5 ms·

Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being dr

Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being drama generating entertainment machines.

duxup 4y ago
> Corporate media People like to read that stuff.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Do they, or are they emotionally manipulated into reading it? There's a difference between "wanting" and "liking" something. The reason doomscrolling on social media is a thing is because people want their fix. Whether or not they truly like it is another matter. Most would probably admit they don't, if they really sat down to unpack everything about it.
smoldesu 4y ago
I agree. However, Twitter employees know what they signed up for, so this article is really just taking advantage of people who have never heard/seen this happen. It's fairly common in the industry, even if the results are disappointing and impact is ineffectual.
afavour 4y ago
It feels good to say stuff like that but it's not really true. A look over Pulitzer Prize winners from previous years will show deeply researched investigative stories and have had a real impact on public awareness.
- concordDance 4y ago
  The vast vast vast majority of content news media generates is not like that, its drama farming and reposts. The actual investigative journalism is a very small minority.
  - afavour 4y ago
    So the statement "corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value" is false. I'm not defending the clickbait content a lot of outlets engage in but I'm concerned that if the "corporate media" disappeared tomorrow a lot of things would go uninvestigated. I'm also not sure that the number of stories published is a worthwhile metric either. Maybe one truly eye-opening investigative story is worth a hundred boring clickbait articles, I don't really see how you'd quantify it.
    - JasonFruit 4y ago
      Would you be more satisfied with, "Only the tiniest fraction of corporate media's output has intellectual value?" People often make statements that make what is approximately true absolute, for simplicity of expression or for style: "Nobody should be out in this kind of weather!" "The oboe is an ill woodwind that nobody blows good."
      - afavour 4y ago
        Well like I just said, I'm not convinced looking at it through overall number of worthy/unworthy stories published is a metric that makes a lot of sense. But sure, that statement is an improvement because it at least makes clear that if you were to remove the corporate media tomorrow something of important value would be lost. Something the original statement definitely does not convey.
        the-printer 4y ago
        I am formally challenging the notion that if corporate media were to disappear, people would suddenly lose their will to report and investigate on serious affairs that make up the tiny fraction of valuable content. If anything, there is a likelihood that people would even feel more compelled to do so with the understanding that they cannot expect major news outlets to do the work for them. I do however champion the loss of the will to report on everything other than that in corporate media’s hypothetical absence. We can even go as far as to say that corporate media likely will not disappear anyway, and if it were to, in 2022, it would just be repackaged in a different format with new corporate or neo-corporate entities in its place. In conclusion, and irrespective of the hyperbolic rhetoric of “corporate media produces nothing of value” or the more analytically amicable, “only the tiniest fraction of corporate media produces value”, I hereby declare an end to all corporate media and it’s theoretical subsequent reiterations.
- bloodyplonker22 4y ago
  You are referring to the other extreme in terms of types of writers. These investigative journalists compose a tiny percentage of the overall population of corporate media writers.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  I just took a look at the Pulitzer Prize winners for investigative reporting[0] and I havn't heard of any of them from the last ten years. Didn't look any further. If anything, corporate "news" spam drowns out these deeply researched investigative stories because, as GP said, the market conditions favor drama farming clickbait over an "exposé of highly toxic hazards inside Florida’s only battery recycling plant" which, while clearly important and deeply researched, I have never heard of. That said, most of these journalists are from "corporate media," so that it "produces nothing of intellectual value" is as you say incorrect. [0]https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206
  - defective 4y ago
    Whoa, you didn't hear about Roy Moore?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    > I havn't heard of any of them from the last ten years. Didn't look any further... I have never heard of We get it, you are uninformed. It was in major newspapers, was on PBS Frontline, and was adapted for radio, and it won a Pulitzer. You haven't heard of it, that's on you.
    - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
      Wow. This is kind of hurtful being that I consider myself informed about topics I'm interested in. For example YMTC's 232-layer NAND flash was something I heard about as soon as it broke. I don't have a newspaper subscription so it's hard to keep up with everything being that most news on the internet is the same rehashed for content years on end or meaningless celebrity trivia/drama.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I don't think the grandparent meant "nothing" literally. But I would agree that the vast majority of corporate media reporting is garbage. The Pulitzer Prize winners are unfortunately the rare exceptions to the norm.
chrisseaton 4y ago
> Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary?
- gaius_baltar 4y ago
  > Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary? The C of BBC does not look like the current practical meaning of corporation for or typical case. Being state-owned change a lot of things.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
chadash 4y ago
Top 10 articles from the front page of nytimes.com right now: * E.U. Settles on Russian Oil Price Cap After Fraught Talks * A phony climate foundation in Germany helped Russia complete Nord Stream 2 after U.S. sanctions threatened to derail it. * U.S. Employers Add 263,000 Jobs, Showing Strong Demand for Workers * Why are middle-aged men missing from the labor market? * Alex Jones Files for Bankruptcy * As Officials Ease Restrictions Amid Protests, China Faces New Pandemic Risks * Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find * Kanye West was suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika. * Cameroon Tries to Become Third African Nation to Advance * From The Athletic: Follow real-time updates from Serbia vs. Switzerland. Sure, some of these (e.g. first twitter headline) seem to follow an agenda, but most of these are just plain old news. It is easy to think "all of this is available on Twitter or through other independent journalists", but twitter has the luxury of being able to look at what the papers are reporting on. If you didn't have the likes CNN, NYT and the BBC, you wouldn't have reporters at white house press conferences, people reporting from Ukraine, nor any sort of real curation of the news. Are there blind spots? Of course. Twitter is way better in some niche areas. Do the news outlets show biases? Yes, of course. But without the big news outlets, twitter wouldn't have as much to go off of. I like to think of it the other way around... imagine that corporate media didn't exist. You'd have thousands of independent journalists looking into different things with no curation. Eventually, some of them would realize that to be effective, they need to form groups, since some areas are too big for one person to cover. Eventually, small groups that people followed would grow larger as they try to report on more and more things. Eventually, they'd collectivize and form larger "corporations". You'd be back to square one. And I'm just talking about plain old news. All of this is leaving aside the big and costly investigative pieces that some of the larger outlets are able to put together. Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these.
- shagie 4y ago
  > Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these. BuzzFeed News Has Won Its First Pulitzer Prize BuzzFeed News won for its innovative series exposing China’s mass detention of Muslims and was named a finalist for its colossal FinCEN Files investigation into the global banking industry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-prize-buzzfeed-news-won-china-detention-camps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-priz... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recog... Though make sure that you differentiate BuzzFeed News from BuzzFeed... the later is the way that makes money that is able to support news site without needing subscriptions and paywalls.

Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being drama generating entertainment machines.

duxup 4y ago

> Corporate media People like to read that stuff.

kelnos 4y ago
Do they, or are they emotionally manipulated into reading it? There's a difference between "wanting" and "liking" something. The reason doomscrolling on social media is a thing is because people want their fix. Whether or not they truly like it is another matter. Most would probably admit they don't, if they really sat down to unpack everything about it.

smoldesu 4y ago

I agree. However, Twitter employees know what they signed up for, so this article is really just taking advantage of people who have never heard/seen this happen. It's fairly common in the industry, even if the results are disappointing and impact is ineffectual.

afavour 4y ago

It feels good to say stuff like that but it's not really true. A look over Pulitzer Prize winners from previous years will show deeply researched investigative stories and have had a real impact on public awareness.

concordDance 4y ago
The vast vast vast majority of content news media generates is not like that, its drama farming and reposts. The actual investigative journalism is a very small minority.
- afavour 4y ago
  So the statement "corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value" is false. I'm not defending the clickbait content a lot of outlets engage in but I'm concerned that if the "corporate media" disappeared tomorrow a lot of things would go uninvestigated. I'm also not sure that the number of stories published is a worthwhile metric either. Maybe one truly eye-opening investigative story is worth a hundred boring clickbait articles, I don't really see how you'd quantify it.
  - JasonFruit 4y ago
    Would you be more satisfied with, "Only the tiniest fraction of corporate media's output has intellectual value?" People often make statements that make what is approximately true absolute, for simplicity of expression or for style: "Nobody should be out in this kind of weather!" "The oboe is an ill woodwind that nobody blows good."
    - afavour 4y ago
      Well like I just said, I'm not convinced looking at it through overall number of worthy/unworthy stories published is a metric that makes a lot of sense. But sure, that statement is an improvement because it at least makes clear that if you were to remove the corporate media tomorrow something of important value would be lost. Something the original statement definitely does not convey.
      - the-printer 4y ago
        I am formally challenging the notion that if corporate media were to disappear, people would suddenly lose their will to report and investigate on serious affairs that make up the tiny fraction of valuable content. If anything, there is a likelihood that people would even feel more compelled to do so with the understanding that they cannot expect major news outlets to do the work for them. I do however champion the loss of the will to report on everything other than that in corporate media’s hypothetical absence. We can even go as far as to say that corporate media likely will not disappear anyway, and if it were to, in 2022, it would just be repackaged in a different format with new corporate or neo-corporate entities in its place. In conclusion, and irrespective of the hyperbolic rhetoric of “corporate media produces nothing of value” or the more analytically amicable, “only the tiniest fraction of corporate media produces value”, I hereby declare an end to all corporate media and it’s theoretical subsequent reiterations.
bloodyplonker22 4y ago
You are referring to the other extreme in terms of types of writers. These investigative journalists compose a tiny percentage of the overall population of corporate media writers.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
I just took a look at the Pulitzer Prize winners for investigative reporting[0] and I havn't heard of any of them from the last ten years. Didn't look any further. If anything, corporate "news" spam drowns out these deeply researched investigative stories because, as GP said, the market conditions favor drama farming clickbait over an "exposé of highly toxic hazards inside Florida’s only battery recycling plant" which, while clearly important and deeply researched, I have never heard of. That said, most of these journalists are from "corporate media," so that it "produces nothing of intellectual value" is as you say incorrect. [0]https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206
- defective 4y ago
  Whoa, you didn't hear about Roy Moore?
- jeffbee 4y ago
  > I havn't heard of any of them from the last ten years. Didn't look any further... I have never heard of We get it, you are uninformed. It was in major newspapers, was on PBS Frontline, and was adapted for radio, and it won a Pulitzer. You haven't heard of it, that's on you.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    Wow. This is kind of hurtful being that I consider myself informed about topics I'm interested in. For example YMTC's 232-layer NAND flash was something I heard about as soon as it broke. I don't have a newspaper subscription so it's hard to keep up with everything being that most news on the internet is the same rehashed for content years on end or meaningless celebrity trivia/drama.
kelnos 4y ago
I don't think the grandparent meant "nothing" literally. But I would agree that the vast majority of corporate media reporting is garbage. The Pulitzer Prize winners are unfortunately the rare exceptions to the norm.

chrisseaton 4y ago

> Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary?

gaius_baltar 4y ago
> Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary? The C of BBC does not look like the current practical meaning of corporation for or typical case. Being state-owned change a lot of things.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

chadash 4y ago

Top 10 articles from the front page of nytimes.com right now: * E.U. Settles on Russian Oil Price Cap After Fraught Talks * A phony climate foundation in Germany helped Russia complete Nord Stream 2 after U.S. sanctions threatened to derail it. * U.S. Employers Add 263,000 Jobs, Showing Strong Demand for Workers * Why are middle-aged men missing from the labor market? * Alex Jones Files for Bankruptcy * As Officials Ease Restrictions Amid Protests, China Faces New Pandemic Risks * Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find * Kanye West was suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika. * Cameroon Tries to Become Third African Nation to Advance * From The Athletic: Follow real-time updates from Serbia vs. Switzerland. Sure, some of these (e.g. first twitter headline) seem to follow an agenda, but most of these are just plain old news. It is easy to think "all of this is available on Twitter or through other independent journalists", but twitter has the luxury of being able to look at what the papers are reporting on. If you didn't have the likes CNN, NYT and the BBC, you wouldn't have reporters at white house press conferences, people reporting from Ukraine, nor any sort of real curation of the news. Are there blind spots? Of course. Twitter is way better in some niche areas. Do the news outlets show biases? Yes, of course. But without the big news outlets, twitter wouldn't have as much to go off of. I like to think of it the other way around... imagine that corporate media didn't exist. You'd have thousands of independent journalists looking into different things with no curation. Eventually, some of them would realize that to be effective, they need to form groups, since some areas are too big for one person to cover. Eventually, small groups that people followed would grow larger as they try to report on more and more things. Eventually, they'd collectivize and form larger "corporations". You'd be back to square one. And I'm just talking about plain old news. All of this is leaving aside the big and costly investigative pieces that some of the larger outlets are able to put together. Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these.

shagie 4y ago
> Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these. BuzzFeed News Has Won Its First Pulitzer Prize BuzzFeed News won for its innovative series exposing China’s mass detention of Muslims and was named a finalist for its colossal FinCEN Files investigation into the global banking industry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-prize-buzzfeed-news-won-china-detention-camps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-priz... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recog... Though make sure that you differentiate BuzzFeed News from BuzzFeed... the later is the way that makes money that is able to support news site without needing subscriptions and paywalls.