6 ms·

We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism, have ourselves to blame for this. Granted, the ad-driven business model that enabled print newspa

by jawns 3y ago

We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism, have ourselves to blame for this. Granted, the ad-driven business model that enabled print newspapers to flourish in the 20th century made it easy for quality journalism to be sustainable. But unless we come up with some way to replace that in the digital age, we will only get the news that other people want us to read. In other words, P.R. I am a former journalist who has watched a number of failed attempts at alternative business models. I don't know what the answer is. But I sure know that the problem is a problem.

underlipton 3y ago
>unwilling This is something that comes up so often, particularly in the past few years, and I'm surprised at how little push back there is. It's not that people are unwilling. It's that the average American, in real terms, is increasingly broke. Any number of businesses would have collapsed in the last 20-30 years - music, selling physical albums; cable TV, with reasonable bills; air travel, without security theater and sardine can booking - if not for ad-supported revenue, all-you-can-eat subscriptions, and/or barebones service. And that's because most Americans don't have the disposable income to actually buy and own things anymore. What I'll give is that it's been such a slow boil that I don't think people realized it before. But now that even basics - food, housing, transportation, education - are unattainable or warped to where the customer is the product or degraded to the point of being unrecognizable, there's really no excuse anymore.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  good with the flow there, US here and agree > most Americans don't have the disposable income odd formulas since lots of common urban addictions use up money, and lots of incarcerated cant buy things directly. Not an economist here, but I think of it like "circulation" in a body.. there are cold spots and overheated spots, not evenly flowing. Commerce in this US West location is not at all as it was before the ubiquitous phone, that is for certain.
  - underlipton 3y ago
    Inequality is absolutely part of what's masking things, yeah. And, yes, we've found cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things via ubiquitous connectivity and compute. Weirdly, the cost savings never really bolstered individual savings.
- gruez 3y ago
  >It's that the average American, in real terms, is increasingly broke. AFAIK inflation adjusted wages have been creeping up in the last decade, or at least remained flat. What statistics support the claim that they're "increasingly broke"?
  - jrajav 3y ago
    That is incorrect. They are at their lowest point in 75 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-value-minimum-wage-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-val... There is also deeper nuance to consider, like the fact that essential goods such as grocery items have been inflating much faster than other markets, especially in most recent years.
    - creato 3y ago
      Parent was talking about wages in general, your chart is for the federal minimum wage.
      - jrajav 3y ago
        You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages, and the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality.
        gruez 3y ago
        >You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages That's all true, but is there any reason why we should take the minimum wage seriously when we have median wage data, and only 1.5% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage? Clearly it's not a representative number at all. https://www.zippia.com/advice/minimum-wage-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/minimum-wage-statistics/ >the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality. Why don't you present your statistics then? Also, "broke" =/= "wealth inequality", unless you subscribe to the view that living in 1400s like conditions is not "broke" if everyone else is also equally poor.
- creato 3y ago
  Americans have the second highest median disposable income in the world (after Luxemborg), adjusted for PPP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... I know your claims are generally accepted fact. Where is the disconnect?
  - some_furry 3y ago
    Landlords. Medical debt. Prices have inflated for decades. Minimum wage has stagnated.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      Friendly reminder that "inflation" more or less definitionally implies that wages increase proportionally to consumer goods prices. If prices are going up and wages aren't, it's just people getting proportionally poorer.
      - some_furry 3y ago
        Costs have inflated, wages have not.
        gruez 3y ago
        They have, though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38325650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38325650
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        There is a psychological effect in that price rises are perceived as inflation while wage increases are seen as personally earned. So even though real wages are going up, at the individual level, they're not seen as being macro-economically driven.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
Clubber 3y ago
>We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism, have ourselves to blame for this. I'm afraid that even if good journalism existed today, yellow journalism will always pay more. >In both cases, the public is being screwed by entities they’d rather trust. The sad thing is neither of these entities appear to care they’re harming their relationship with the people they serve. They don't and haven't for probably 20+ years.
ofslidingfeet 3y ago
In this particular case, the government could also just not spend my own tax dollars on authoritarian propaganda.
- kbenson 3y ago
  If by government you mean local agencies staffed by local people using this tech to make their job easier for what to them is the small concession of reigning in how they speak of it, then sure, I guess people can can just go against what they see as their best interests. Easy.
  - ofslidingfeet 3y ago
    The entities I pay to carry guns under the pretense that they're defending and not violating my civil rights, yes. It is not the free market's job to prevent corruption among such entities, and it's certainly not my fault that they're spreading propaganda.
    - dmoy 3y ago
      Cops in the US are not paid to defend the public. There are Supreme Court cases ruling that e.g. they can in fact just hide behind a door while you're actively being murdered.
    - kbenson 3y ago
      I'm not making an argument for or against thr free market, I'm making a an argument about human nature. If we want people not not do something that they see as beneficial for themselves (and the negative effects are not necessarily obvious or are spread enough that they're easy enough to rationalize away), we need to make it so it's not longer so easy to see as purely beneficial. In this case that's likely either policies or laws that prevent it. The government is just a bunch of people much of the time, and emergent behavior is rampant, so I don't think it's useful to complain about the government doing things we expect them not to when those expectations haven't been clearly communicated through laws or policies. If they have been communicated, then we're looking at corruption, or at best incompetence, both of which we have ways to deal with.
cool_dude85 3y ago
Unwilling? Journalism printed money hand over fist for many years, at least newspapers did. How was the quality of journalism during e.g. Vietnam or the Gulf War to name two examples? Somewhere on the spectrum between outright propaganda and garbage. Things are getting worse, but let's not pretend that when journalism was raking it in the quality was actually decent. Chomsky published Manufacturing Consent in 1988.
- sp332 3y ago
  Newspapers were funded by advertising, including clasified ads, which have mostly moved to Craigslist. https://drt.cmc.edu/2023/07/16/classified-ads-and-local-newspaper-decline/ https://drt.cmc.edu/2023/07/16/classified-ads-and-local-news...
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    Probably Facebook marketplace today, actually. I can’t find the same volume of decent stuff on CL any longer.
    - amatecha 3y ago
      Yeah, there are some keywords I used to search basically daily on CL. The results are less and less. I have a family member hop on FB marketplace (I don't use FB anymore) and there are numerous results for what I'm usually searching unsuccessfully on CL. Sad times. I get it, but yeah.. disappointing.

by jawns 3y ago

underlipton 3y ago

>unwilling This is something that comes up so often, particularly in the past few years, and I'm surprised at how little push back there is. It's not that people are unwilling. It's that the average American, in real terms, is increasingly broke. Any number of businesses would have collapsed in the last 20-30 years - music, selling physical albums; cable TV, with reasonable bills; air travel, without security theater and sardine can booking - if not for ad-supported revenue, all-you-can-eat subscriptions, and/or barebones service. And that's because most Americans don't have the disposable income to actually buy and own things anymore. What I'll give is that it's been such a slow boil that I don't think people realized it before. But now that even basics - food, housing, transportation, education - are unattainable or warped to where the customer is the product or degraded to the point of being unrecognizable, there's really no excuse anymore.

mistrial9 3y ago
good with the flow there, US here and agree > most Americans don't have the disposable income odd formulas since lots of common urban addictions use up money, and lots of incarcerated cant buy things directly. Not an economist here, but I think of it like "circulation" in a body.. there are cold spots and overheated spots, not evenly flowing. Commerce in this US West location is not at all as it was before the ubiquitous phone, that is for certain.
- underlipton 3y ago
  Inequality is absolutely part of what's masking things, yeah. And, yes, we've found cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things via ubiquitous connectivity and compute. Weirdly, the cost savings never really bolstered individual savings.
gruez 3y ago
>It's that the average American, in real terms, is increasingly broke. AFAIK inflation adjusted wages have been creeping up in the last decade, or at least remained flat. What statistics support the claim that they're "increasingly broke"?
- jrajav 3y ago
  That is incorrect. They are at their lowest point in 75 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-value-minimum-wage-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-val... There is also deeper nuance to consider, like the fact that essential goods such as grocery items have been inflating much faster than other markets, especially in most recent years.
  - creato 3y ago
    Parent was talking about wages in general, your chart is for the federal minimum wage.
    - jrajav 3y ago
      You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages, and the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality.
      - gruez 3y ago
        >You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages That's all true, but is there any reason why we should take the minimum wage seriously when we have median wage data, and only 1.5% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage? Clearly it's not a representative number at all. https://www.zippia.com/advice/minimum-wage-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/minimum-wage-statistics/ >the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality. Why don't you present your statistics then? Also, "broke" =/= "wealth inequality", unless you subscribe to the view that living in 1400s like conditions is not "broke" if everyone else is also equally poor.
creato 3y ago
Americans have the second highest median disposable income in the world (after Luxemborg), adjusted for PPP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... I know your claims are generally accepted fact. Where is the disconnect?
- some_furry 3y ago
  Landlords. Medical debt. Prices have inflated for decades. Minimum wage has stagnated.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    Friendly reminder that "inflation" more or less definitionally implies that wages increase proportionally to consumer goods prices. If prices are going up and wages aren't, it's just people getting proportionally poorer.
    - some_furry 3y ago
      Costs have inflated, wages have not.
      - gruez 3y ago
        They have, though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38325650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38325650
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        There is a psychological effect in that price rises are perceived as inflation while wage increases are seen as personally earned. So even though real wages are going up, at the individual level, they're not seen as being macro-economically driven.
- nerdponx 3y ago

Clubber 3y ago

>We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism, have ourselves to blame for this. I'm afraid that even if good journalism existed today, yellow journalism will always pay more. >In both cases, the public is being screwed by entities they’d rather trust. The sad thing is neither of these entities appear to care they’re harming their relationship with the people they serve. They don't and haven't for probably 20+ years.

ofslidingfeet 3y ago

In this particular case, the government could also just not spend my own tax dollars on authoritarian propaganda.

kbenson 3y ago
If by government you mean local agencies staffed by local people using this tech to make their job easier for what to them is the small concession of reigning in how they speak of it, then sure, I guess people can can just go against what they see as their best interests. Easy.
- ofslidingfeet 3y ago
  The entities I pay to carry guns under the pretense that they're defending and not violating my civil rights, yes. It is not the free market's job to prevent corruption among such entities, and it's certainly not my fault that they're spreading propaganda.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Cops in the US are not paid to defend the public. There are Supreme Court cases ruling that e.g. they can in fact just hide behind a door while you're actively being murdered.
  - kbenson 3y ago
    I'm not making an argument for or against thr free market, I'm making a an argument about human nature. If we want people not not do something that they see as beneficial for themselves (and the negative effects are not necessarily obvious or are spread enough that they're easy enough to rationalize away), we need to make it so it's not longer so easy to see as purely beneficial. In this case that's likely either policies or laws that prevent it. The government is just a bunch of people much of the time, and emergent behavior is rampant, so I don't think it's useful to complain about the government doing things we expect them not to when those expectations haven't been clearly communicated through laws or policies. If they have been communicated, then we're looking at corruption, or at best incompetence, both of which we have ways to deal with.

cool_dude85 3y ago

Unwilling? Journalism printed money hand over fist for many years, at least newspapers did. How was the quality of journalism during e.g. Vietnam or the Gulf War to name two examples? Somewhere on the spectrum between outright propaganda and garbage. Things are getting worse, but let's not pretend that when journalism was raking it in the quality was actually decent. Chomsky published Manufacturing Consent in 1988.

sp332 3y ago
Newspapers were funded by advertising, including clasified ads, which have mostly moved to Craigslist. https://drt.cmc.edu/2023/07/16/classified-ads-and-local-newspaper-decline/ https://drt.cmc.edu/2023/07/16/classified-ads-and-local-news...
- ok_dad 3y ago
  Probably Facebook marketplace today, actually. I can’t find the same volume of decent stuff on CL any longer.
  - amatecha 3y ago
    Yeah, there are some keywords I used to search basically daily on CL. The results are less and less. I have a family member hop on FB marketplace (I don't use FB anymore) and there are numerous results for what I'm usually searching unsuccessfully on CL. Sad times. I get it, but yeah.. disappointing.