporting.

freediver 5y ago
You just defined a news company.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Yet that thing is not a publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation.
  - freediver 5y ago
    Hm I think we have a misunderstanding. Who said that a news company has to be publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation? My local newspaper is a news company. It can not effectively be replaced by someone on substack, let alone a news company with aspirations of more than local news coverage. Substack is OK for opinion, not news. That was my whole argument.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      Why exactly can't your local news company be replaced by "someone on substack"? If the individual reporters who currently work for that company would quit and host the same reporting on substack (either as a team or individually), what would be the major difference to the user?
      - freediver 5y ago
        For starters, an individual can not be at two different places at the same time to report (for example about a fire and a football game happening at the same time). If they report about both tomorrow, then it is not news anymore. Also an individual may not have the same knowledge or understanding to report about science, sports, education, economy or crime with same quality. If you propose multiple individuals forming an organization and using substack as a platform, that is fine, you just replaced paper or a website with substack, so the platofrm changes but they would still be running a news organization/news company.
        PeterisP 5y ago
        I consider the reporters as just a part of a local newspaper (IMHO less than half of people working on it), so them moving to substack and abandoning all the non-local-news functions of the local newspaper (syndicated 'external' news, advertising, printing, etc) results in a substantially different kind of news organization than the local newspaper was, not just the same thing on a different distribution channel. It would effectively mean the death of the local news company as a concept, as the replacement is something quite different with a rather different business model, incentives and thus perspective.

deleted 5y ago

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