3 ms·

For-profit businesses tend to get bloated and eventually succumb to their own growth, one way or another. Alternative: Start a newspaper who's goal is to be le

For-profit businesses tend to get bloated and eventually succumb to their own growth, one way or another. Alternative: Start a newspaper who's goal is to be lean in operations, basically one person per role, and fund raise it from individuals, groups and government subsidies (if those exist in your country). Seemingly people are able to fund things like Indie Games via Patreon subscriptions, surely for towns/cities with at least 100,000 people there would be a 1% of the residents interested in local news, right? 1000 people donating 15 EUR a month is already 15,000 EUR, assuming it only gets funded by monthly donations of individuals.

DonnyV 10mo ago
Its almost like we should just publicly fund it from the tax people already pay.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  That's a radical idea! Unfortunately, it gives a lot of ammo to the "anti-socialist" people who are vehemently against anything "public" funded by tax payers. Look at what's happening in the Nordics for example, where pretty much everyone supported public radio/TV at least when I was growing up, but nowadays a bunch of political parties are trying to have it removed/reduced.
  - carlosjobim 10mo ago
    Nordic public broadcasting is some of the lowest quality news media you can find. They're not a good example, unless the job of public service media is to only support one or two political parties at all cost (you know which ones). Edit: Just an example. The funniest thing they've been doing regularly for decades now is when they go out on the streets with a camera to ask random strangers - the common man - about what they think about some recent development, like "What do you think about Trump?". But the "random stranger" common man on the street is actually a politician from the journalist's own party who has dressed up and showed up on a pre-agreed place and time.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      > Nordic public broadcasting is some of the lowest quality news media you can find. Compared to what? Have you seen what qualifies as "news" in other parts of the world? > media is to only support one or two political parties at all cost I've seen news on Swedish public media that disparages all sides of the political spectrum, exactly what I expect from public media not taking sides. > But the "random stranger" common man on the street is actually a politician from the journalist's own party who has dressed up and showed up on a pre-agreed place and time. Cherry-picking in journalism has absolutely nothing to do with public media or not, and I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here.
      - carlosjobim 10mo ago
        > Compared to what? Have you seen what qualifies as "news" in other parts of the world? Even compared to non-government funded media in their own countries, just to start with. Or public broadcasters in other countries, such as the BBC or PBS. As for Swedish public media not taking sides, that is like saying Fox News doesn't take sides and isn't aligned with the Republican party. If you can convince yourself to believe that Swedish public media isn't politically aligned, then congratulations. > Cherry-picking in journalism has absolutely nothing to do with public media or not, and I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. How do you not understand? When interviewing the "common man" out on the streets, you should do that, and not interview somebody who is a high level party functionary without telling people you are doing that. That's like Fox News interviewing "random strangers" on the streets, but it turns out to be JD Vance in a wig.
        embedding-shape 10mo ago
        > As for Swedish public media not taking sides That's not what I said, I said that I've seen Swedish public media "disparages all sides of the political spectrum", which is way more realistic than "not taking sides". We all wish we can be perfectly impartial, but that's short of impossible, so the next best thing is that it pushes back no matter where it comes from. That's what I've seen, but I no longer live in Sweden, maybe this last decade it's been different than how it was when I lived up there.
  - iso1631 10mo ago
    There's also issues when the watched are funding the watches. If the council funds the newspaper, then the newspaper reports badly on the council, then the council can reducing funding for the newspaper. You need it to be independent, so how can you fund it. Perhaps a separate precept on the council tax bill which is set separately (say by national government) The BBC funding model attempts to do this at a national level, but of course nowadays that's not sustainable - part of the failure of the old civic minded establishment in favour of the new edgy profit minded establishment
- __MatrixMan__ 10mo ago
  I bet we could come up with a list of things we don't like about adtech, tax those behaviors, and give the proceeds to their local competitors.
- reliabilityguy 10mo ago
  What issue from the listed above public funding would address? Public funding doesn’t prevent the entity to become bloated.
  - philipallstar 10mo ago
    Quite the opposite!
- Xelbair 10mo ago
  It fact you absolutely shouldn't as this put them in huge conflict of interest. how will you investigate corruption if your funding can be cut?
  - bjourne 10mo ago
    The same argument applies to ad-sponsored media too. In fact, have you noticed that it was a very long time since a major paper did an exposé of the very sleazy online casino business? I wonder why.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    >? how will you investigate corruption if your funding can be cut? Don't make it possible for the current administration to cut the funding of the public media? Plenty of examples out there in the world where those currently in power can't just cut funding to major institutions, I think that's the norm rather than the exception in fact.
    - Xelbair 10mo ago
      >Don't make it possible for the current administration to cut the funding of the public media? Surely laws are immutable system and cannot be changed ever. It is always perfectly designed without loopholes, and especially so when ones who design the system could benefit from them.
      - embedding-shape 10mo ago
        Absolutely not, no one claimed so either, and frankly, why continue discussing with you when you don't seem to be curious about a honest and straightforward conversation? Screw that noise. Normally, in democratic countries, you have a process for changing laws. Enshrine your public media in those, or even better, in the constitution, and you've pretty much protected it short-term at least. Add in foundations or whatever concepts your country have, to add more layers of indirection, and it's even more protected.
        10mo ago
zeagle 10mo ago
That sounds a lot like a newspaper subscription. I subscribe to my local (physical) paper once a week for this reason.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Yeah, as long as you remove the "for-profit" part, it's essentially that. Once it's a for-profit business, it perverses the incentives, and it'll be a race to the bottom or a race to see what subscribers can survive the highest prices, which is exactly what we wanna avoid :)
  - ecshafer 10mo ago
    Non-profits don't really stop any of that. Plenty of non-profits are after perverse incentives to gather as much money as they can to just pay higher ups more money, and use the non-profit status to pay employees less.
    - TimTheTinker 10mo ago
      Maybe there's a third way. What about a company owned by a "perpetual purpose trust" - i.e. a trust with a defined purpose that is legally binding. It's the only shareholder, so no extracting value and all profits have to comply with the trust's bylaws in how they are used. Patagonia (US company) is one example of this; it's profits are legally bound to go toward environmental causes. Bosch and Zeiss in Germany are comparable - they are Verantwortungseigentum (Steward-Ownership).
      - chrisweekly 10mo ago
        That sounds kind of like a B-Corp, innit?
        TimTheTinker 10mo ago
        That's a third-party certification that can be allowed to lapse, not a legal or legally enforceable status. https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/ https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/
komali2 10mo ago
I wonder if a newspaper co-op is a viable idea? I do feel like there's a turn happening in the economy, or at least, some new scene growing. Or maybe I'm just finally becoming aware of it. That being, rejection of monopolized products. I've never seen so much activity around Linux, for example. Or, I follow a content creator called SkillUp who just launched a videogames news site with revenue purely from subscriptions, and apparently they got way more subs than they expected. And as has been mentioned, lots of indie games have been getting funding lately, and a relatively small studio just crushed the game awards circuit.
- jszymborski 10mo ago
  Unsure about a newspaper per se, but there are a number of news blogs that are co-ops. Examples I know of in Canada include: - NB Media Coop: https://nbmediacoop.org/ https://nbmediacoop.org/ - Pivot: https://pivot.quebec/ https://pivot.quebec/ Also, here's a game dev co-op from Montreal that has been around since 2012 as a bonus: https://ko-opmode.com/ https://ko-opmode.com/
bee_rider 10mo ago
How many people would 15,000 EUR employ in your area? That’s significantly below a living wage for one person in the US… Maybe an incredibly lean organization could make it with 150,000 EUR? All digital, 3-4 really devoted employees.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  > How many people would 15,000 EUR employ in your area? 3-4 people easily, probably closer to 5-6 in reality. Minimum salary in my country is around 1200 EUR/month, but we also have free health care for everyone and other anti-democratic things.
  - bee_rider 10mo ago
    Ah, I had a brain-fart, was thinking yearly instead of monthly. Sorry!
glaslong 10mo ago
The only reliable funding sources then seem to be local car dealerships and lawyers who want puff pieces / ads about themselves. I think we need to acknowledge that communities producing news about their region is a public good and thus should be funded with taxes.

DonnyV 10mo ago

Its almost like we should just publicly fund it from the tax people already pay.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
That's a radical idea! Unfortunately, it gives a lot of ammo to the "anti-socialist" people who are vehemently against anything "public" funded by tax payers. Look at what's happening in the Nordics for example, where pretty much everyone supported public radio/TV at least when I was growing up, but nowadays a bunch of political parties are trying to have it removed/reduced.
- carlosjobim 10mo ago
  Nordic public broadcasting is some of the lowest quality news media you can find. They're not a good example, unless the job of public service media is to only support one or two political parties at all cost (you know which ones). Edit: Just an example. The funniest thing they've been doing regularly for decades now is when they go out on the streets with a camera to ask random strangers - the common man - about what they think about some recent development, like "What do you think about Trump?". But the "random stranger" common man on the street is actually a politician from the journalist's own party who has dressed up and showed up on a pre-agreed place and time.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    > Nordic public broadcasting is some of the lowest quality news media you can find. Compared to what? Have you seen what qualifies as "news" in other parts of the world? > media is to only support one or two political parties at all cost I've seen news on Swedish public media that disparages all sides of the political spectrum, exactly what I expect from public media not taking sides. > But the "random stranger" common man on the street is actually a politician from the journalist's own party who has dressed up and showed up on a pre-agreed place and time. Cherry-picking in journalism has absolutely nothing to do with public media or not, and I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here.
    - carlosjobim 10mo ago
      > Compared to what? Have you seen what qualifies as "news" in other parts of the world? Even compared to non-government funded media in their own countries, just to start with. Or public broadcasters in other countries, such as the BBC or PBS. As for Swedish public media not taking sides, that is like saying Fox News doesn't take sides and isn't aligned with the Republican party. If you can convince yourself to believe that Swedish public media isn't politically aligned, then congratulations. > Cherry-picking in journalism has absolutely nothing to do with public media or not, and I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. How do you not understand? When interviewing the "common man" out on the streets, you should do that, and not interview somebody who is a high level party functionary without telling people you are doing that. That's like Fox News interviewing "random strangers" on the streets, but it turns out to be JD Vance in a wig.
      - embedding-shape 10mo ago
        > As for Swedish public media not taking sides That's not what I said, I said that I've seen Swedish public media "disparages all sides of the political spectrum", which is way more realistic than "not taking sides". We all wish we can be perfectly impartial, but that's short of impossible, so the next best thing is that it pushes back no matter where it comes from. That's what I've seen, but I no longer live in Sweden, maybe this last decade it's been different than how it was when I lived up there.
- iso1631 10mo ago
  There's also issues when the watched are funding the watches. If the council funds the newspaper, then the newspaper reports badly on the council, then the council can reducing funding for the newspaper. You need it to be independent, so how can you fund it. Perhaps a separate precept on the council tax bill which is set separately (say by national government) The BBC funding model attempts to do this at a national level, but of course nowadays that's not sustainable - part of the failure of the old civic minded establishment in favour of the new edgy profit minded establishment
__MatrixMan__ 10mo ago
I bet we could come up with a list of things we don't like about adtech, tax those behaviors, and give the proceeds to their local competitors.
reliabilityguy 10mo ago
What issue from the listed above public funding would address? Public funding doesn’t prevent the entity to become bloated.
- philipallstar 10mo ago
  Quite the opposite!
Xelbair 10mo ago
It fact you absolutely shouldn't as this put them in huge conflict of interest. how will you investigate corruption if your funding can be cut?
- bjourne 10mo ago
  The same argument applies to ad-sponsored media too. In fact, have you noticed that it was a very long time since a major paper did an exposé of the very sleazy online casino business? I wonder why.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  >? how will you investigate corruption if your funding can be cut? Don't make it possible for the current administration to cut the funding of the public media? Plenty of examples out there in the world where those currently in power can't just cut funding to major institutions, I think that's the norm rather than the exception in fact.
  - Xelbair 10mo ago
    >Don't make it possible for the current administration to cut the funding of the public media? Surely laws are immutable system and cannot be changed ever. It is always perfectly designed without loopholes, and especially so when ones who design the system could benefit from them.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      Absolutely not, no one claimed so either, and frankly, why continue discussing with you when you don't seem to be curious about a honest and straightforward conversation? Screw that noise. Normally, in democratic countries, you have a process for changing laws. Enshrine your public media in those, or even better, in the constitution, and you've pretty much protected it short-term at least. Add in foundations or whatever concepts your country have, to add more layers of indirection, and it's even more protected.
      - 10mo ago

zeagle 10mo ago

That sounds a lot like a newspaper subscription. I subscribe to my local (physical) paper once a week for this reason.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
Yeah, as long as you remove the "for-profit" part, it's essentially that. Once it's a for-profit business, it perverses the incentives, and it'll be a race to the bottom or a race to see what subscribers can survive the highest prices, which is exactly what we wanna avoid :)
- ecshafer 10mo ago
  Non-profits don't really stop any of that. Plenty of non-profits are after perverse incentives to gather as much money as they can to just pay higher ups more money, and use the non-profit status to pay employees less.
  - TimTheTinker 10mo ago
    Maybe there's a third way. What about a company owned by a "perpetual purpose trust" - i.e. a trust with a defined purpose that is legally binding. It's the only shareholder, so no extracting value and all profits have to comply with the trust's bylaws in how they are used. Patagonia (US company) is one example of this; it's profits are legally bound to go toward environmental causes. Bosch and Zeiss in Germany are comparable - they are Verantwortungseigentum (Steward-Ownership).
    - chrisweekly 10mo ago
      That sounds kind of like a B-Corp, innit?
      - TimTheTinker 10mo ago
        That's a third-party certification that can be allowed to lapse, not a legal or legally enforceable status. https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/ https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/

komali2 10mo ago

I wonder if a newspaper co-op is a viable idea? I do feel like there's a turn happening in the economy, or at least, some new scene growing. Or maybe I'm just finally becoming aware of it. That being, rejection of monopolized products. I've never seen so much activity around Linux, for example. Or, I follow a content creator called SkillUp who just launched a videogames news site with revenue purely from subscriptions, and apparently they got way more subs than they expected. And as has been mentioned, lots of indie games have been getting funding lately, and a relatively small studio just crushed the game awards circuit.

jszymborski 10mo ago
Unsure about a newspaper per se, but there are a number of news blogs that are co-ops. Examples I know of in Canada include: - NB Media Coop: https://nbmediacoop.org/ https://nbmediacoop.org/ - Pivot: https://pivot.quebec/ https://pivot.quebec/ Also, here's a game dev co-op from Montreal that has been around since 2012 as a bonus: https://ko-opmode.com/ https://ko-opmode.com/

bee_rider 10mo ago

How many people would 15,000 EUR employ in your area? That’s significantly below a living wage for one person in the US… Maybe an incredibly lean organization could make it with 150,000 EUR? All digital, 3-4 really devoted employees.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
> How many people would 15,000 EUR employ in your area? 3-4 people easily, probably closer to 5-6 in reality. Minimum salary in my country is around 1200 EUR/month, but we also have free health care for everyone and other anti-democratic things.
- bee_rider 10mo ago
  Ah, I had a brain-fart, was thinking yearly instead of monthly. Sorry!

glaslong 10mo ago

The only reliable funding sources then seem to be local car dealerships and lawyers who want puff pieces / ads about themselves. I think we need to acknowledge that communities producing news about their region is a public good and thus should be funded with taxes.