2 ms·

The article makes a lot of pretty bold assumptions and conclusions (i.e. that the media is to blame for increased partisanship, causality isn't clear at all, pa

The article makes a lot of pretty bold assumptions and conclusions (i.e. that the media is to blame for increased partisanship, causality isn't clear at all, partisanship might drive media behavior etc), but the entire article is basically I think almost useless without a baseline comparison, namely if people are less likely to pay for news than they are less likely to pay for anything else and I don't think that's true. People pay for virtually nothing on the internet if they can get a free (usually ad driven) alternative. Be it search, web browers, apps, youtube, tiktok, with digital services the norm is usually that the service is free, a small percentage will pay for premium, so in that sense news functions literally just like anything else and the reluctance to pay isn't enough to make unsubstantiated claims about quality or bias in the news.

dredmorbius 2y ago
My claim was "Partisanship has increased to the point that trust in any opposing news media is all but nil. In numerous cases, the media themselves are entirely to blame." The first is simply a recognition that partisanship as a whole has increased, without ascribing causality. The second is a fair note that there's been an increase in overtly partisan major news sources, which again is pretty well founded. Fox News in the US beginning in the 1990s, right-wing talk radio (attempts to create a left-wing alternative have largely foundered, see Air America), and increasingly branding of even major news organisations as leaning strongly to one political party or the other: WSJ (Murdoch-owned and GOP), NYT (Dem), MSNBC (Dem), Sinclair (GOP), etc. (I'm focusing on the US, there are of course examples elsewhere, notably in the UK, DE, FR, and AU press.) You make a point that I agree with strongly, and probably gets at a key mechanism: "People pay for virtually nothing on the internet if they can get a free (usually ad driven) alternative." This is absolutely true, and has exceptionally pernicious impacts not only on how content is funded, but what content is sustainable. Advertising is dependent on many eyeballs, common appeal, and reasonably-advertiser-friendly content. There are types of content which thrive in such a world, and many, many, many types which do not. A large part of my argument is in finding alternative paths to funding which give content which struggles under an ad-centric market, and which has substantial social value. For reasons argued both within my essay and elsewhere (and I can give further reading on request) markets and information play together poorly.

dredmorbius 2y ago

My claim was "Partisanship has increased to the point that trust in any opposing news media is all but nil. In numerous cases, the media themselves are entirely to blame." The first is simply a recognition that partisanship as a whole has increased, without ascribing causality. The second is a fair note that there's been an increase in overtly partisan major news sources, which again is pretty well founded. Fox News in the US beginning in the 1990s, right-wing talk radio (attempts to create a left-wing alternative have largely foundered, see Air America), and increasingly branding of even major news organisations as leaning strongly to one political party or the other: WSJ (Murdoch-owned and GOP), NYT (Dem), MSNBC (Dem), Sinclair (GOP), etc. (I'm focusing on the US, there are of course examples elsewhere, notably in the UK, DE, FR, and AU press.) You make a point that I agree with strongly, and probably gets at a key mechanism: "People pay for virtually nothing on the internet if they can get a free (usually ad driven) alternative." This is absolutely true, and has exceptionally pernicious impacts not only on how content is funded, but what content is sustainable. Advertising is dependent on many eyeballs, common appeal, and reasonably-advertiser-friendly content. There are types of content which thrive in such a world, and many, many, many types which do not. A large part of my argument is in finding alternative paths to funding which give content which struggles under an ad-centric market, and which has substantial social value. For reasons argued both within my essay and elsewhere (and I can give further reading on request) markets and information play together poorly.