5 ms·

I'm fairly tuned into news -- certainly less-so than in the past, but somehow I never even heard of The Messenger.

by uptown 3y ago

taeric 3y ago
Same. Feels a lot like insider gossip that thought they had more going for themselves? That said, "It’s a radical idea, but we could make meaningful progress if we clawed journalism from the hands of affluent, out of touch brunchlords, and put it back under the control of diverse, hungry journalists and editors who actually understand the news industry and media environment they work and exist in." is also a rather boring take? What do they want to make "meaningful progress" on? I certainly can't see "journalism for journalism's sake" as a good thing. Seems more likely you will get gatekeeping and another venue for activism?
- dihydro 3y ago
  In my opinion, "journalism for journalism's sake" would be what we call reporting the truth, or investigative journalism. Is there a national outlet that invests in pure investigative journalism anymore?
  - slowmovintarget 3y ago
    The big stories used to be broken by local newspaper reporters. That process has been deliberately broken by private equity. So... No, sadly.
  - seanicus 3y ago
    If you're looking for investigative journalism The Intercept isn't a bad read
  - taeric 3y ago
    That is the noble way to consider it, but as soon as something starts existing for its own sake, you start losing the reason the thing was enacted the first time. I'd hazard the "pure" journalism you are seeing in your mind likely wasn't nearly as pure as you'd think it was. There is a reason a lot of very long lived scandals have always been the case. Even more true as you consider news crossing country boundaries. Any specific examples you have in mind?
  - tivert 3y ago
    >> What do they want to make "meaningful progress" on? I certainly can't see "journalism for journalism's sake" as a good thing. Seems more likely you will get gatekeeping and another venue for activism? > In my opinion, "journalism for journalism's sake" would be what we call reporting the truth, or investigative journalism. Is there a national outlet that invests in pure investigative journalism anymore? Investigative journalism can still amount to "gatekeeping and another venue for activism," if the investigative attention is selective and focused (more or less) to support one or more activist programs. That's actually the most effective kind of manipulation, because it's simultaneously true and misleading. And I also think that's close to what we've got. To really be "journalism for journalism's sake," I think you'd have to allocated investigative resources roughly equally among factions, with investigations focused on "pro-narrative" ideas and "counter-narrative" ideas.
CommieBobDole 3y ago
Yep, I read the news every day, subscribe to several news outlets, keep up with the various issues going on, am even somewhat tangentially aware of the various meta-drama going on in journalism circles, and the shutdown announcement is the first I've ever heard of The Messenger. Whatever they were spending their money on, it certainly wasn't marketing.
- breakingrules 3y ago
  [dead]
- basch 3y ago
  I would like some kind of tool that watches for new publications, maybe some objective ranking on popularity and subjective ranking on quality, and an associated graveyard that switches to archival links. It also needs a slider, to see the historical version of a leaderboard on any given day. You can plug the redef and techmeme leaderboards into archive.org but it is all a little kludgy, with missing data. https://redef.com/charts/sources/total https://redef.com/charts/sources/total https://www.techmeme.com/lb https://www.techmeme.com/lb https://mediagazer.com/lb https://mediagazer.com/lb https://www.memeorandum.com/lb https://www.memeorandum.com/lb There is also https://longform.org/archive/publications https://longform.org/archive/publications https://www.aldaily.com/media/ https://www.aldaily.com/media/ There used to be https://www.newswhip.com/ https://www.newswhip.com/ which had a free section, Im not sure if it is gone or just burried. At one point Counterparties https://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/felix-salmons-brain-drudged-meet-counterparties-a-personal-linkblog-with-reuters-branding/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/felix-salmons-brain-drudge... which used https://percolate.com/ https://percolate.com/ (now seismic) as a backend. And then you have the world of blogger, medium, substack, ghost. Bloglovin was the site in that realm back in the day.

I'm fairly tuned into news -- certainly less-so than in the past, but somehow I never even heard of The Messenger.

by uptown 3y ago

I'm fairly tuned into news -- certainly less-so than in the past, but somehow I never even heard of The Messenger.

Same. Feels a lot like insider gossip that thought they had more going for themselves? That said, "It’s a radical idea, but we could make meaningful progress if we clawed journalism from the hands of affluent, out of touch brunchlords, and put it back under the control of diverse, hungry journalists and editors who actually understand the news industry and media environment they work and exist in." is also a rather boring take? What do they want to make "meaningful progress" on? I certainly can't see "journalism for journalism's sake" as a good thing. Seems more likely you will get gatekeeping and another venue for activism?

dihydro 3y ago
In my opinion, "journalism for journalism's sake" would be what we call reporting the truth, or investigative journalism. Is there a national outlet that invests in pure investigative journalism anymore?
- slowmovintarget 3y ago
  The big stories used to be broken by local newspaper reporters. That process has been deliberately broken by private equity. So... No, sadly.
- seanicus 3y ago
  If you're looking for investigative journalism The Intercept isn't a bad read
- taeric 3y ago
  That is the noble way to consider it, but as soon as something starts existing for its own sake, you start losing the reason the thing was enacted the first time. I'd hazard the "pure" journalism you are seeing in your mind likely wasn't nearly as pure as you'd think it was. There is a reason a lot of very long lived scandals have always been the case. Even more true as you consider news crossing country boundaries. Any specific examples you have in mind?
- tivert 3y ago
  >> What do they want to make "meaningful progress" on? I certainly can't see "journalism for journalism's sake" as a good thing. Seems more likely you will get gatekeeping and another venue for activism? > In my opinion, "journalism for journalism's sake" would be what we call reporting the truth, or investigative journalism. Is there a national outlet that invests in pure investigative journalism anymore? Investigative journalism can still amount to "gatekeeping and another venue for activism," if the investigative attention is selective and focused (more or less) to support one or more activist programs. That's actually the most effective kind of manipulation, because it's simultaneously true and misleading. And I also think that's close to what we've got. To really be "journalism for journalism's sake," I think you'd have to allocated investigative resources roughly equally among factions, with investigations focused on "pro-narrative" ideas and "counter-narrative" ideas.

CommieBobDole 3y ago

Yep, I read the news every day, subscribe to several news outlets, keep up with the various issues going on, am even somewhat tangentially aware of the various meta-drama going on in journalism circles, and the shutdown announcement is the first I've ever heard of The Messenger. Whatever they were spending their money on, it certainly wasn't marketing.

breakingrules 3y ago
[dead]
basch 3y ago
I would like some kind of tool that watches for new publications, maybe some objective ranking on popularity and subjective ranking on quality, and an associated graveyard that switches to archival links. It also needs a slider, to see the historical version of a leaderboard on any given day. You can plug the redef and techmeme leaderboards into archive.org but it is all a little kludgy, with missing data. https://redef.com/charts/sources/total https://redef.com/charts/sources/total https://www.techmeme.com/lb https://www.techmeme.com/lb https://mediagazer.com/lb https://mediagazer.com/lb https://www.memeorandum.com/lb https://www.memeorandum.com/lb There is also https://longform.org/archive/publications https://longform.org/archive/publications https://www.aldaily.com/media/ https://www.aldaily.com/media/ There used to be https://www.newswhip.com/ https://www.newswhip.com/ which had a free section, Im not sure if it is gone or just burried. At one point Counterparties https://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/felix-salmons-brain-drudged-meet-counterparties-a-personal-linkblog-with-reuters-branding/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/felix-salmons-brain-drudge... which used https://percolate.com/ https://percolate.com/ (now seismic) as a backend. And then you have the world of blogger, medium, substack, ghost. Bloglovin was the site in that realm back in the day.