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One difference is one makes money doing it and the other loses money doing it. One silos information in order to extract wealth from people who are interested i
by retrogradeorbit 15y ago
One difference is one makes money doing it and the other loses money doing it. One silos information in order to extract wealth from people who are interested in that information. The other releases it for free. One in moving in the direction of more secrecy and information hiding. The other is moving in the direction of more openness and transparency.
I disagree that this is not "fundamentally different". It doesn't get much more "fundamental" than the ideological difference that drives the two organisations.
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoSo journalists are evil because they're paid for what they do?
- wpietri 15y agoStratfor sought to make a profit. Journalists seek to make a living. A lot of the journalists I know would be perfectly happy to work for a not-for-profit organization because they're in it for the work, not the money.
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoThe news organisations seek to make a profit just as much as STRATFOR. When that interferes with their ethics you get News Corp. When it doesn't we have reputable journals. The people at STRATFOR, similarly, could generally earn much more by working at macro hedge funds. Why they choose not to is their personal decision to make. I'm not trying to tease out a nuance here, but simply demonstrate that a profit motive doesn't inherently corrupt information collection and analysis.
- wpietri 15y agoSure, but there's a difference between journalists and news organizations. You were conflating them. Also, I suspect you're wrong. Every serious journalism organization maintains Chinese walls between the journalists and the profit-seekers. I think that's because a profit motive does inherently corrupt in that it creates conflicts of interest.
- gaius 15y agoBut would they be willing to do so for subsistence wages? Anything beyond that is just as much "profit".
- wpietri 15y agoThat's a fine unbacked assertion, but it's wrong. Profit is a measure of a venture's gain beyond its expenses, nothing more. People are not businesses, and one's life is not measurable by a P&L.
- gaius 15y agoThat's a warm and fluffy thing to say, but it's not actually true: as an individual, you trade your time for wages, which you spend on first living, and then on living the lifestyle you desire. The latter is "wants", not "needs". It's possible to live a very, very nice lifestyle working for a "non-profit". Nothing wrong with that of course, but let's call a spade a shovel.
- wpietri 15y agoThat is a modern American consumerist interpretation of the nature of life. P&L is a modern business invention; you can certainly try to interpret the world in terms of it, but it's a narrow and weak philosophy. E.g., what's the ROI on voting?
- gaius 15y agoHow is that relevant? We are talking about economic activity. Wanting to work for a "non-profit" is easy; being willing to work for no personal gain takes true commitment. One that you will find that very few of the "capitalism is bad" crowd actually have.
- wpietri 15y agoIt's relevant because you're trying to view everything through the peephole of a P&L statement. "Everything is capitalism" is no more rational than "capitalism is bad".
- retrogradeorbit 15y agoI'm talking difference, you go talking about good and evil. Individual actions taken by people who may or may not be journalists could be good or evil, depending on the individual action. Journalism paid for by advertisers cannot report on anything that is contrary to the interests of their advertisers. Direct subscription journalism, like Wikileaks, Counterpunch, or to some extent Le Monde diplomatique is now essential to getting information on what global organisations are really doing (as opposed to what they advertise they are doing).