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Almost everything listed in this article is a downstream effect or side issue. Yes journalism is expensive and hard work, but that's not why people aren't readi

Almost everything listed in this article is a downstream effect or side issue. Yes journalism is expensive and hard work, but that's not why people aren't reading/watching. People aren't reading because they don't trust mainstream news to deliver true facts. Journalists have consistently lost that trust over time and need to reckon with why that is.

travisporter 2y ago
How does one define mainstream news?
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  Stuff your grandma has heard of.
- GauntletWizard 2y ago
  Does it matter? In the modern sellout world, by the time something can be considered "Mainstream", it's already well on the way to abandoning the principles that made it successful in the first place and replacing them with "Cost Effective" practices and monetization, what used to be called Selling Out and is now termed "Enshitiffication". It does not matter whether you're talking about the broadcast and cable television media (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox), the new wave media of online-first reporting (All the properties of Conde Nast and Ziff Davis, incl. Wired, Vice, Cracked, Buzzfeed, etc.), or even the third-generation blogosphere (Substack, Medium). There's no trust because success is inversely correlated with trustworthiness.
xnx 2y ago
> People aren't reading because they don't trust mainstream news to deliver true facts People of all stripes seem quite happy to trust news as long as it delivers facts that already fit their worldview
- kbutler 2y ago
  Not really. """Americans continue to register record-low trust in the mass media, with 31% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” similar to last year’s 32%. Americans’ trust in the media -- such as newspapers, television and radio -- first fell to 32% in 2016 and did so again last year.""" https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-re...
  - cloudsec9 2y ago
    Such studies sometimes ask about the outlets; for some reason conservatives feel Fox news isn't the MSM, while CNN and MSNBC are. Asked about their "non-MSM" outlet, suddenly it is VERY trustworthy. And these stats hold for liberals as well; they feel their outlet isn't the "MSM", but that Fox is and is untrustworthy. Since the job of news is now to sell ads and not tell the truth, a lot of "supporters" only hear what their side wants them to hear, and not the facts. The real problem of course is that each party has different policies; but if we as citizens don't agree on the facts and problems facing us, then there is no way to evaluate the strength of the policies against the problems.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      Even the "facts" are politicized. Government statistics are falsified or manipulated at the source. Then the media picks and chooses what to report so as to favor the view they want to push. Honest media outlets hold government accountable. I think the best thing for the average person to do is listen to a variety of sources, and compare the news to their own and their friends' experiences. If you're up for research then you can do that along with seeking out true journalists.
- underseacables 2y ago
  Have they been conditioned to be this way over time?
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  Some people might, sure. But studies have shown that a majority of people don't trust the news anymore, across the spectrum of views. If you pay attention and remember what you hear, it does not take long to find examples of the news confidently communicating false reports. Bias in news has always been a problem, and I think you just have to listen to a variety of sources with different biases to find out the truth.
righthand 2y ago
Politicians lie even more and people have had no problem believing and supporting that lately. It’s not like journalists are collectively agreeing to lie to the public.
- xoxxala 2y ago
  Public trust in politicians and the government is near all-time lows: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust... People are supporting politicians because there is literally nothing else to do but not vote. Also, personally, I expect a politician to lie while holding a journalist to a higher standard. We need proper journalism to hold the government accountable.
  - righthand 2y ago
    We do have that but there is strong bias towards not trusting journalism. Everything in the US is capital based and no one wants to pay for journalism. So journalism relies on ad-tactics to get eyeballs looking at their stuff. This in turn causes low trust because if one type of article is manipulative then the other types must be right? If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board. Furthermore the politicians want manipulative journalism, there is no incentive on either side to do the right thing. If there was we wouldn’t have the political candidates we do today. Instead we invest in the weakness because be uneducated means you don’t actually have to understand just vote emotionally.
    - quickslowdown 2y ago
      > If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board I'm struggling to put into words the thoughts this sentence triggered. We're on HN, not reddit, so I'm going to assume good faith. What reasons over the past 30-50 years have capitalists given the population to root for them? When your business model is to fuck over everyone in your path in a race to the bottom for the gain of a select few at the top, why would anyone expect anything else from the people capitalism stomps all over?
readthenotes1 2y ago
Indeed. A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. And the reason is that most journalists nowadays believe that presenting other views is harmful[1] Most boomers and their children grew up in an unusual period in news when broad and balanced coverage was expected, and even somewhat required in the TV news. "Yellow journalism" is back, though, and we haven't quite adjusted (compare abc news coverage of Biden's plagiarism and lying in the 1980s to their coverage of his mental decline during his presidency) [1]https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/13/u-s-journ...
- lapcat 2y ago
  > A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. It's really not. Stories about the families of politicians are better suited for tabloids. They're a distraction at best. And let's be honest: only a total ignoramus would vote or change their vote based on Hunter Biden. There are a million better reasons.
  - underseacables 2y ago
    Tabloids? Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. I think the laptop story is a classic example of why people distrust a journalists. You had many media outlets, backed by government officials, essentially covering up for Hunter Biden and lying to the public. The laptop exists. It's contents exist. But for years all we heard was that this was a false flag operation from Russia. That was a lie
    - lapcat 2y ago
      > Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. No, that's not what they said. Here's what they said: "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9... > The laptop exists. It's contents exist. So what? Several Republican-led Congressional committees found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden in the matter. So yes, it's nothing but a tabloid story.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
Folks specifically don't trust journalism because they willfully switched to low quality news sources that intentionally spread hyperbole, propaganda, and opinion pieces in lieu of actual journalism. The market has spoken. Folks like this shit.
underseacables 2y ago
Do you think there is an opportunity for a news publication that reports "just the facts" and holds that as their mantra? No opinions, just facts.
- xethos 2y ago
  Of course not. The government reports that lots of articles are based on are free. LibGen (which anyone this service would target likely knows of) holds most of the other reports of objective facts. If people were interested in reading the reports, they wouldn't need the paper, and if they need help interpreting the source, that's just a way for readers to scream about bias. Anything real-time can't be reported on either, because choosing what to report on is a form of bias - even reporting on the latest mass shooting is "Giving coverage to someone that shouldn't be glorified", or "Only showing negatives for the second amendment". There is no way to please people without admitting bias, and then detractors will use tgat to tear down your "unbiased, facts-only" source.

travisporter 2y ago

How does one define mainstream news?

ElevenLathe 2y ago
Stuff your grandma has heard of.
GauntletWizard 2y ago
Does it matter? In the modern sellout world, by the time something can be considered "Mainstream", it's already well on the way to abandoning the principles that made it successful in the first place and replacing them with "Cost Effective" practices and monetization, what used to be called Selling Out and is now termed "Enshitiffication". It does not matter whether you're talking about the broadcast and cable television media (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox), the new wave media of online-first reporting (All the properties of Conde Nast and Ziff Davis, incl. Wired, Vice, Cracked, Buzzfeed, etc.), or even the third-generation blogosphere (Substack, Medium). There's no trust because success is inversely correlated with trustworthiness.

xnx 2y ago

> People aren't reading because they don't trust mainstream news to deliver true facts People of all stripes seem quite happy to trust news as long as it delivers facts that already fit their worldview

kbutler 2y ago
Not really. """Americans continue to register record-low trust in the mass media, with 31% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” similar to last year’s 32%. Americans’ trust in the media -- such as newspapers, television and radio -- first fell to 32% in 2016 and did so again last year.""" https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-re...
- cloudsec9 2y ago
  Such studies sometimes ask about the outlets; for some reason conservatives feel Fox news isn't the MSM, while CNN and MSNBC are. Asked about their "non-MSM" outlet, suddenly it is VERY trustworthy. And these stats hold for liberals as well; they feel their outlet isn't the "MSM", but that Fox is and is untrustworthy. Since the job of news is now to sell ads and not tell the truth, a lot of "supporters" only hear what their side wants them to hear, and not the facts. The real problem of course is that each party has different policies; but if we as citizens don't agree on the facts and problems facing us, then there is no way to evaluate the strength of the policies against the problems.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    Even the "facts" are politicized. Government statistics are falsified or manipulated at the source. Then the media picks and chooses what to report so as to favor the view they want to push. Honest media outlets hold government accountable. I think the best thing for the average person to do is listen to a variety of sources, and compare the news to their own and their friends' experiences. If you're up for research then you can do that along with seeking out true journalists.
underseacables 2y ago
Have they been conditioned to be this way over time?
wakawaka28 2y ago
Some people might, sure. But studies have shown that a majority of people don't trust the news anymore, across the spectrum of views. If you pay attention and remember what you hear, it does not take long to find examples of the news confidently communicating false reports. Bias in news has always been a problem, and I think you just have to listen to a variety of sources with different biases to find out the truth.

righthand 2y ago

Politicians lie even more and people have had no problem believing and supporting that lately. It’s not like journalists are collectively agreeing to lie to the public.

xoxxala 2y ago
Public trust in politicians and the government is near all-time lows: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust... People are supporting politicians because there is literally nothing else to do but not vote. Also, personally, I expect a politician to lie while holding a journalist to a higher standard. We need proper journalism to hold the government accountable.
- righthand 2y ago
  We do have that but there is strong bias towards not trusting journalism. Everything in the US is capital based and no one wants to pay for journalism. So journalism relies on ad-tactics to get eyeballs looking at their stuff. This in turn causes low trust because if one type of article is manipulative then the other types must be right? If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board. Furthermore the politicians want manipulative journalism, there is no incentive on either side to do the right thing. If there was we wouldn’t have the political candidates we do today. Instead we invest in the weakness because be uneducated means you don’t actually have to understand just vote emotionally.
  - quickslowdown 2y ago
    > If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board I'm struggling to put into words the thoughts this sentence triggered. We're on HN, not reddit, so I'm going to assume good faith. What reasons over the past 30-50 years have capitalists given the population to root for them? When your business model is to fuck over everyone in your path in a race to the bottom for the gain of a select few at the top, why would anyone expect anything else from the people capitalism stomps all over?

readthenotes1 2y ago

Indeed. A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. And the reason is that most journalists nowadays believe that presenting other views is harmful[1] Most boomers and their children grew up in an unusual period in news when broad and balanced coverage was expected, and even somewhat required in the TV news. "Yellow journalism" is back, though, and we haven't quite adjusted (compare abc news coverage of Biden's plagiarism and lying in the 1980s to their coverage of his mental decline during his presidency) [1]https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/13/u-s-journ...

lapcat 2y ago
> A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. It's really not. Stories about the families of politicians are better suited for tabloids. They're a distraction at best. And let's be honest: only a total ignoramus would vote or change their vote based on Hunter Biden. There are a million better reasons.
- underseacables 2y ago
  Tabloids? Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. I think the laptop story is a classic example of why people distrust a journalists. You had many media outlets, backed by government officials, essentially covering up for Hunter Biden and lying to the public. The laptop exists. It's contents exist. But for years all we heard was that this was a false flag operation from Russia. That was a lie
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. No, that's not what they said. Here's what they said: "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9... > The laptop exists. It's contents exist. So what? Several Republican-led Congressional committees found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden in the matter. So yes, it's nothing but a tabloid story.

forgetfreeman 2y ago

Folks specifically don't trust journalism because they willfully switched to low quality news sources that intentionally spread hyperbole, propaganda, and opinion pieces in lieu of actual journalism. The market has spoken. Folks like this shit.

underseacables 2y ago

Do you think there is an opportunity for a news publication that reports "just the facts" and holds that as their mantra? No opinions, just facts.

xethos 2y ago
Of course not. The government reports that lots of articles are based on are free. LibGen (which anyone this service would target likely knows of) holds most of the other reports of objective facts. If people were interested in reading the reports, they wouldn't need the paper, and if they need help interpreting the source, that's just a way for readers to scream about bias. Anything real-time can't be reported on either, because choosing what to report on is a form of bias - even reporting on the latest mass shooting is "Giving coverage to someone that shouldn't be glorified", or "Only showing negatives for the second amendment". There is no way to please people without admitting bias, and then detractors will use tgat to tear down your "unbiased, facts-only" source.