4 ms·

Part of the problem is deciding what journalism is. I don't mean that in terms of the craft -- I was a journalist for many years in the legacy media. We knew

Part of the problem is deciding what journalism is. I don't mean that in terms of the craft -- I was a journalist for many years in the legacy media. We knew what we were doing, and were proud of our work. The issue is that like any other art/craft/trade, being good at it isn't enough. Is this a charity? A public good? A business? A hobby? Good journalism is very expensive. It requires people doing real work who need to be paid, and sometimes big logistical expenses -- going into a war zone without body armor, specialized transport, security, etc., seems like a really bad idea. If it is a business, then the questions every business needs to ask itself are "who is the customer?" and "what value are we giving them that they are willing to pay for?". Financial news does this really well. People will pay for the Wall Street Journal, or a Bloomberg Terminal, etc, because the news they get from these outlets helps them trade successfully. Some outlets are required reading for certain industries -- Politico Pro, the Information, etc. But who does general news benefit? How do we get them to pay?

morkalork 4mo ago
There's news for entertainment, and news for making informed decisions. I suppose in a healthy democracy, it would be in the people's best interest to have unbiased and thoroughly investigated the news available so voters can make the best decision for themselves and the country. It wouldn't be profitable so it would have to be publicly funded like PBS News, BBC, CBC. And, well, it was good while it lasted but politicians seem hell bent on demonizing anything for the public good.
- kansface 4mo ago
  What is your a priori estimate for the percentage of news that is consumed as entertainment? As in, it does not result in a change of behavior in the consumer beyond engendering neuroticism. I'd put that number at or above 95%. News is gossip wearing a suit.
  - mrhottakes 4mo ago
    It seems strange to assume that you can even put a number on it. What's frivolous to you may be extremely important to another person.
- jaredwiener 4mo ago
  "it would be in the people's best interest" -- the problem is that as we're seeing, people do not seem to agree, at least not when voting with their wallets. And who determines what is "unbiased?" If I don't match your biases, am I biased?
  - morkalork 4mo ago
    Seeking out experts, eye witnesses, and sources of information and reporting on them as plainly and dryly without altering the facts and given statements whether you, your sponsors, the government or audience likes or agrees with them is about as unbiased as one can hope for, no?
    - jaredwiener 4mo ago
      Absolutely no. Even the basic act of deciding which stories to cover can be seen as bias. Which experts are we seeking out? What are their agendas? Altering facts and statements is not bias, it is incorrect reporting. Anything reported as factual that is not is wrong, period, full stop. But framing? You can frame a story any way you see fit. And as I was trying to get to in the earlier comment, "bias" is in the eye of the beholder. What might be straight down the middle for one reader could be wildly biased to another.
      - morkalork 4mo ago
        Ah, I understand. You're on the demonize train.
        jaredwiener 4mo ago
        Not demonizing. Trying to convey that this is a much more complicated subject than you seem to want to admit. Feels like https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/
philipallstar 4mo ago
Around the time of the first Obama term, journalism got redefined as activism rather than reporting. It's been a slow but inevitable collapse ever since.
- jaredwiener 4mo ago
  Source? This is sort of what I mean in one of the other comments regarding biases. This is an entirely subjective take, not to mention vague. Who redefined it? Whose journalism were they redefining? Everyone's, or specific people/outlet?
- unknownfuture 4mo ago
  Right. Because Fox was fair and balanced before Obama came along...
  - rayiner 4mo ago
    Fox wasn’t! That’s what made the Times worth reading! It was center-left people being objective to the best of their ability. So you could use it as a neutral-ish default, the check out Fox for any stories or angles the Times had overlooked.
  - philipallstar 4mo ago
    Fox was already unbalanced, yes, and seemed to never claim otherwise.
    - aeonik 4mo ago
      I'm so confused by your comment. Is it meant to be facetious? For the uninformed. "Fair and Balanced" was their literal slogan for 20 years. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/15/fox-news-drops-fair-and-balanced-slogan https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/15/fox-news-drops...
khurs 4mo ago
>But who does general news benefit? How do we get them to pay? NYTimes Revenue - $2.9B Daily Mail Group - £1.1Bn Getting them/advertisers to pay isn't a problem!
- jaredwiener 4mo ago
  "Close to 3,500 newspapers have vanished..." in the last 25 years. https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2025/report/ https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-...
  - khurs 4mo ago
    Don't know what it's like where you are, but most people nowadays are not so interested in reading a 'newspaper'. It's all online/tv/radio/podcast Even the local freely distributed papers are hardly read (unless placed near to a train station or similar so someone about to have 30 mins on a train may pick it up).
    - jaredwiener 4mo ago
      They have a pretty broad definition of "newspaper" -- it can be a digital outlet.
observationist 4mo ago
That deserves some pushback. It's commonly, and more frequently, the case that information is available online; people streaming on the ground right where you want video. It's possible to cultivate online relationships with people nearly everywhere on the planet with people that can serve as a source, or interface with the local people for you. Good journalism required effort. It used to be really expensive to get news and reporting from around the world, and now it's ubiquitous and nearly free to get news from everywhere. The hard part about good journalism is critical thinking, and identifying fact, and untangling the thread of truth from the overwhelming flood of information available on nearly every topic. Throw in the motivated bias of modern "style" guides, the politically and ideologically biased influences that govern framing, pacing, which stories get covered and how, thematic and editorial impositions, and it's going to be more or less impossible to do anything resembling "good" journalism in any modern incarnation of the former journalistic institutions. You can get live streams from nearly anywhere on the planet even during murderously hot conflict. During the middle of Iran's crackdown we were still getting videos from citizens daily, as well as seeing Iranian soldiers videos and the like. Journalism is a product. It's not a business of itself. The product can be packaged for mass consumption with ads and subliminals and be valued according to the effective influence it has on either manipulating the audience, or resulting in some degree of commercial activity. The writing will never be as tangibly valuable on a consistent basis to any of the advertisers. The value of superb writing and journalism with integrity and a significant story is the perception of institutional integrity, and thereby becoming a better outlet for advertising (and/or manipulation.) Throw in the fact that every strictly written word platform is in direct competition for time and eyeballs with the likes of TikTok and Twitter, Netflix, Prime, and all the other algorithm optimized timesinks, and the effective marginal value of even the absolute best of the best writing falls to nearly zero. If all I'm going to get is biased, skewed, ideologically motivated, politically or commercially manipulative narratives, then I'm not only not going to pay, I won't even pirate. I'll find some talking head that does the tedious job of figuring out how things work, de-censors, untangles the manipulative elements, and presents a reasonable facsimile of facts on the ground. All those talking heads do it for free, and with ad blockers, I'm consuming the video stream resources without contributing to any of the overt commercial mechanisms in play. The advent of AI also means that I can synthesize, filter, model, and report on any given topic with validated sources and pull in all of the best the internet has to offer. The era of high paid Pulitzer prize writers and journalists is effectively over, and the only way legacy institutions are going to get people to pay is by tricking them into thinking that value exists where there is, in fact, none.
UnwrapComment 4mo ago
I know some journalists say that we're living in the post-truth era and perhaps they're right in the sense that it's what the market needs? We don't value right or wrong outside of the financial markets so much because there's not much profit to be made there. A politician doesn't need to know if their ally is ethical, only need to act according to the narratives. A piece about a company easily swayed by sponsorships and donations, or needless alarmism that keeps public mind away from real problems. The current system we live in doesn't value the accuracy of the information and I think that's a tell on how badly the world is running.

morkalork 4mo ago

There's news for entertainment, and news for making informed decisions. I suppose in a healthy democracy, it would be in the people's best interest to have unbiased and thoroughly investigated the news available so voters can make the best decision for themselves and the country. It wouldn't be profitable so it would have to be publicly funded like PBS News, BBC, CBC. And, well, it was good while it lasted but politicians seem hell bent on demonizing anything for the public good.

kansface 4mo ago
What is your a priori estimate for the percentage of news that is consumed as entertainment? As in, it does not result in a change of behavior in the consumer beyond engendering neuroticism. I'd put that number at or above 95%. News is gossip wearing a suit.
- mrhottakes 4mo ago
  It seems strange to assume that you can even put a number on it. What's frivolous to you may be extremely important to another person.
jaredwiener 4mo ago
"it would be in the people's best interest" -- the problem is that as we're seeing, people do not seem to agree, at least not when voting with their wallets. And who determines what is "unbiased?" If I don't match your biases, am I biased?
- morkalork 4mo ago
  Seeking out experts, eye witnesses, and sources of information and reporting on them as plainly and dryly without altering the facts and given statements whether you, your sponsors, the government or audience likes or agrees with them is about as unbiased as one can hope for, no?
  - jaredwiener 4mo ago
    Absolutely no. Even the basic act of deciding which stories to cover can be seen as bias. Which experts are we seeking out? What are their agendas? Altering facts and statements is not bias, it is incorrect reporting. Anything reported as factual that is not is wrong, period, full stop. But framing? You can frame a story any way you see fit. And as I was trying to get to in the earlier comment, "bias" is in the eye of the beholder. What might be straight down the middle for one reader could be wildly biased to another.
    - morkalork 4mo ago
      Ah, I understand. You're on the demonize train.
      - jaredwiener 4mo ago
        Not demonizing. Trying to convey that this is a much more complicated subject than you seem to want to admit. Feels like https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/

philipallstar 4mo ago

Around the time of the first Obama term, journalism got redefined as activism rather than reporting. It's been a slow but inevitable collapse ever since.

jaredwiener 4mo ago
Source? This is sort of what I mean in one of the other comments regarding biases. This is an entirely subjective take, not to mention vague. Who redefined it? Whose journalism were they redefining? Everyone's, or specific people/outlet?
unknownfuture 4mo ago
Right. Because Fox was fair and balanced before Obama came along...
- rayiner 4mo ago
  Fox wasn’t! That’s what made the Times worth reading! It was center-left people being objective to the best of their ability. So you could use it as a neutral-ish default, the check out Fox for any stories or angles the Times had overlooked.
- philipallstar 4mo ago
  Fox was already unbalanced, yes, and seemed to never claim otherwise.
  - aeonik 4mo ago
    I'm so confused by your comment. Is it meant to be facetious? For the uninformed. "Fair and Balanced" was their literal slogan for 20 years. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/15/fox-news-drops-fair-and-balanced-slogan https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/15/fox-news-drops...

khurs 4mo ago

>But who does general news benefit? How do we get them to pay? NYTimes Revenue - $2.9B Daily Mail Group - £1.1Bn Getting them/advertisers to pay isn't a problem!

jaredwiener 4mo ago
"Close to 3,500 newspapers have vanished..." in the last 25 years. https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2025/report/ https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-...
- khurs 4mo ago
  Don't know what it's like where you are, but most people nowadays are not so interested in reading a 'newspaper'. It's all online/tv/radio/podcast Even the local freely distributed papers are hardly read (unless placed near to a train station or similar so someone about to have 30 mins on a train may pick it up).
  - jaredwiener 4mo ago
    They have a pretty broad definition of "newspaper" -- it can be a digital outlet.

observationist 4mo ago

That deserves some pushback. It's commonly, and more frequently, the case that information is available online; people streaming on the ground right where you want video. It's possible to cultivate online relationships with people nearly everywhere on the planet with people that can serve as a source, or interface with the local people for you. Good journalism required effort. It used to be really expensive to get news and reporting from around the world, and now it's ubiquitous and nearly free to get news from everywhere. The hard part about good journalism is critical thinking, and identifying fact, and untangling the thread of truth from the overwhelming flood of information available on nearly every topic. Throw in the motivated bias of modern "style" guides, the politically and ideologically biased influences that govern framing, pacing, which stories get covered and how, thematic and editorial impositions, and it's going to be more or less impossible to do anything resembling "good" journalism in any modern incarnation of the former journalistic institutions. You can get live streams from nearly anywhere on the planet even during murderously hot conflict. During the middle of Iran's crackdown we were still getting videos from citizens daily, as well as seeing Iranian soldiers videos and the like. Journalism is a product. It's not a business of itself. The product can be packaged for mass consumption with ads and subliminals and be valued according to the effective influence it has on either manipulating the audience, or resulting in some degree of commercial activity. The writing will never be as tangibly valuable on a consistent basis to any of the advertisers. The value of superb writing and journalism with integrity and a significant story is the perception of institutional integrity, and thereby becoming a better outlet for advertising (and/or manipulation.) Throw in the fact that every strictly written word platform is in direct competition for time and eyeballs with the likes of TikTok and Twitter, Netflix, Prime, and all the other algorithm optimized timesinks, and the effective marginal value of even the absolute best of the best writing falls to nearly zero. If all I'm going to get is biased, skewed, ideologically motivated, politically or commercially manipulative narratives, then I'm not only not going to pay, I won't even pirate. I'll find some talking head that does the tedious job of figuring out how things work, de-censors, untangles the manipulative elements, and presents a reasonable facsimile of facts on the ground. All those talking heads do it for free, and with ad blockers, I'm consuming the video stream resources without contributing to any of the overt commercial mechanisms in play. The advent of AI also means that I can synthesize, filter, model, and report on any given topic with validated sources and pull in all of the best the internet has to offer. The era of high paid Pulitzer prize writers and journalists is effectively over, and the only way legacy institutions are going to get people to pay is by tricking them into thinking that value exists where there is, in fact, none.

UnwrapComment 4mo ago

I know some journalists say that we're living in the post-truth era and perhaps they're right in the sense that it's what the market needs? We don't value right or wrong outside of the financial markets so much because there's not much profit to be made there. A politician doesn't need to know if their ally is ethical, only need to act according to the narratives. A piece about a company easily swayed by sponsorships and donations, or needless alarmism that keeps public mind away from real problems. The current system we live in doesn't value the accuracy of the information and I think that's a tell on how badly the world is running.