4 ms·

Have worked in newpsapers. Can confirm the "Journalism is sacred" attitude, accompanied by a "we don't need to think of the economics or the reader - we write w

Have worked in newpsapers. Can confirm the "Journalism is sacred" attitude, accompanied by a "we don't need to think of the economics or the reader - we write what we (i.e. other journalists) think is good copy, and someone needs to pay us for doing that" attitude. The stupid thing is, though, that they're right. Our democracies need investigative journalism to survive, or we get what we're seeing now - corrupt politicians looting the public coffers. What has happened in the UK over the last ten years would not have happened back in the 90's, not because politicians were better people back then, but because the journalists would have had a field day reporting on their shenanigans. You can't have this paid for by taxes. The BBC in the UK, and the ABC in Australia, have both been suspiciously quiet about government shenanigans and have generally not rocked the boat, which desperately needed rocking at times. There's just too much weight behind the never-spoken-out-loud threat of revoking the charter if the boat gets rocked too much. We're seeing news organisations funded by billionaires, but they do interfere editorially, and we know that, and more importantly the politicians know that. Billionaires can be leant on to stop investigative journalists from doing their thing. It needs to be funded by the readers. But the readers are reluctant to pay for this (as TFA says). It's a conundrum, but we need to sort it out soon.

Leherenn 2y ago
> "You can't have this paid for by taxes. [...] There's just too much weight behind the never-spoken-out-loud threat of revoking the charter" Sounds like an implementation issue more than a fundamental truth. In Switzerland, the public broadcasters are funded by a special tax as well, but any change to it would have to be approved by the population. At the same time, I'm not sure the SRF/RTS is actually better at reporting shenanigans.
ogogmad 2y ago
Where do blogs, twitter, chat rooms, etc fit into all of this? They are yet more options we have now.
- troyvit 2y ago
  My opinion is about as strong as my knowledge is weak buuuut here's my take. There's no editorial control over blogs or social media or chat. That opens them up to everything from typos to honest mistakes to outright disinformation. And people are using them for that. However that lack of editorial oversight also means instant information, which also can't be beat.
jzb 2y ago
"It needs to be funded by the readers. But the readers are reluctant to pay for this (as TFA says). It's a conundrum, but we need to sort it out soon." Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.) But, yes, the best path to producing news that a community needs in the form of investigative journalism and not being driven by entertainment factors is if the news is paid for by readers. Of course the other problem here is "L" in the article: Subscription fatigue. I do value quality news, I do subscribe to several publications local, national, and global in scope. But every now and again I look over my credit card statement and think "holy shit, that's a lot of little charges". As a side note, I love this article and I wish I knew the author to go out for beers and discuss/argue about media.
- tivert 2y ago
  > Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.) I think that just means "readers" is a group of many people with different habits and opinions. Not to mention the addicts' problem of genuinely wanting to quit but not being able to. I think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many).
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    > think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many). Yeah, this is one of those situations where markets don't provide the optimum outcome. News used to be an industry with a few dozen providers, and journalistic integrity was a known thing - you did not read "News of the World" for actual factual news, and everyone understood that. Likewise if The Times stated something, it was probably true (same for The Guardian, only misspelled). They certainly put their slant on things, appealing to a particular demographic, but kept the facts pretty straight. Now the news organisations are not required to tell the truth, and can pick a niche and tailor their copy to that niche with no integrity at all. Because there's so much competition and the market is huge, readers are able to pick and choose, finding news outlets that will tell them exactly what they want to hear, reinforcing existing beliefs. And, of course, driving everyone apart, making us all more extreme by reducing the set of common facts that we have. I don't think the answer is the culling of "misinformation" because that leads to the Orwellian situation of the government being able to shape the official truth to their needs. I think the answer is finding some way of funding journalists to go do their thing with no interference, and let them police each other for integrity and truth.
mabster 2y ago
The BBC used to call out the government, but yeah that has clearly changed. Australian ABC still does call out the government. In fact they were raided for reporting on the Afghan files. The politicians have threatened revoking the charter multiple times. The ABC generally leans socially liberal which means it's usually the conservatives complaining though.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  True, the ABC is probably less far down this path than the BBC, but it's still on the same path.

Leherenn 2y ago

> "You can't have this paid for by taxes. [...] There's just too much weight behind the never-spoken-out-loud threat of revoking the charter" Sounds like an implementation issue more than a fundamental truth. In Switzerland, the public broadcasters are funded by a special tax as well, but any change to it would have to be approved by the population. At the same time, I'm not sure the SRF/RTS is actually better at reporting shenanigans.

ogogmad 2y ago

Where do blogs, twitter, chat rooms, etc fit into all of this? They are yet more options we have now.

troyvit 2y ago
My opinion is about as strong as my knowledge is weak buuuut here's my take. There's no editorial control over blogs or social media or chat. That opens them up to everything from typos to honest mistakes to outright disinformation. And people are using them for that. However that lack of editorial oversight also means instant information, which also can't be beat.

jzb 2y ago

"It needs to be funded by the readers. But the readers are reluctant to pay for this (as TFA says). It's a conundrum, but we need to sort it out soon." Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.) But, yes, the best path to producing news that a community needs in the form of investigative journalism and not being driven by entertainment factors is if the news is paid for by readers. Of course the other problem here is "L" in the article: Subscription fatigue. I do value quality news, I do subscribe to several publications local, national, and global in scope. But every now and again I look over my credit card statement and think "holy shit, that's a lot of little charges". As a side note, I love this article and I wish I knew the author to go out for beers and discuss/argue about media.

tivert 2y ago
> Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.) I think that just means "readers" is a group of many people with different habits and opinions. Not to mention the addicts' problem of genuinely wanting to quit but not being able to. I think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many).
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  > think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many). Yeah, this is one of those situations where markets don't provide the optimum outcome. News used to be an industry with a few dozen providers, and journalistic integrity was a known thing - you did not read "News of the World" for actual factual news, and everyone understood that. Likewise if The Times stated something, it was probably true (same for The Guardian, only misspelled). They certainly put their slant on things, appealing to a particular demographic, but kept the facts pretty straight. Now the news organisations are not required to tell the truth, and can pick a niche and tailor their copy to that niche with no integrity at all. Because there's so much competition and the market is huge, readers are able to pick and choose, finding news outlets that will tell them exactly what they want to hear, reinforcing existing beliefs. And, of course, driving everyone apart, making us all more extreme by reducing the set of common facts that we have. I don't think the answer is the culling of "misinformation" because that leads to the Orwellian situation of the government being able to shape the official truth to their needs. I think the answer is finding some way of funding journalists to go do their thing with no interference, and let them police each other for integrity and truth.

mabster 2y ago

The BBC used to call out the government, but yeah that has clearly changed. Australian ABC still does call out the government. In fact they were raided for reporting on the Afghan files. The politicians have threatened revoking the charter multiple times. The ABC generally leans socially liberal which means it's usually the conservatives complaining though.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
True, the ABC is probably less far down this path than the BBC, but it's still on the same path.