Warren Buffett Sees Most Newspapers as ‘Toast’ After Ad Decline(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Warren Buffett Sees Most Newspapers as ‘Toast’ After Ad Decline
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-23/warren-buffett-sees-most-newspapers-as-toast-after-ad-decline
274 comments
This is why I'm bullish on Nextdoor.com for making inroads into local news and local reporting. I think they're well positioned and best incentivized to pick up the hyperlocal online distribution.
Facebook, Twitter, Snap, etc are all too saturated with content that's scoped so globally that local content has a tough time penetrating through. Nextdoor on the other hand is built for local and has the perfect geographic and privacy model to take things really really local in a way that others can't.
They'll be able to make money in a way that independent local newspapers can't, but they'll also hopefully be able to drive demand enough to incentivize local journalists, reporters and even super engaged citizens.
Nextdoor doesn't fill this use-case super well today, but I think they can pull it off if they choose to focus on it. They certainly have all the right ingredients.
Facebook, Twitter, Snap, etc are all too saturated with content that's scoped so globally that local content has a tough time penetrating through. Nextdoor on the other hand is built for local and has the perfect geographic and privacy model to take things really really local in a way that others can't.
They'll be able to make money in a way that independent local newspapers can't, but they'll also hopefully be able to drive demand enough to incentivize local journalists, reporters and even super engaged citizens.
Nextdoor doesn't fill this use-case super well today, but I think they can pull it off if they choose to focus on it. They certainly have all the right ingredients.
Nextdoor suffers a lot of the same problems of traditional social media, the ease of spreading dis-information.
Recently our city council was proposing a special assessment against each property in our neighborhood of about 100 houses to rebuild our roads. The project was estimated to cost each tax payer $50,000 in a neighborhood of houses where the values range from $150,000-$250,000. Yes, they wanted to take $50,000 from each home, in addition to normal property taxes that should pay for infrastructure, to rebuild our road.
One of the councilman’s wife (someone that most would think is informed) was posting on Nextdoor claiming the special assessment was something the residents of the neighborhood would vote on and that residents should vote yes on the special assessment to beautify their neighborhood and that anyone who votes no clearly doesn’t care about their neighborhood. The problem with this is the special assessment clauses in the city ordinances do not provide a mechanism for residents to vote. It’s purely a vote of city council members. So here we have a city councilman’s spouse spreading falsehoods about how city government works. I reported the posts and countered them both with citations of ordinances and recorded questions about the process at city council hearings but because she has a large following and more ‘influence’ in the Nextdoor sphere I was labeled a liar and crazy person that doesn’t care about his neighborhood. Nextdoor did nothing to stop the dis-information.
I’m aware it’s only one anecdote but I find it hard to believe that Nextdoor can become any reliable source of local news when it’s so easy to post and spread straight up falsehoods on the platform.
Recently our city council was proposing a special assessment against each property in our neighborhood of about 100 houses to rebuild our roads. The project was estimated to cost each tax payer $50,000 in a neighborhood of houses where the values range from $150,000-$250,000. Yes, they wanted to take $50,000 from each home, in addition to normal property taxes that should pay for infrastructure, to rebuild our road.
One of the councilman’s wife (someone that most would think is informed) was posting on Nextdoor claiming the special assessment was something the residents of the neighborhood would vote on and that residents should vote yes on the special assessment to beautify their neighborhood and that anyone who votes no clearly doesn’t care about their neighborhood. The problem with this is the special assessment clauses in the city ordinances do not provide a mechanism for residents to vote. It’s purely a vote of city council members. So here we have a city councilman’s spouse spreading falsehoods about how city government works. I reported the posts and countered them both with citations of ordinances and recorded questions about the process at city council hearings but because she has a large following and more ‘influence’ in the Nextdoor sphere I was labeled a liar and crazy person that doesn’t care about his neighborhood. Nextdoor did nothing to stop the dis-information.
I’m aware it’s only one anecdote but I find it hard to believe that Nextdoor can become any reliable source of local news when it’s so easy to post and spread straight up falsehoods on the platform.
fwiw, separate from the topic at hand, your experience of shockingly large road/sewer bills coming due is rapidly going to become normal. for a walk through of the math check out about three minutes of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVaEmg-S-j0&t=10m50s
most of these american exurban developments of 50 - 250 homes, with no other meaningful town or tax base, down winding side roads and cul-de-sacs, got built starting in the 80s and really ramping up in the 90s. they are all 40 - 60 year infrastructure financial time bombs.
the math never worked, it was just built on a long enough horizon that everybody got to assume it would be someone elses problem.
most of these american exurban developments of 50 - 250 homes, with no other meaningful town or tax base, down winding side roads and cul-de-sacs, got built starting in the 80s and really ramping up in the 90s. they are all 40 - 60 year infrastructure financial time bombs.
the math never worked, it was just built on a long enough horizon that everybody got to assume it would be someone elses problem.
I sense some Strong Towns in this comment!
that anyone who votes no clearly doesn’t care about their neighborhood
It's exactly this kind of assertion, combined with followup attacks which is degrading public discourse in 2019.
I reported the posts and countered them both with citations of ordinances and recorded questions about the process at city council hearings but because she has a large following and more ‘influence’ in the Nextdoor sphere I was labeled a liar and crazy person that doesn’t care about his neighborhood.
Fits the general pattern to a T. Might makes right. I have the most followers, therefore I am right. I have control of the forum, therefore I am right. How is it the general population doesn't have a basic grasp of epistemology? In 2019, it seems like fully half of the population thinks might makes right is intellectually worthy!
What if you wrote up a pamphlet and started talking to people in person?
It's exactly this kind of assertion, combined with followup attacks which is degrading public discourse in 2019.
I reported the posts and countered them both with citations of ordinances and recorded questions about the process at city council hearings but because she has a large following and more ‘influence’ in the Nextdoor sphere I was labeled a liar and crazy person that doesn’t care about his neighborhood.
Fits the general pattern to a T. Might makes right. I have the most followers, therefore I am right. I have control of the forum, therefore I am right. How is it the general population doesn't have a basic grasp of epistemology? In 2019, it seems like fully half of the population thinks might makes right is intellectually worthy!
What if you wrote up a pamphlet and started talking to people in person?
Eventually that’s what happened. A couple of neighbors organized and put out pamphlets to have an in person meeting with one of the councilmen to get things set straight as to how the process would move forward. Participation was quite high which really gives me hope that the world isn’t completely broken.
As of now the plan is to put out a millage for vote across the whole city to cover several city infrastructure projects.
As of now the plan is to put out a millage for vote across the whole city to cover several city infrastructure projects.
Sadly, completely expected. Nextdoor should be called 'busybody'. IMHO the negatives outweigh the positives.
The real problem is that Nextdoor has no incentive to fix it, in fact they have a disincentive. Their business model seeks posts that spread like wildfire, pitchfork-ism and the like.
The real problem is that Nextdoor has no incentive to fix it, in fact they have a disincentive. Their business model seeks posts that spread like wildfire, pitchfork-ism and the like.
I hope they voted yes and paid 50k?
Nextdoor? Really? Why not Facebook? Most neighborhoods seem to have a group on Facebook.
About the only thing I've found with Nextdoor is that many of my neighbors are scared of strangers and everybody hates how everybody else drives.
About the only thing I've found with Nextdoor is that many of my neighbors are scared of strangers and everybody hates how everybody else drives.
I just checked them out. Looks like their German clone nebenan.de (pretty much a direct translation of "next door") is the winner here. My neighborhood (southern city bowl of a pop 200k town) doesn't yet exist on nextdoor, while nebenan lists 1767 "active neighbors"
Interesting, I just had a look at nebenan[0] and I was pretty much expecting to see a Rocket Internet[1] logo. No such logo, but it was founded by one of Rocket's main cloners[2] so that seems to be the model here too. Nice that they're so subtle with the name.
An interesting twist is that they seem to be involved with senior-citizen organizations. Maybe older folks are more likely to get involved?
As much as I dislike this German cloning model, and find it sad as there's a lot of real creativity in Berlin, I think a service like this might stand a better chance in a country with strong laws around privacy and slander.
[0]: https://nebenan.de/about (in German)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet#Controversy
[2]: https://www.ksta.de/wirtschaft/nebenan-de-und-wirnachbarn-co...
[Edit: link formatting]
An interesting twist is that they seem to be involved with senior-citizen organizations. Maybe older folks are more likely to get involved?
As much as I dislike this German cloning model, and find it sad as there's a lot of real creativity in Berlin, I think a service like this might stand a better chance in a country with strong laws around privacy and slander.
[0]: https://nebenan.de/about (in German)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet#Controversy
[2]: https://www.ksta.de/wirtschaft/nebenan-de-und-wirnachbarn-co...
[Edit: link formatting]
The average age is certainly not low. I've seen a lot of people I'd guess are quite a bit above 40 or 50. Barely anyone significantly younger than me (33).
I discuss our local situation here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734501
I guess if Nextdoor wanted to get in on that, they could hire journalists, but it is a reasonable outlay of money if you want to scale it, and something they don't currently do. Journalists need editors, and people to manage them who know how to hire the good ones, and probably other stuff that someone like me unfamiliar with the industry isn't even thinking of.
This is not something that can be 'crowdsourced'. Any citizen that sits through some portion of a city council meeting is probably there because they're interested in - and opinionated about - some local issue. This makes them less than ideal 'reporters'.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734501
I guess if Nextdoor wanted to get in on that, they could hire journalists, but it is a reasonable outlay of money if you want to scale it, and something they don't currently do. Journalists need editors, and people to manage them who know how to hire the good ones, and probably other stuff that someone like me unfamiliar with the industry isn't even thinking of.
This is not something that can be 'crowdsourced'. Any citizen that sits through some portion of a city council meeting is probably there because they're interested in - and opinionated about - some local issue. This makes them less than ideal 'reporters'.
I think that this problem, that you fear will cause no local reporting to happen, will cause local reporting to still happen. It's just that the local reporting will be poor quality.
I think this misses the point.
Newspapers can do fine when people read them. Ad sales, sponsorships, etc provide more than enough revenue for a local paper that has a at least a moderate readership. The reason newspapers are failing is because they aren't finding that moderate readership - people aren't reading them. And this is the exact same reason that ad sales/revenue are declining. So it's not like if you externally fund a newspaper, you fix the problem. You simply end up with a well funded paper that nobody reads.
And ultimately I see no way to save newspapers. Why would I read one handful of journalists' takes on events that happened 24+ hours ago, when I could instead see the views of not only countless journalists but even real people and specialists takes on issues, as they unfold? And as the article mentions the times of finding jobs or local sales in the newspaper is completely gone as well. To a degree this will also lead to a paradoxical decline of online outlets. They, like local papers, need loyal viewers to survive. But there's no inherent reason to offer loyalty to any given news outlet in era of the internet. This is, in my opinion, why most media has gone full-on partisan and op-ed type stuff. It tries to turn the news into entertainment to draw a recurring audience like a weekday sitcom in times past. Suffice to say this is not a viable long term strategy - fanaticism invariably destroys itself in the long run.
Newspapers can do fine when people read them. Ad sales, sponsorships, etc provide more than enough revenue for a local paper that has a at least a moderate readership. The reason newspapers are failing is because they aren't finding that moderate readership - people aren't reading them. And this is the exact same reason that ad sales/revenue are declining. So it's not like if you externally fund a newspaper, you fix the problem. You simply end up with a well funded paper that nobody reads.
And ultimately I see no way to save newspapers. Why would I read one handful of journalists' takes on events that happened 24+ hours ago, when I could instead see the views of not only countless journalists but even real people and specialists takes on issues, as they unfold? And as the article mentions the times of finding jobs or local sales in the newspaper is completely gone as well. To a degree this will also lead to a paradoxical decline of online outlets. They, like local papers, need loyal viewers to survive. But there's no inherent reason to offer loyalty to any given news outlet in era of the internet. This is, in my opinion, why most media has gone full-on partisan and op-ed type stuff. It tries to turn the news into entertainment to draw a recurring audience like a weekday sitcom in times past. Suffice to say this is not a viable long term strategy - fanaticism invariably destroys itself in the long run.
I actually take the totally opposite tack - I avoid all unfolding news, and wait for a magazine like the Economist to analyze it a bit later after the corrections come out.
There's usually not much value in knowing about what's going on right now outside of your locality, and breaking news is too bent on emotional manipulation and being first, even if it means being inaccurate. Junk food for your brain.
There's usually not much value in knowing about what's going on right now outside of your locality, and breaking news is too bent on emotional manipulation and being first, even if it means being inaccurate. Junk food for your brain.
A reason you do not want news as it unfolds is because while it is happening there is a lot of unknowns and misunderstanding which means social media live news is often false or misleading. Fake news is much worse than delayed news.
Nonsense. Breaking news has been a thing for a long time (Extra! Extra!). Now it's just decentralized.
It is the small local newspapers I need most. Anything in a big paper that is important to me I will see online. What is going on down the street is important to me, but not important to anyone who doesn't live within a couple blocks of me. Should my city replace their expensive pumps in the water plant or not - you don't live in my city so you don't care, I care because it is a choice between me able to water my garden or a cheaper water bill but water rationing. (I live in an area where there is plenty of water it just needs to be pumped)
I remember visiting the local newspaper as a kid, seeing the presses working. The people had a lot of pride in their job. I don't know what the answer is, but it makes me sad that it's becoming less important to people.
> need someone who sits through the local city council meetings
City council meetings can be lived-streamed, auto-transcribed, and their agenda can be posted. People will still of course offer their opinions on the subject on their social medias. We don't need newspapers to do this.
City council meetings can be lived-streamed, auto-transcribed, and their agenda can be posted. People will still of course offer their opinions on the subject on their social medias. We don't need newspapers to do this.
Even if it is live streamed and there is a perfect transcription, that is worthless. I don't have time to watch the stream or read the transcript. I have to do my day job, and then I go home and raise my kids.
What I need is an accurate and neutral summary of the things I should care about so when it comes time to vote in a couple years I can decide if I want to keep the current government or not.
Accurate and neutral is hard. Nobody is unbiased. The decision to cover/not cover something is both important and biased. Every project has pros-cons. The very first one is cost vs value: if you don't do the project you don't spend some money and taxes go down leaving more money for residents to do their own thing with, but they don't get the benefit of the project.
Most of what I see online is a quote - probably taken out of context - that makes the someone person look bad. I don't care if a politician is a good speaker, I care if the ultimate policy is good and this is a complex question.
What I need is an accurate and neutral summary of the things I should care about so when it comes time to vote in a couple years I can decide if I want to keep the current government or not.
Accurate and neutral is hard. Nobody is unbiased. The decision to cover/not cover something is both important and biased. Every project has pros-cons. The very first one is cost vs value: if you don't do the project you don't spend some money and taxes go down leaving more money for residents to do their own thing with, but they don't get the benefit of the project.
Most of what I see online is a quote - probably taken out of context - that makes the someone person look bad. I don't care if a politician is a good speaker, I care if the ultimate policy is good and this is a complex question.
They can be. They've been able to be for a decade or so. They aren't.
Some of that is budgetary, but a lot of it is that a lot of politicians don't actually have an interest in being held accountable, so you need someone to go down there and do it.
Besides, how many people are going to read a full meeting transcript every month? Very few, and typically only those motivated and thus biased by what's going on. You need a summary for a broad audience and you certainly can't trust those running the meetings to make one.
Some of that is budgetary, but a lot of it is that a lot of politicians don't actually have an interest in being held accountable, so you need someone to go down there and do it.
Besides, how many people are going to read a full meeting transcript every month? Very few, and typically only those motivated and thus biased by what's going on. You need a summary for a broad audience and you certainly can't trust those running the meetings to make one.
The real role that media plays, for good or for ill, is to direct the masses attention.
Want to cast the goings on, all of them, of your local council meetings into darkness? Have them do exactly what you just described without any journalists around to catch it.
Want to cast the goings on, all of them, of your local council meetings into darkness? Have them do exactly what you just described without any journalists around to catch it.
Rarely does a good local reporter just sit in on the meetings generally they also get some background from parties presenting, and on the council. Often they even develop sources that provide a bit more insider information.
And most importantly they follow up. The meeting is the start. Ihe rest is follow through. If the council are approving a special zoning permit, they go out and talk to neighbors, or the contractors previous special work, etc.
To say that you can just get some text is a bit like suggesting that wget is a good replacement for a web browser. Sure it does some of the stuff, but it isn't the real deal.
And most importantly they follow up. The meeting is the start. Ihe rest is follow through. If the council are approving a special zoning permit, they go out and talk to neighbors, or the contractors previous special work, etc.
To say that you can just get some text is a bit like suggesting that wget is a good replacement for a web browser. Sure it does some of the stuff, but it isn't the real deal.
You just focused on local reports adding information but I think even more important is that they summarize information and boil the issue down to a couple paragraphs of text, in turn making the information much more easily accessible. Watching an hour long meeting or reading pages of transcripts to extract the useful information is a very different time investment compared to just reading a couple of paragraphs about a topic. (I’m sure most people could do it and maybe even gain a better understanding of the issue compared to just reading a newspaper article but they definitely won’t since the time investment is just not worth it.)
One of the most important functions of the news is to pick and chose which information is important and relevant and to present that information in an understandable way. To fulfill that function they do not even have to go digging for extra information (though that certainly helps and can also, crucially, help in actually picking what’s important and relevant).
One of the most important functions of the news is to pick and chose which information is important and relevant and to present that information in an understandable way. To fulfill that function they do not even have to go digging for extra information (though that certainly helps and can also, crucially, help in actually picking what’s important and relevant).
Yes! And really, how many people are going to sit there through 4/5/6 hours of streaming at every meeting to get the interesting nuggets?
...or even understand why the interesting nuggets are interesting? One thing I appreciate about (good) journalism is highlighting implications that I would not have thought of myself, because I lack sufficient background knowledge.
But which local outlet does that? The local news I have access to certainly not.
They still provide summaries, meaning the needed time-investment to get a base level understanding of relevant topics is radically lower.
I think somehow dreaming up a local newspaper that does the same in-depth reporting as, say, the New York Times is just dumb and and doesn’t really help someone arguing in favor of local journalism.
Just summarizing the most important points that were discussed during a council meeting is actually plenty good enough. You could do better, but even just that provides quite a lot of value.
I think somehow dreaming up a local newspaper that does the same in-depth reporting as, say, the New York Times is just dumb and and doesn’t really help someone arguing in favor of local journalism.
Just summarizing the most important points that were discussed during a council meeting is actually plenty good enough. You could do better, but even just that provides quite a lot of value.
In most cases they don't. Which is the issue.
A number of years back, my town had a very good local newspaper that was sort of someone's labor of love but they became ill and, now, no newspaper. I basically have no knowledge of what's going on in town unless it rises to the level of importance where it gets coverage beyond the town lines. To be sure, I'm not really interested in most of what goes on but it would be nice to know.
A number of years back, my town had a very good local newspaper that was sort of someone's labor of love but they became ill and, now, no newspaper. I basically have no knowledge of what's going on in town unless it rises to the level of importance where it gets coverage beyond the town lines. To be sure, I'm not really interested in most of what goes on but it would be nice to know.
Yes and we all know that small cities that lost their only source of news finally got their social media activists to do that job.
Or that didn't happen and mismanagement goes unnoticed for much longer.
Or that didn't happen and mismanagement goes unnoticed for much longer.
Journalists also help chew through raw material. A lot of it is lengthy and to the lay-person not easy to understand because they might lack context or jargon or history of the matters under discussion, so journalists can help make sense of things. Taking in raw politics is like chewing an unbaked potato for most, helps to have someone cook it first before digesting it.
Most UK newsrooms just play the he said / she said game and then move on to the next story without really digging. There are very few with the collective memory and insight of Private Eye, which often connects widely-spaced dots to make sense of politics.
Interestingly Eye is very slim and only published fortnightly, which reflects the work involved in doing the job properly. And they are very seldom wrong.
Interestingly Eye is very slim and only published fortnightly, which reflects the work involved in doing the job properly. And they are very seldom wrong.
Eye is slim, buts it’s dense. There’s more content in Priavte Eye than in two weeks of the Telegraph.
Hidden Brain (NPR) had a nice episode on the same https://www.npr.org/2018/12/09/675092808/starving-the-watchd...
I think news could be funded with a spotify-style subscription, where people pay $10/mo for paywall-free access to a large number of papers, and those papers get a fraction of that persons' subscription, based on how long they spent reading that paper's articles. Call it NewsPass. The challenge is convincing the big papers that charge more than that for their subscription that they'll make more in aggregate, as many more people become paying subscribers.
That would work if newspapers didn't think that everyone is willing to pay $10/mo to read just their paper, like it was before the Internet.
I spent the last 3 years selling access-control/paywall-like software to large news agencies, and in the process, met with top executives in almost every major news organization/conglomerate in the US, Europe, and AUNZ.
This is absolutely the number 1 reason the major news organizations don't want to bundle up, and in the case of the top 5 (NYT, WaPo, FT, Guardian), works. Interestingly the second reason is brand. Nobody wants brand dilution from being considered in a "pool" with other publications, because it will reduce their power to charge more for their product in ads and subscription. While small publications actually do want solutions like this, generally the large publications with readership are even more upset to be lumped in with the small publications than they are to be lumped in with their competitors.
One solution which I saw but wasn't worth my company's time to explore was finding a bundle of niche publications willing to work together on a shared content-for-pay solution and had a loyal readership willing to pay, and growing outwards from that seed. But that's a very uphill battle.
This is absolutely the number 1 reason the major news organizations don't want to bundle up, and in the case of the top 5 (NYT, WaPo, FT, Guardian), works. Interestingly the second reason is brand. Nobody wants brand dilution from being considered in a "pool" with other publications, because it will reduce their power to charge more for their product in ads and subscription. While small publications actually do want solutions like this, generally the large publications with readership are even more upset to be lumped in with the small publications than they are to be lumped in with their competitors.
One solution which I saw but wasn't worth my company's time to explore was finding a bundle of niche publications willing to work together on a shared content-for-pay solution and had a loyal readership willing to pay, and growing outwards from that seed. But that's a very uphill battle.
Yeah, I definitely think you’d need to bundle niche publications first (Consumer Reports, The Economist) and build from there.
Interestingly, before the arrival of Internet, people had no qualms for paying $1 per day for newspapers. That’s at least $30 per month. Weekends editions were priced more and many people would even have subscription to couple of newspapers. Their content for quarter of the price of a coffee cup looked pretty cheap and no one seems to complain about the price.
Newspapers are tangible things. Some pixels on a screen are not, and the entire model of the web is that "everything is free". It's hard to break away from that.
Right, that's the challenge. But I don't think any papers except the NYT and maybe a couple others are justified in thinking that, and I think even they would probably end up net positive, since the vast majority of their readers are currently just ad-supported. I'm guessing the reality has sunk in for most papers.
People don't value or pay for news that way and it hurts many who otherwise couldn't afford it. Publishers also don't work together and the long-tail doesn't make enough anyway.
It's not a new idea and has been tried 100s of times. We tried it just a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038820
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038820
It's not a new idea and has been tried 100s of times. We tried it just a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038820
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038820
Thanks for trying to fix the problem and for sharing your experience. Are you convinced that it just couldn’t work?
No, but this is user behavior learned over decades and generations. At least with physical media, like newspapers and books, the tangible transfer is relatively easy to value, but digital started free and adblocking only continues to reinforce it. Add in the infinite supply, intangible nature, and 0-cost copying and it's hard to close that Pandora's box.
Changing behavior is possible but will require major cooperation and money to do so, at the scale of both Facebook and Google working together to change things. Maybe that'll happen someday but I just don't see it.
Changing behavior is possible but will require major cooperation and money to do so, at the scale of both Facebook and Google working together to change things. Maybe that'll happen someday but I just don't see it.
This is exactly what I try to solve with https://wishpage.tv/ people can make a content wish, people can attach monetary rewards to wishes and then someone can pick up the wish and make a video for example.
So it goes two ways, citizens can wish for the news/content they want to see and content creators don't have to guess anymore what the people want to see.
I made it a bit like a social network where every user has an individual wish page so good reporters can build up a good reputation.
Feedback would be great, what do you think? Is there anything you would like to see on the platform?
So it goes two ways, citizens can wish for the news/content they want to see and content creators don't have to guess anymore what the people want to see.
I made it a bit like a social network where every user has an individual wish page so good reporters can build up a good reputation.
Feedback would be great, what do you think? Is there anything you would like to see on the platform?
https://agate.one
They have a couple of titles. They really need to link up with the large local networks though.
They have a couple of titles. They really need to link up with the large local networks though.
Another one: https://launch.blendle.com
But in the end, big companies who own the smartphone experience, such as Apple and Google will probably own the biggest news/content platforms.
But in the end, big companies who own the smartphone experience, such as Apple and Google will probably own the biggest news/content platforms.
I think this is where Apple News is trying to go?
Maybe? I’ve never had the least interest in using their offering, but they certainly have the scale/resources/clout to make a decent push for it.
Yeah that might work, but it is still uphill battle. Spotify succeed because piracy was eating record labels profits and they had to do jump.
Well, I would say that news organizations are pretty incentivized to find a new revenue source, too. But yeah, the marquee papers might be harder to get, and those would be the main motivator for subscribers. But maybe you could start with more niche publications like The Economist, Consumer Reports, which are already heavily paywalled but could benefit from a larger paying audience, build up an initial audience, and then go for NYT/WSJ.
Another way to bootstrap this immensely desirable "spotify for news" model could be a platform (trusted third party) for mutual co-subscriptions. Subscribe with publication A, also gain access (metered behind the scenes, redistributing some predetermined part of the subscription fee according to measured consumption) to otherwise equally paywalled publications B,C and D.
But something like that will only happen when attractiveness for publications is maximised, which requires, amongst other things, that the platform avoids consumer facing lock-in or even just branding, because that would make publications (rightly) fear that they hand over whatever pre-existing digital subscriptions they already have to an exploitative intermediary. This in turn pretty much rules out the VC model for starting the platform, since eventually becoming exploitative is a required ingredient of the risk equation. But I see no reason why this could not work as a cooperative, because all the platform marketing would be directed at potential members. Consumer marketing, something in which a cooperative would tend to be inferior to a metrics-driven VC project (by a wide margin I suspect), would be left entirely to publications, who subsequently get to "own" the subscriptions they pulled in. Important design parameters would be the ratio between pooled and unpooled fees and the exact rules about weigh and how much content member publications would be allowed to keep exclusive to their direct subscribers. Outside of implementation, the biggest challenge would be to convince publications that few people would ever subscribe directly to multiple channels (how many people had now than one daily newspaper?) and that therefore, the content made available to subscribers of their peers would not cannibalize potential direct subscriptions very much.
But something like that will only happen when attractiveness for publications is maximised, which requires, amongst other things, that the platform avoids consumer facing lock-in or even just branding, because that would make publications (rightly) fear that they hand over whatever pre-existing digital subscriptions they already have to an exploitative intermediary. This in turn pretty much rules out the VC model for starting the platform, since eventually becoming exploitative is a required ingredient of the risk equation. But I see no reason why this could not work as a cooperative, because all the platform marketing would be directed at potential members. Consumer marketing, something in which a cooperative would tend to be inferior to a metrics-driven VC project (by a wide margin I suspect), would be left entirely to publications, who subsequently get to "own" the subscriptions they pulled in. Important design parameters would be the ratio between pooled and unpooled fees and the exact rules about weigh and how much content member publications would be allowed to keep exclusive to their direct subscribers. Outside of implementation, the biggest challenge would be to convince publications that few people would ever subscribe directly to multiple channels (how many people had now than one daily newspaper?) and that therefore, the content made available to subscribers of their peers would not cannibalize potential direct subscriptions very much.
This is a very good point, and I'm guessing something that has blocked this model from working in the past - it's totally natural that newspapers wouldn't want to lose control/ownership of their subscriber base. And I think you're right that that implies that it might be much better to set this up as a JV/cooperative between various papers, with a software arm that charges fees to the parent organization, but that doesn't own the core assets (those being owned by the papers).
Would also need to devise some way to get out of the coop, or structure it so that the members feel confident that it won't paint them into a terrible corner.
I'm not the right person to build this, it's mostly a BD problem (and I have a very long to-do list anyway), but I hope someone takes a stab at doing it right. Seems like various people have tried to do it as a more traditional startup, but I think the danger to the publications is probably too great with that structure, which would make it much harder to get buy in.
Would also need to devise some way to get out of the coop, or structure it so that the members feel confident that it won't paint them into a terrible corner.
I'm not the right person to build this, it's mostly a BD problem (and I have a very long to-do list anyway), but I hope someone takes a stab at doing it right. Seems like various people have tried to do it as a more traditional startup, but I think the danger to the publications is probably too great with that structure, which would make it much harder to get buy in.
Or you could try get big but very local publications like Aftonbladet.
Micropayments (with one-off tips or payments along with the usual subscriptions) solves this, because on top of that idea can be built ways for citizens to pick up and report on things that interest them, and if they do a good job, they can make a living at it.
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I don't know, I don't think grepping the minutes on my own is that hard.
I feel like setting this up to watch your local government (provided they post the minutes online, which maybe should be required now) would only take a few lines of shell script.
I feel like setting this up to watch your local government (provided they post the minutes online, which maybe should be required now) would only take a few lines of shell script.
Make them livestream all their meetings. Then you could employ specialists to pick through the proceedings.
Sometimes I think that the arrangement of local governments makes more sense for the days of horses and telegrams than it does today.
Sometimes I think that the arrangement of local governments makes more sense for the days of horses and telegrams than it does today.
> Then you could employ specialists to pick through the proceedings.
You just reinvented journalists, because it doesn't really matter if they're in the room or not. It's the picking through hours and hours of meetings and making something meaningful from those pickings, and maybe talking to some people outside the room too.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734588
You just reinvented journalists, because it doesn't really matter if they're in the room or not. It's the picking through hours and hours of meetings and making something meaningful from those pickings, and maybe talking to some people outside the room too.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734588
These could then be replaced by AI, preferably one that was built in an open manner.
How will your train your AI for that? How far as I know there is no AI remotely able to identify the important bits, put them in context and explain them clearly. This is very far away.
I agree, but it would have the data all previous recordings and news generated from it. Plus by open manner I meant that people (think the larger masses) would help in training it in the future as well.
Eventually, but most likely not in the next decade or two, or three.
Couldn't opposition party council members also do those things? And given the current developments in AI, is it not only a matter of time before these meetings get transcribed and summarized automatically?
The opposition party is clearly motivated to misrepresent what they see, though. If you think trust in media is bad, this would be exponentially worse.
And as nice as it is to think that technology is the answer, it already isn't. All meetings could be livestreamed online very cheaply but very few are. It's going to be a long time before automatic transcription technology has any kind of impact. At least part of this is because many politicians don't want to be held accountable, so they're not about to help these efforts.
And as nice as it is to think that technology is the answer, it already isn't. All meetings could be livestreamed online very cheaply but very few are. It's going to be a long time before automatic transcription technology has any kind of impact. At least part of this is because many politicians don't want to be held accountable, so they're not about to help these efforts.
However much opposition misrepresents what they see, it give matters some scrutiny, and that results in others' involvement.
The big problem at the moment, as I understood things, actually is that opposition is not doing its job by publicly calling out BS when it sees it at the local governance level.
The big problem at the moment, as I understood things, actually is that opposition is not doing its job by publicly calling out BS when it sees it at the local governance level.
Surely an ML pipeline could 1) listen to audio, 2) Identify
the public official speaker from the tonality of their voice 3) transcribe it, 4) summarise it?
We may want a human in there to verify and edit but it would reduce costs significantly.
We may want a human in there to verify and edit but it would reduce costs significantly.
Machine summarization is still a very active research topic and is nowhere close to being robust enough to produce a full write up. The state of the art is able to write headlines correctly most of the time but not much more.
Machine written articles are a large part of why news in general is virtually worthless to me these days. Especially in finance, I frequently read things that betray a total lack of understanding of the content. This has a knock-on effect that might not be obvious. As a journalist, you might think, well, why don't I read a reputable source like the WSJ - isn't good journalism more valuable when there is more bad stuff about? But people are getting clicks and selling ads with the automatically produced garbage, and therefore I know that traditionally trustworthy media has neither the incentive nor the morale to live up to their past standards. And thus, I have no interest any more in subscribing to even the best. For years, I've watched how under modern competitive conditions, a good brand (in any industry) is not worth maintaining any more, but rather it's become optimal to strip mine it to a husk. It's not really some mysterious decline of society, but a direct result of better data analysis. If someone says "we won Pulitzer prizes!" it doesn't soften me a bit - they only want me to pay them for what they did in the past, and that means nothing.
> And it's one that requires money to solve, because to cover local politics well, you need someone who sits through the local city council meetings, with their hours of discussion of things like 'sign ordinances' to write up a summary, or maybe bring attention to something that they're spending a lot of money on.
Do you, though? Can't a computer do that better than a human, what with machine learning and the like?
Do you, though? Can't a computer do that better than a human, what with machine learning and the like?
I really think we as a society need to figure out how to properly fund unbiased reporting without letting the government step in as a censor but while letting outlets be called out for outright falsehoods - I think this is a very hard problem to solve and solutions have been tried many times in the past.
It could be done with a new separate branch of government.
It used to be there was good money to make doing it privately, but nowadays the system needs government funding. Impartial and accessible (also meaning average Joe can understand it) information is as fundamental as the judiciary in order to maintain a working democracy.
There are various element of it in various countries. Like national offices of statistic. There are stuff like the BBC and variety of EU initiative to inform about various processes. Democratic government keep complete record and have public service already make analysis and summary for ministers to work with. So it's not like it is out of the realm of the achievable. Maybe an official rating could be created based on a service like politifact that independant newspaper must display on their frontpage like the food safety rating for restaurants. Teach the kid at school that anything not rated is basically fiction and that will take care of the majority of the population.
There is the risk of it becoming a propaganda arm of the government, sure, but you can have the same argument with every branch of the government. There is no intrinsic reason to trust the judiciary, the military or the police, except a tradition of being trustworthy which is really what maintain the whole system running: a lot of honest people everywhere. In any case, that's a moot point since the journalism it replaces is dying, and we know the new media that is killing it is not even pretending to have any kind of integrity.
There are various element of it in various countries. Like national offices of statistic. There are stuff like the BBC and variety of EU initiative to inform about various processes. Democratic government keep complete record and have public service already make analysis and summary for ministers to work with. So it's not like it is out of the realm of the achievable. Maybe an official rating could be created based on a service like politifact that independant newspaper must display on their frontpage like the food safety rating for restaurants. Teach the kid at school that anything not rated is basically fiction and that will take care of the majority of the population.
There is the risk of it becoming a propaganda arm of the government, sure, but you can have the same argument with every branch of the government. There is no intrinsic reason to trust the judiciary, the military or the police, except a tradition of being trustworthy which is really what maintain the whole system running: a lot of honest people everywhere. In any case, that's a moot point since the journalism it replaces is dying, and we know the new media that is killing it is not even pretending to have any kind of integrity.
A formalised fourth estate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
It really does bring up though questions though, like when you look at the current administration and what they have done with the White House press office. Imagine if there existed a well-respected and trusted national news outfit that was suddenly being run by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. With the normal United States executive branch spoils system it would be a shitshow. It'd have to be like 4th branch of government or at least run separately like the Fed does.
It shouldn't be part of the Executive but its own branch, as independent as the judiciary
How is it going to work?
The judiciary is nominated by the executive, which I can’t see working well for this. Presidents from both parties would universally opt to staff the branch with journalists that were soft on government and politicians in general.
Same problem if they get appointed by congress.
As for elections, yea what could go wrong there? America is pretty level headed. We would never elect some kind of partisan maniac to an important position like this.
All the branches of government are inherently political.
The judiciary is nominated by the executive, which I can’t see working well for this. Presidents from both parties would universally opt to staff the branch with journalists that were soft on government and politicians in general.
Same problem if they get appointed by congress.
As for elections, yea what could go wrong there? America is pretty level headed. We would never elect some kind of partisan maniac to an important position like this.
All the branches of government are inherently political.
Well, this is strictly theoretical. I can't imagine our politicians wanting to launch a news service, let alone an unbiased one.
But if they did, one option would be to hire an editorial board from nationally esteemed people from outside the political system. You know, draw the membership from Nobel prize winning scientists and authors, Olympic medal winners, people like that. They would then hire and oversee journalists who knew how to journalism.
If you're worried that would lead to olympic medals becoming politically biased, you could have the committee appoint their own replacements.
"Entirely unbiased" may be impossible, but "relatively less biased than Fox News or The Guardian" sounds achievable.
But if they did, one option would be to hire an editorial board from nationally esteemed people from outside the political system. You know, draw the membership from Nobel prize winning scientists and authors, Olympic medal winners, people like that. They would then hire and oversee journalists who knew how to journalism.
If you're worried that would lead to olympic medals becoming politically biased, you could have the committee appoint their own replacements.
"Entirely unbiased" may be impossible, but "relatively less biased than Fox News or The Guardian" sounds achievable.
Basically, we should fund PBS to BBC levels
Basically, we should fund PBS
He said unbiased. No matter the quality of reporting, NPR has a clear bias. As does BBC for that matter, even less obscured.
> independent as the judiciary
In theory or in practice, because what we have now (and what many would argue we have always had) is not very independent.
In theory or in practice, because what we have now (and what many would argue we have always had) is not very independent.
Senior Judges are appointed by the executive
You can't have the government report on the government and expect full independence - even if it is independent of the executive, you still need to fund it somehow, which is going to make it beholden to someone.
Both the BBC and CBC have a history of government influence in their reporting - this is not a civil society function I can trust to government.
Both the BBC and CBC have a history of government influence in their reporting - this is not a civil society function I can trust to government.
> Both the BBC and CBC have a history of government influence in their reporting
Citation absolutely required. The BBC have always sought to be impartial - which brings its own, occasionally absurd, biases. Their charter has always required they separate from government and impartial.
They've managed to piss off almost every government, of every colour, in almost equal measure.
Citation absolutely required. The BBC have always sought to be impartial - which brings its own, occasionally absurd, biases. Their charter has always required they separate from government and impartial.
They've managed to piss off almost every government, of every colour, in almost equal measure.
They have a wonderful knack of appearing biased to Labour or Conservative, depending on whether you're Conservative or Labour supporter.
> Both the BBC and CBC have a history of government influence in their reporting
Do you have a link for this? The govt can’t tamper with the editorial output of the BBC, that’s not how it works.
Do you have a link for this? The govt can’t tamper with the editorial output of the BBC, that’s not how it works.
This is false. Check out the D-Notice system (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice) and note there are very recent examples of government interference, notably during Snowden's leaks and the Skripal affair.
That hardly makes them government controlled.
First D notices apply to all media, second they are a voluntary "government request" to not publish. Various outlets, including the BBC, have plenty of history ignoring these. Some are actioned. Essentially the media body has to be convinced there is a national security case to follow the request. They're not mandatory and not following one results in no government or court action. Just words.
Cameron emptily threatened to bring in tougher measures to restrict all media, not just the BBC, during Snowden.
First D notices apply to all media, second they are a voluntary "government request" to not publish. Various outlets, including the BBC, have plenty of history ignoring these. Some are actioned. Essentially the media body has to be convinced there is a national security case to follow the request. They're not mandatory and not following one results in no government or court action. Just words.
Cameron emptily threatened to bring in tougher measures to restrict all media, not just the BBC, during Snowden.
>You can't have the government report on the government and expect full independence - even if it is independent of the executive, you still need to fund it somehow, which is going to make it beholden to someone.
And private media, controlled by unaccountable billionaire capitalists and funded by corporate advertising, can be trusted?
With publicly funded media, there can be far more scrutiny, openness and criticism. I mean, look at the UK and compare the BBC, which has its flaws, to the absolutely repulsive, dishonest and dogmatically right-wing private press.
And private media, controlled by unaccountable billionaire capitalists and funded by corporate advertising, can be trusted?
With publicly funded media, there can be far more scrutiny, openness and criticism. I mean, look at the UK and compare the BBC, which has its flaws, to the absolutely repulsive, dishonest and dogmatically right-wing private press.
At least the private media would compete between themselves.
Citation needed here. In many countries it does not happen at all. It only works if you have enough billionaires with very different interests to compete against each other. And it does not mean they will compete about everything either.
In Germany we have pseudo-governmental news stations. They work to a degree but you will only get "safe" news with influence from political parties.*
The quality is mostly good, but it isn't sufficient to be really informed.
The services for rating accuracy of news isn't really a solution in my opinion, since they only shift the problem, even if they slow down the news cycle a little bit. They will also be wrong at some point, like any news outlet.
You cannot really have free independant journalism and put heaps of regulations upon them.
> There is the risk of it becoming a propaganda arm of the government
It is inevitable. If there are honest people everywhere, we can keep governmental involvement to a minimum. The real problem is monetization and education. Even renowned outlets use clickbait in this day and age.
I also do think that a lot of "new media" will vanish again.
edit: They also tend to develop into expensive behemoths which quickly develop their own interests.
* which includes classical censorship.
The quality is mostly good, but it isn't sufficient to be really informed.
The services for rating accuracy of news isn't really a solution in my opinion, since they only shift the problem, even if they slow down the news cycle a little bit. They will also be wrong at some point, like any news outlet.
You cannot really have free independant journalism and put heaps of regulations upon them.
> There is the risk of it becoming a propaganda arm of the government
It is inevitable. If there are honest people everywhere, we can keep governmental involvement to a minimum. The real problem is monetization and education. Even renowned outlets use clickbait in this day and age.
I also do think that a lot of "new media" will vanish again.
edit: They also tend to develop into expensive behemoths which quickly develop their own interests.
* which includes classical censorship.
Largely the same with the BBC in the UK.
Lots of people scream they are pro-left/pro-right (often without evidence) but I think if you look at their history what they are is pro-whoever is in power.
They know who writes the cheques.
Lots of people scream they are pro-left/pro-right (often without evidence) but I think if you look at their history what they are is pro-whoever is in power.
They know who writes the cheques.
They used to be ok at holding the government in power to account before the Hutton Inquiry. Now they're slavishly obedient.
Worse than their bias, though, was the defunding for investigative reporting. These days the front page is covered with lazy reporting, clickbait and reprinted press releases.
Worse than their bias, though, was the defunding for investigative reporting. These days the front page is covered with lazy reporting, clickbait and reprinted press releases.
I don't think that's true at all. The BBC has run lots of major stories embarrassing to the government such as the failed role out of Universal Credit and the Windrush scandal.
Right now there's this story on the front page - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-47884273 - which appears to be original investigative reporting into a Tory MP.
What are you basing your opinion on?
Right now there's this story on the front page - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-47884273 - which appears to be original investigative reporting into a Tory MP.
What are you basing your opinion on?
True, I do think they make a real effort to stay neutral, but they are always very tame and if in doubt, they side with the government. Merkel just plainly removed certain reports, not sure about the topic. That was what I meant with classical censorship.
> Merkel just plainly removed certain reports, not sure about the topic.
Removing all political influence is hard. I also am certain there was a case of some politician calling an editor, but don't remember the details beyond the politician getting booted because of it. But that sounds like bullshit or at least highly exaggerated. I'd like a source on that.
Removing all political influence is hard. I also am certain there was a case of some politician calling an editor, but don't remember the details beyond the politician getting booted because of it. But that sounds like bullshit or at least highly exaggerated. I'd like a source on that.
The BBC aren't funded by the government though - "who writes the cheques" is members of the public who pay the license fee.
Yeah but ultimately it's the government who enable license fee collection as it currently stands with their blokes in a van who come around to harrass you if you've not coughed up. There's a special legal framework around TV licensing which more or less ensures the BBC's success - taking that away and forcing them to operate like a normal private company would inevitably massively harm their revenue and force them into finding external private investors, advertisers within the UK and such. So I think it's fair to say that the BBC's operations certainly are dependent on government good-will even if they don't officially control it.
I think there is some value in having a network like this, however, in that it adds to the diversity of networks in that it's not just "yet another privately owned network".
I find it interesting, however, that Channel 4 is state owned yet they (maybe I just mean Jon Snow in particular) seem to have an easier time being more critical of the government. It is likely that this is because it's not totally dependent on any one form of revenue given that it also has adverts on its main channels, but also it probably sees less pressure because of its smaller viewership and I suppose generally less serious tone of programmes.
I think there is some value in having a network like this, however, in that it adds to the diversity of networks in that it's not just "yet another privately owned network".
I find it interesting, however, that Channel 4 is state owned yet they (maybe I just mean Jon Snow in particular) seem to have an easier time being more critical of the government. It is likely that this is because it's not totally dependent on any one form of revenue given that it also has adverts on its main channels, but also it probably sees less pressure because of its smaller viewership and I suppose generally less serious tone of programmes.
Unbiased reporting has never existed in the history of the US press, and likely never will. The very decision to publish or not publish story inserts a little bias. The press can't possibly cover everything, so they have to decide what should be printed, and it's not always a straightforward decision.
40 years ago, there were several nationally recognized publications (NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc.), and all of them had a bias. NYT editorial leaned left, WSJ editorial leaned right, and everyone knew this. The political leaning was baked into brand of the publication.
This all changed in the internet era. The collapse of print advertising decimated the industry. Publications became more incentivized to publish questionable reporting because clickbaity headlines brought more ad traffic. The Trump campaign was covered ad nauseum because having his name in a headline significantly increased traffic to an article, and thus revenue.
The online advertising model is fundamentally incompatible with the kind of journalism you're looking for, but we as a society are hooked on it because it means we don't have to pay for the content.
40 years ago, there were several nationally recognized publications (NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc.), and all of them had a bias. NYT editorial leaned left, WSJ editorial leaned right, and everyone knew this. The political leaning was baked into brand of the publication.
This all changed in the internet era. The collapse of print advertising decimated the industry. Publications became more incentivized to publish questionable reporting because clickbaity headlines brought more ad traffic. The Trump campaign was covered ad nauseum because having his name in a headline significantly increased traffic to an article, and thus revenue.
The online advertising model is fundamentally incompatible with the kind of journalism you're looking for, but we as a society are hooked on it because it means we don't have to pay for the content.
Papers like the NYT, WP and WSJ are doing ok. It's the local ones that are dying or getting bought out and gutted.
This is a big problem, because no one else sits through those hours of local meetings that mean so much to our cities in terms of transportation, housing, schools and so on.
This is a big problem, because no one else sits through those hours of local meetings that mean so much to our cities in terms of transportation, housing, schools and so on.
Second that opinion. Local media is crucially important. Not least as it serves as a public record in an edited and readable form, moreover, most journalists at the “big” papers also have a background in local press. That’s where you learn the ropes and the craft of reporting.
Not true. Television stations have reporters. Radio stations have reporters. Some are for-profit, some are public. They report on local meetings. Websites are cropping up that have reporters that cover local matters:
https://www.marylandmatters.org/
https://marylandreporter.com/
Maryland Public Television sends three reporters, plus an anchor and all the associated production staff, to cover the Maryland General Assembly each year. They sit through the hours of debates. They interview lawmakers.
The newspaper never was the only source of local news, and now more than ever there are places to get local news if people bother to look.
https://www.marylandmatters.org/
https://marylandreporter.com/
Maryland Public Television sends three reporters, plus an anchor and all the associated production staff, to cover the Maryland General Assembly each year. They sit through the hours of debates. They interview lawmakers.
The newspaper never was the only source of local news, and now more than ever there are places to get local news if people bother to look.
See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734501
But also, you're talking about state-level reporting in a state with 6 million people.
I'm talking local papers in towns of 10K, 50K, 100K, 200K. They used to exist, and now they're going away, and we're worse off because of it.
But also, you're talking about state-level reporting in a state with 6 million people.
I'm talking local papers in towns of 10K, 50K, 100K, 200K. They used to exist, and now they're going away, and we're worse off because of it.
WP was sold to Bezozs by Buffett and the other owners probably because it was not doing ok financially.
I wonder if libraries can have some journalists on staff? Or a librarian that is part time librarian, part time journalist. As far as bias...it's hard to be unbias. Maybe there's some questionnaire that determines your bias, and libraries hire journalist that have different bias so they can keep each other in check. The funding would of course, but local taxes.
What, exactly, is unbiased reporting?
That's something you should have learnt in grade school.
An unattainable ideal, sure, but one that noble media organizations can aspire to. Notably through: open editorial processes, balanced sourcing and attribution, a robust correction policy, a non-combative relationship with readers, use of a neutral styleguide, eschewing advertorial content and NO EDITORIALS/OPINION PIECES.
I think opinion pieces and editorials can be included as long as they are clearly marked and delineated from the actual news.
In fact, I think it's almost impossible to write an unopinionated news story as choosing to write a story is an opinion of itself - the clearer we can isolate these opinions the better.
In fact, I think it's almost impossible to write an unopinionated news story as choosing to write a story is an opinion of itself - the clearer we can isolate these opinions the better.
The problem is these tend to reinforce opinions people have about an organization or "the media" even when clearly denoted.
I'd like to imagine there's some way for society to recover to the state of semi-trusted media, maybe we just need to have enough voices that the truth comes out in majority - like industry run newspapers, the cotton lobby's paper is clearly biased on this article about reducing fabric tariff's from mexico but the jeweler's quarterly newspaper doesn't have a vested interest.
As I said, it's a hard problem. I like the discussion on trying to find an answer though!
As I said, it's a hard problem. I like the discussion on trying to find an answer though!
The challenge is that even when clearly marked as opinion, they still accrue to the reputation of the publication. If you look at the Most Read links on WaPo or NYT, the opinion pieces are often more than half.
Could you give an example of a "noble media organization" that comes the closest, in your view, to achieving this goal?
AP/Reuters for basic stories.
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
I don't think any comes that close. Most are stuck in an unfortunate race to the bottom against cheap social/internet/clickbait news and the shackles of archaic old media.
C-SPAN
The FT
I think the FT is biased in favour of free markets and globalisation.
Most of the economics profession is biased in favour of some regulated form of free markets and globalization.
That's a bit like saying scientists are biased in favour of anthropic climate change: it's a rational bias based on 200 years of evidence.
That's a bit like saying scientists are biased in favour of anthropic climate change: it's a rational bias based on 200 years of evidence.
>Most of the economics profession is biased in favour of some regulated form of free markets and globalization.
>That's a bit like saying scientists are biased in favour of anthropic climate change: it's a rational bias based on 200 years of evidence.
The economics profession is biased in favour of that because the think tank money, sourced from corporate wealth, wants that.
It's a pretty irrational bias which has led to, among other things, the mainstream of the profession being completely blindsided by the financial crisis (famously called out by the normally apolitical Queen) as well as the meteoric rise of China via highly managed trade (an anti free market policy treated by most economists in the 90s/early 00s as largely self defeating).
>That's a bit like saying scientists are biased in favour of anthropic climate change: it's a rational bias based on 200 years of evidence.
The economics profession is biased in favour of that because the think tank money, sourced from corporate wealth, wants that.
It's a pretty irrational bias which has led to, among other things, the mainstream of the profession being completely blindsided by the financial crisis (famously called out by the normally apolitical Queen) as well as the meteoric rise of China via highly managed trade (an anti free market policy treated by most economists in the 90s/early 00s as largely self defeating).
Wow that’s nasty - equating me to a climate change denier because I said I thought the FT had a bias in one economic direction.
[deleted]
Not every value that people hold is economically reducible.
In the FT's case, it is. The FT doesn't 'know a lot', it largely reflects the mainstream consensus of the economics literature and think tanks - which are broadly pro market with regulation, in line with much of the economics profession.
The FT has come out and said that if most of the economics literature was in favour of Brexit, they would have been too, but it wasn't, so they weren't.
There was a lot of concern with Nikkei's investment in the FT that that would no longer be the case and that it would kowtow to it's corporate owners - if proved not to be the case.
The FT has come out and said that if most of the economics literature was in favour of Brexit, they would have been too, but it wasn't, so they weren't.
There was a lot of concern with Nikkei's investment in the FT that that would no longer be the case and that it would kowtow to it's corporate owners - if proved not to be the case.
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Reuters
one of the easiest ways is to avoid using most adjectives. Not taking a point of view, not speculating, not predicting the future. Limit the use of verbs with strong negative or positive connotations.
Stick to what people did, what they said, and let people draw their own conclusions.
Story selection is also a form of bias.
<<The usual tensions between reporters and government representatives have escalated to extreme levels in the Trump age, due largely to the President's near-daily attacks against the media. His portrayal of the people who cover him as his "enemy" and the "enemy of the people" has been denounced by historians, press freedom advocates and politicians in both parties.>>
Stick to what people did, what they said, and let people draw their own conclusions.
Story selection is also a form of bias.
<<The usual tensions between reporters and government representatives have escalated to extreme levels in the Trump age, due largely to the President's near-daily attacks against the media. His portrayal of the people who cover him as his "enemy" and the "enemy of the people" has been denounced by historians, press freedom advocates and politicians in both parties.>>
You need to give up on the government not being involved at all, because that's the only realistic way it'll ever happen.
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It's a problem that Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube could solve essentially overnight, if there was any motivation for them to do it. They are the media companies of our day, and they have the capital to hire local reporters in the 500-1000 largest metro areas in the us.
> It's a problem that Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube could solve essentially overnight
No, it's not. All of those companies are extremely averse to putting boots on the ground, preferring software solutions instead.
Proper journalism worthy of the name (e.g. stuff beyond formulaic reporting like sports scores and financial prices), can't be done by software.
No, it's not. All of those companies are extremely averse to putting boots on the ground, preferring software solutions instead.
Proper journalism worthy of the name (e.g. stuff beyond formulaic reporting like sports scores and financial prices), can't be done by software.
To be clear, my suggestion was that they should put boots on the ground, not that they should employ bots or ml. There are journalists looking for work and there are media companies with more money than they know what to do with. Facebook could hire local journalists.
I know they won't, because they don't care about the quality of content on their platform. But there's no reason they couldn't hire actual journalists to do actual reporting for their platform, except that nobody is demanding it of them.
I know they won't, because they don't care about the quality of content on their platform. But there's no reason they couldn't hire actual journalists to do actual reporting for their platform, except that nobody is demanding it of them.
Of course they could. But if they did hire local journalists all over the country, those journalists would have a strong incentive to produce content that drives maximal "engagement" on facebook's platform. That's just a recipe for even more clickbait and outrage-driven reporting. No thanks.
I feel like that's a very naive way to look at it.
Lots of entities have enough capital to get a news company going, the problem is profitability and long-term sustainability. Not to mention running an actual news agency. Just because a company is profitable in one area doesn't mean they're guaranteed success in another.
How are companies like Facebook supposed to solve this problem? Where is the money to pay for these journalists going to come from? The ad revenue generated by that wing of their company? If it was that easy, then existing media companies wouldn't be struggling.
If you're counting on there being synergy between their existing userbase then I don't think it's worth it because there's so many risks. If a company starts pushing a certain type of news, their credibility and their brand would be so closely tied together with their news branch that either the news would be very bland and have a n agenda while also potentially alienating a large portion of users. This could very well lead to killing their main product.
Companies like google are already under fire for being partial. Add in them actively writing about things like politics and it'd be like adding a barrel of oil.
Not to mention the anti-trust laws involved. Companies like the ones you mentioned are already overpowered let alone giving them the keys to present actual news.
Lots of entities have enough capital to get a news company going, the problem is profitability and long-term sustainability. Not to mention running an actual news agency. Just because a company is profitable in one area doesn't mean they're guaranteed success in another.
How are companies like Facebook supposed to solve this problem? Where is the money to pay for these journalists going to come from? The ad revenue generated by that wing of their company? If it was that easy, then existing media companies wouldn't be struggling.
If you're counting on there being synergy between their existing userbase then I don't think it's worth it because there's so many risks. If a company starts pushing a certain type of news, their credibility and their brand would be so closely tied together with their news branch that either the news would be very bland and have a n agenda while also potentially alienating a large portion of users. This could very well lead to killing their main product.
Companies like google are already under fire for being partial. Add in them actively writing about things like politics and it'd be like adding a barrel of oil.
Not to mention the anti-trust laws involved. Companies like the ones you mentioned are already overpowered let alone giving them the keys to present actual news.
This is fundamentally a distribution problem. It's not dissimilar to retail or other industries with the design-produce-distribute-market chain.
A journalist (creator), produces a product (manufacturer), a newspaper/magazine distributed it (distribution) and a publisher creates the allure that makes you want to trust that brand (marketing). All that stuff was hard and expensive 15 years ago and consumers didn't have the tools to find the creator and the creator didn't have the tools to distribute.
A bunch of bundled industries are falling apart with the unbundling but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding. And the tools that allow for cheap distribution are basically free.
What's lacking is the arbitrage of the distribution platform's earning power to pay steady wages to journalists.
The worst thing that happened to journalism was no-paywall outlets. It convinced people that content is free. It's as if we buy toothpaste at CVS for $3 and on Amazon it's free just because it's on the internet. At a certain point you start to devalue ALL toothpaste rather than just devaluing crap toothpaste because Amazon makes it easier for you to buy toothpaste you like.
Today I can follow a journalist's work. I can follow a specific topic. But I have yet to figure out that doing that work costs money. So no matter the paywall model, it's gonne be hard for consumers to fund it.
A journalist (creator), produces a product (manufacturer), a newspaper/magazine distributed it (distribution) and a publisher creates the allure that makes you want to trust that brand (marketing). All that stuff was hard and expensive 15 years ago and consumers didn't have the tools to find the creator and the creator didn't have the tools to distribute.
A bunch of bundled industries are falling apart with the unbundling but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding. And the tools that allow for cheap distribution are basically free.
What's lacking is the arbitrage of the distribution platform's earning power to pay steady wages to journalists.
The worst thing that happened to journalism was no-paywall outlets. It convinced people that content is free. It's as if we buy toothpaste at CVS for $3 and on Amazon it's free just because it's on the internet. At a certain point you start to devalue ALL toothpaste rather than just devaluing crap toothpaste because Amazon makes it easier for you to buy toothpaste you like.
Today I can follow a journalist's work. I can follow a specific topic. But I have yet to figure out that doing that work costs money. So no matter the paywall model, it's gonne be hard for consumers to fund it.
> but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding.
I don't think that is true with local news.
At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:
* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.
* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.
Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.
I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.
I don't think that is true with local news.
At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:
* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.
* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.
Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.
I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.
Boston has a long-time independent hyperlocal reporter, Adam Gaffin ("https://universalhub.com/"), who actually sits through not only city council meetings, but even liquor licensing board hearings and zoning hearings.
Gaffin was an early "tech" industry reporter, IIRC, and involved pretty early in the Internet. He invested many years in building a hyperlocal news following, and apparently now makes a modest living off of ads and donations.
Gaffin's is impressive for a one-person operation, but of course his coverage isn't complete, and a major city really needs at least tens of sharp journalists covering the basics. Unfortunately, although the two main local papers (Boston Globe, Boston Herald) are soldiering on thus far, they're in financial trouble, and have been sold and under new management since their heydays.
Gaffin was an early "tech" industry reporter, IIRC, and involved pretty early in the Internet. He invested many years in building a hyperlocal news following, and apparently now makes a modest living off of ads and donations.
Gaffin's is impressive for a one-person operation, but of course his coverage isn't complete, and a major city really needs at least tens of sharp journalists covering the basics. Unfortunately, although the two main local papers (Boston Globe, Boston Herald) are soldiering on thus far, they're in financial trouble, and have been sold and under new management since their heydays.
Yeah, and as you write, Boston is a major city. If it's struggling, think about all the towns with 50K, 100K, or 200K...
Theoretically if a creator exists, they could be found. The unique issue to news is that the mass perceived value is zero. Either a market doesn't exist b/c of the perceived value or a marketplace doesn't exist to facilitate the trade.
It's interesting you brought this up, because it's the same thing that happened to the music industry with piracy. A decade of rampant piracy changed the mindset of the consumer to value music at $0.
Almost all of the musicians I know that were able to make a living without a major label, before 2000, all could no longer make a living. It really hurt the independent artist and only made musicians more reliant on big labels.
The same thing would have happened to the software, but many companies moved to SAAS.
Almost all of the musicians I know that were able to make a living without a major label, before 2000, all could no longer make a living. It really hurt the independent artist and only made musicians more reliant on big labels.
The same thing would have happened to the software, but many companies moved to SAAS.
> Almost all of the musicians I know that were able to make a living without a major label, before 2000, all could no longer make a living.
Just to verify, your assertion is that no major label musicians could make a living after 2000, but some (what amount approximately?) that were with non-major labels (or does this mean independent artist run endeavors?) were able to make a living?
If not please clarify specifically identifying and ranking each group with references.
Thank you very much in advance my friend.
Just to verify, your assertion is that no major label musicians could make a living after 2000, but some (what amount approximately?) that were with non-major labels (or does this mean independent artist run endeavors?) were able to make a living?
If not please clarify specifically identifying and ranking each group with references.
Thank you very much in advance my friend.
"Just to verify, your assertion is that no major label musicians could make a living after 2000"
I missed a word there. I meant no independent artist I know could make a living on their music after 2000 (I'm not even talking about getting rich..just being able to make their rent). After Napster, many people either demanded that it was free or would just download it and not pay the artist. Since they aren't signed with a big label, making money at live shows was pretty much non-existent.
Piracy isn't about stealing a car. It's about destroying value in an entire product/piece of art. Far worse than stealing a physical item.
"Thank you very much in advance my friend."
Just look at things like Spotify: Most artists are getting fractions of pennies per/play and only the very famous ones are actually making anything. There have been many articles on HN about this. You can find them yourself.
I missed a word there. I meant no independent artist I know could make a living on their music after 2000 (I'm not even talking about getting rich..just being able to make their rent). After Napster, many people either demanded that it was free or would just download it and not pay the artist. Since they aren't signed with a big label, making money at live shows was pretty much non-existent.
Piracy isn't about stealing a car. It's about destroying value in an entire product/piece of art. Far worse than stealing a physical item.
"Thank you very much in advance my friend."
Just look at things like Spotify: Most artists are getting fractions of pennies per/play and only the very famous ones are actually making anything. There have been many articles on HN about this. You can find them yourself.
And yet, there seems to be more new music being produced, catering to every taste, creating new genres, than ever before.
On the other hand I doubt more of them are making a living off it. To clarify I’m aware that music and arts in general have always been professions that can only be sustainable for the very few, most dedicated talents - yet I imagine it has become worse in the age of being paid fractions of a cent per play.
Hard to say. At the same time, artists have more global reach, greater ability to engage with fans and build a dedicated base, options like crowdfunding and Patreon, etc.
I see two big differences between music and news. The first one is that good music stays good. The second one is that bad music doesn't pose any democratic problem.
This oversimplifies the complex eco system that newspapers had. Content of a typical dozen page newspaper was headlines, minor news, infotainment, utility and ads. The minor news work by a journalist was heavily subsidized by other sections. In other words, a journalist sitting in city council meetings and doing reporting is unlikely to find revenue by himself to fund even meager life style. If newspapers were to completely fall apart, I would expect around 70% of journalists go extinct due to loss of ecosystem.
I agree. My point is that the bundling balanced the ROI equation in a way that unbundled things don't. Theoretically this isn't an issue if the market has some sense of value for the unbundled thing...think HBO which is a mid-flight experiment.
Interestingly it’s not the readership that has plummeted but the ad revenue that has evaporated. https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/
In other words, many newspapers still do get more or less same eyeballs as before but the price that advertisers are willing to pay for them has taken nose dive. So it’s not about circulation but ad revenue generated per subscriber.
In other words, many newspapers still do get more or less same eyeballs as before but the price that advertisers are willing to pay for them has taken nose dive. So it’s not about circulation but ad revenue generated per subscriber.
Yes. The problem is the internet has created advertising avenues that are way more efficient than any newspaper can hope to replicate. Only the most trusted newspapers that can turn to subscription and affiliate revenue will be able to survive.
"Same number of readers" is deceptive since the overall population has increased. In 1990 there were about 220 million people in the US. Today, there are 320 million.
So newspapers have a smaller market share and a much older demographics.
It's more than "ad revenue generated per subscriber", it's also operating cost to generate revenue. Most newspapers are unionized and salaries, benefits, costs, etc have increased while revenue stagnated. That's why newspapers have to constantly lay people off. If costs stayed stagnant along with revenue, then newspapers theoretically could be fine. But inflation doesn't allow that.
Due to legacy ( essentially what advertisers know and are comfortable with ), advertisers spend more for each pair of eyeballs on print, tv, etc. Since digital is new, advertisers spend less per pair of eyeballs. That's can't last forever as digital gets more established. It's why large newspapers are moving quickly onto social media and the internet. It's where eyeballs and ad spending is going to be.
Also, local and mid tier newspapers are facing digital headwinds as social media focuses on boosting "trusted authoritative sources". So the big boys - The NYTimes, WSJ, Bloomberg, etc are going to thrive as they eat the smaller newspapers' lunch with the help of google, facebook, apple, etc.
What we are seeing is a form of stealth media consolidation. Smaller newspapers are being bought up by larger newspapers. Sadly, it's happening in every industry. More consolidation, less competition.
So newspapers have a smaller market share and a much older demographics.
It's more than "ad revenue generated per subscriber", it's also operating cost to generate revenue. Most newspapers are unionized and salaries, benefits, costs, etc have increased while revenue stagnated. That's why newspapers have to constantly lay people off. If costs stayed stagnant along with revenue, then newspapers theoretically could be fine. But inflation doesn't allow that.
Due to legacy ( essentially what advertisers know and are comfortable with ), advertisers spend more for each pair of eyeballs on print, tv, etc. Since digital is new, advertisers spend less per pair of eyeballs. That's can't last forever as digital gets more established. It's why large newspapers are moving quickly onto social media and the internet. It's where eyeballs and ad spending is going to be.
Also, local and mid tier newspapers are facing digital headwinds as social media focuses on boosting "trusted authoritative sources". So the big boys - The NYTimes, WSJ, Bloomberg, etc are going to thrive as they eat the smaller newspapers' lunch with the help of google, facebook, apple, etc.
What we are seeing is a form of stealth media consolidation. Smaller newspapers are being bought up by larger newspapers. Sadly, it's happening in every industry. More consolidation, less competition.
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I haven't seen anyone bring up changes in the average reader's lifestyle that could impact how often they read local newspapers. It seems commonly accepted that people have to pick up and move more often these days for career advancement. I know that myself and those in my circle of friends all end up moving every few years for career purposes. If people spend years or decades not settling down, how invested can they really get in the local news?
Journalism joins the list of domains that simply don't work as capitalistic institutions, alongside healthcare, education, higher-level academic research, and environmental stewardship. These things serve important public good but aren't sustainable by a consumer-based model. They have to have public funding.
“Public sector will self report its misdeeds” is almost as good as “market will self regulate.”
Public sector at least has the pretense of trying to do what's best for society.
The market is a race to the bottom; public entities have their goals stated expressly, and there will always be some idealists who genuinely care about living up to those. Either way it comes down to people just deciding to do the right thing; there's no way around that. But capitalism gives otherwise-good people the excuse to do the wrong thing without feeling bad about it, because it's "just business".
The market is a race to the bottom; public entities have their goals stated expressly, and there will always be some idealists who genuinely care about living up to those. Either way it comes down to people just deciding to do the right thing; there's no way around that. But capitalism gives otherwise-good people the excuse to do the wrong thing without feeling bad about it, because it's "just business".
When reasoning about performance, an institution's mission should treated like a student's name. The information is irrelevant, but even for an honest and conscientious reader, the cognitive traps laid by its availability are too dangerous.
Incentives are a decent guide.
Incentives are a decent guide.
The private sector has money as a motive.
The public sector has motives as well, like money (continued funding), political pressure, etc.
You’re just exchanging one motive for another and not really solving the problem.
The public sector has motives as well, like money (continued funding), political pressure, etc.
You’re just exchanging one motive for another and not really solving the problem.
I don't buy into that anti capitalism argument. It suggests that people aren't aware of the value they receive through newspapers and a consumption based model is therefore not working. I do see a danger in monopolies (or even oligopolies) but that can be prevented by competition regulators. But apart from that it seems people simply don't value traditional newspapers enough to keep so many of them running.
It seems plausible that many people do derive value from journalism without paying for it. Among those are, for example, people profiting from others making more informed choices at the ballot box, or being freed from corrupt politicians uncovered by newspapers they don’t subscribe to, or, more directly, getting some information for free on TV even though they are just piggybacking on some other medium’s investigation.
You're right, they don't. But it's not about physical newspapers, it's about journalism itself. Journalism itself is not being funded. This is partly because internet platforms/adtech have broken its financing model. Of course it's possible for the ideologically-minded to counter this by donating to journalism organizations for their public service, without turning to the public sector. But people obviously aren't doing that (enough).
The reality is that individuals often don't think in terms of a big enough picture to support abstract public goods with private donations. Capitalism would say "good, people apparently don't want those things, let them die". But "people don't think about it" and "it doesn't have value" are very different things.
The reality is that individuals often don't think in terms of a big enough picture to support abstract public goods with private donations. Capitalism would say "good, people apparently don't want those things, let them die". But "people don't think about it" and "it doesn't have value" are very different things.
Yes, but the larger macro economic issue here is that many jobs which once provided a middle class income are now unable to do so as the cost of living skyrockets. How do we fund jobs that provide essential services but may not necessarily be deemed critical enough for public funding? Income inequality is a problem for all of us.
Here is a relevant interview with journalist Steven Pearlstein in which he suggests that current conditions only support 7-9 global journalism outlets worldwide, with only 2 or so non-partisan and fact-based, mostly for the upper classes.
http://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2019/article/capita...
http://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2019/article/capita...
Well those 7-9 outlets could enable porous paywalls that allow for shared links to be viewed for free.
Newspapers used to be the gateway of fast changing information. The Internet changes that completely. With so many different kinds and sources of news on the web, and with ever faster publishing speed, newspapers have lost their biggest moat. It's only a matter of time they will be gone.
> Newspapers used to be the gateway of fast changing information.
Wrong answer!
Here's the correct answer: Newspapers used to have a monopoly on advertising. They could extract enormous sums of money from advertisers due to this.
Most towns had a single newspaper, because the nature of the newspaper business generally led to a natural monopoly. Big cities had maybe had two or three newspapers.
Newspaper owners lost their monopoly. No more overpriced classifieds!
No more money gushing in!
Wrong answer!
Here's the correct answer: Newspapers used to have a monopoly on advertising. They could extract enormous sums of money from advertisers due to this.
Most towns had a single newspaper, because the nature of the newspaper business generally led to a natural monopoly. Big cities had maybe had two or three newspapers.
Newspaper owners lost their monopoly. No more overpriced classifieds!
No more money gushing in!
Seems like part of it - especially things like classified ads - but... on the other hand, it seems they did ok for a while even with local TV and radio competing for local ad dollars.
Advertising and classifieds are typically separate departments in most newspapers.
Advertising has competed with radio, TV, direct mail -- you name it -- for decades on decades.
What matters is that classifieds got gutted. That was the true river of gold.
Newspapers got a cut of thousands upon thousands of transactions every single week, whether or not those transactions even occurred. Every potential hiring, every name change, every car for sale, every house on the market, pretty much all of commerce from petty to grand: the newspaper gets its cut.
The income:cost ratio is fantastically high, especially since the cost of printing is subsidised (though not typically fully covered) by the cover price.
Advertising has competed with radio, TV, direct mail -- you name it -- for decades on decades.
What matters is that classifieds got gutted. That was the true river of gold.
Newspapers got a cut of thousands upon thousands of transactions every single week, whether or not those transactions even occurred. Every potential hiring, every name change, every car for sale, every house on the market, pretty much all of commerce from petty to grand: the newspaper gets its cut.
The income:cost ratio is fantastically high, especially since the cost of printing is subsidised (though not typically fully covered) by the cover price.
Now instead of 2 newspapers having a monopoly over one city we now have 2 companies who have a monopoly over most of the planet.
It's more like a few advertising networks where thousands of journalism sites host ads where all advertisers bid on fairly.
The tech monopolies is a separate topic.
The tech monopolies is a separate topic.
Then why could papers coexist with radio and TV? Why are all three dying now?
The internet allows hyper-targetting individuals - that's why money flows to the web. Advertising efficiency.
Pace or quality of news was never a factor - hell, if you want quality traditional media's websites are still the go-to. Distribution is really the only eroded moat of value.
The internet allows hyper-targetting individuals - that's why money flows to the web. Advertising efficiency.
Pace or quality of news was never a factor - hell, if you want quality traditional media's websites are still the go-to. Distribution is really the only eroded moat of value.
>Why are all three dying now?
Ads.
I can't block advertisements in any of those three formats, but I can on the web. I no longer consume television, newspapers, or FM radio other than CBC (public radio, mostly news and issues, no ads).
Ads.
I can't block advertisements in any of those three formats, but I can on the web. I no longer consume television, newspapers, or FM radio other than CBC (public radio, mostly news and issues, no ads).
Adblocking ad-supported websites is not a steady-state existence. Those websites will either shift to subscriptions, shutdown, or find the equilibrium of-difficult-but-not-impossible-to-avoid advertising
I think the internet has overshot our attention carrying capacity and we're in for a crash as the pendulum swings back.
I think the internet has overshot our attention carrying capacity and we're in for a crash as the pendulum swings back.
The mode of consumption, reading, is similar on the web and on the newspaper while radio and TV have different mode of consumption. As an example of precursor, radio news was pretty killed by TV news when it came out. When was the last time you listened to radio news sitting by the fireplace? People listen to radio news in cars while driving because they can't take their eyes off the road. Given a choice, people rather watch TV news than listen to radio news. Same thing will happen to newspapers vs internet news.
Less newspapers is a concern.
A bigger concern is the shameles willingness of video-based news media to publish anything in order to tickle more eyeballs.
Less sources of information is bad. Misinformation is worse.
A bigger concern is the shameles willingness of video-based news media to publish anything in order to tickle more eyeballs.
Less sources of information is bad. Misinformation is worse.
My favourite two ideas for the future.
Currently, most places, the news is funded by ads, subscriptions or gov funded agency. So this idea would replace above with voters. Done via a change to the government system to have two people in same seat; politician and shadow politician (SP). Both paid positions but SP wouldn't have any power.
Pros:
- SP doesn't need to go back to full time job and wait for next election cycle.
- SP will continue to represent the leftover voters and question the politician. (Its beyond me why election systems do not allow representation for miniority voters. Ie win with 51% of vote, 49% voters are NOT represented by anyone??)
- Not biased towards companies, ad revenue, subscriptions.
Cons:
- Need to pay SP.
- Biased to getting elected.
Second idea: government site where anyone with ID can post news.
Pros:
- Free for citizens.
- Ideally, government won't take dowm articles. Just because anyone can post, doesn't mean no consequences.
- Historical archive.
- Local news in one place.
Cons:
- Government need to pay for hosting and support.
- News Corp.
Currently, most places, the news is funded by ads, subscriptions or gov funded agency. So this idea would replace above with voters. Done via a change to the government system to have two people in same seat; politician and shadow politician (SP). Both paid positions but SP wouldn't have any power.
Pros:
- SP doesn't need to go back to full time job and wait for next election cycle.
- SP will continue to represent the leftover voters and question the politician. (Its beyond me why election systems do not allow representation for miniority voters. Ie win with 51% of vote, 49% voters are NOT represented by anyone??)
- Not biased towards companies, ad revenue, subscriptions.
Cons:
- Need to pay SP.
- Biased to getting elected.
Second idea: government site where anyone with ID can post news.
Pros:
- Free for citizens.
- Ideally, government won't take dowm articles. Just because anyone can post, doesn't mean no consequences.
- Historical archive.
- Local news in one place.
Cons:
- Government need to pay for hosting and support.
- News Corp.
> Its beyond me why election systems do not allow representation for miniority voters
Many election systems do. The systems used in the US and certain other poorly-representative democracies don't, and those states score poorly in terms of popular satisfaction with government compared to democracies with systems where minorities within constituencies aren't systematically excluded from representation by the structure of the electoral system.
Many election systems do. The systems used in the US and certain other poorly-representative democracies don't, and those states score poorly in terms of popular satisfaction with government compared to democracies with systems where minorities within constituencies aren't systematically excluded from representation by the structure of the electoral system.
There probably is a future for high quality reporting like the FT, WaPo.
I’m probably more of a contrarian in that I think it’s no bad thing if ‘viewspapers’ which exist to make people mad, make false equivalencies and write ‘People are saying’ type stories go to the wall.
It turns out the direct link between a paying customer and the provider of news is actually an important one and that once you sever that link and treat the reader as ‘eyeballs’ the quality does suffer.
I’m probably more of a contrarian in that I think it’s no bad thing if ‘viewspapers’ which exist to make people mad, make false equivalencies and write ‘People are saying’ type stories go to the wall.
It turns out the direct link between a paying customer and the provider of news is actually an important one and that once you sever that link and treat the reader as ‘eyeballs’ the quality does suffer.
I think the negative news is the only kind that will survive the digital era because it scales well. Not that many people care about local news, and so that will die out because it can't reach more than a small number of people.
The likes of the FT/Economist etc seems to scale well because it has an engaged audience that is used to paying for it and sees the value in paying fOr news.
Which is fine, provided you are in the socio-economic group of people who don't have to worry about whether or not the local mayor is ripping you off. Or perhaps the city council is planning to put a halfway house on your block. Etc etc etc.
WaPo or FT are just not going to cover local issues like they need to be covered to keep an informed electorate.
WaPo or FT are just not going to cover local issues like they need to be covered to keep an informed electorate.
It might be that local papers are a bad fit for online, but I've never seen them as directly competing with national news anyway. The paper versions of my local certainly seem okay, and there's a lack of clickbait junk in them. The online version on the other hand is a real crapshoot.
Though both the FT and the Economist have moved from being a neutral, factual, solid source of news and analysis to become politically militant. That seems to have worked well for them in term of subscriptions but I no longer consider them as quality news.
The Economist was never neutral. It was set up in response to the Corn Laws in the 19th Century Britain and has been very upfront about its ideological standpoint ever since. It's one of the things I like about it.
I do believe it's solid and factual though. If you treat every article is an opinion and analysis piece rather than neutral news reporting (because that's what they are), then it's quite a pleasant and informative read.
I do believe it's solid and factual though. If you treat every article is an opinion and analysis piece rather than neutral news reporting (because that's what they are), then it's quite a pleasant and informative read.
In San Jose we have a new non-profit news organization https://sanjosespotlight.com/ that is doing a great job covering local issues. The traditional newspaper in the area, The Mercury News, has been laying off reporters and no longer does much original reporting after being purchased by Alden Global Capital.
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The actual Yahoo interview with video of Buffett https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-sees-most-news...
Who the hell under 50 reads newspapers these days? Of course they're "toast". If news sites are dying because of the ad decline, ad blockers and the unwillingness of paying for news digitally then how on earth are newspapers supposed to survive?
I do? I get the paper on weekends. It's nice and much superior to reading on screen. I find I take in a lot more on a wider variety of topics due to the lack of algo feeds.
Online blinded-to-publisher exchange-based ads are the most democratic mode of news support. Having them be user-relevant instead of content-relevant allowed us to support content creators without doubling on the clickbait problem.
The death of online targeted ads is going to be sad for this. I can't think of a cheaper way to pay for stuff. It's the only way I was able to see so many incredible videos or pictures or articles.
My kids and I will be fine because I have money now but previous me would have trouble in the coming all-paywall universe. We're going to be better informed than anyone else and reinforce the positive feedback loop of wealth begetting wealth.
Good luck to everyone else.
The death of online targeted ads is going to be sad for this. I can't think of a cheaper way to pay for stuff. It's the only way I was able to see so many incredible videos or pictures or articles.
My kids and I will be fine because I have money now but previous me would have trouble in the coming all-paywall universe. We're going to be better informed than anyone else and reinforce the positive feedback loop of wealth begetting wealth.
Good luck to everyone else.
> Online blinded-to-publisher exchange-based ads are the most democratic mode of news support.
The trouble with this model is that publishers like to have editorial rights over ads. A left-leaning publisher, for e.g, will want to be associated with ads for an oil company or to generalize, not publisher wants to be associated with any outrage-of-the-day brand.
The trouble with this model is that publishers like to have editorial rights over ads. A left-leaning publisher, for e.g, will want to be associated with ads for an oil company or to generalize, not publisher wants to be associated with any outrage-of-the-day brand.
You can blacklist categories.
I'll miss papers.
I was a paperboy and have fond memories of it. I also like to read things on physical media.
On the upside, it's got to be good for the earth to not print papers every day then trash them immediately after.
I was a paperboy and have fond memories of it. I also like to read things on physical media.
On the upside, it's got to be good for the earth to not print papers every day then trash them immediately after.
Why do we need centralized dissemination of information? How does that benefit society? Top-down, command and control has always lead to non-optimal outcomes throughout history.
In the absence of centralized journalistic outlets, we could have open access to data/information and a reputation system that rewards objective, consistent analysis.
Let the old systems die, so new ones can be developed. We should stop subsidizing legacy systems.
In the absence of centralized journalistic outlets, we could have open access to data/information and a reputation system that rewards objective, consistent analysis.
Let the old systems die, so new ones can be developed. We should stop subsidizing legacy systems.
“we will have open access to data/information and a reputation system that rewards objective, consistent analysis.”
I have no idea what this means, nor do I know why newspapers apparently need to die to make it possible?
In any case, existing media is pretty close to a functioning “reputation system”.
I have no idea what this means, nor do I know why newspapers apparently need to die to make it possible?
In any case, existing media is pretty close to a functioning “reputation system”.
That means instead of having a layer of journalists between the public and sources of information, we would have an open system whereby anyone can download the data and analyse it themselves.
They don't need to die. But if we stop subsidizing them, new systems would have the room to grow.
The media is far from a functional reputation system. The "Paper of Record", the New York Times, regularly publishes outright falsehoods or extremely biased reporting that paints truth in the worst possible light. There are all sorts of subtle manipulations that they use from word choices, ordering of information, image choices, etc. to manipulate people into believing one thing or another.
They don't need to die. But if we stop subsidizing them, new systems would have the room to grow.
The media is far from a functional reputation system. The "Paper of Record", the New York Times, regularly publishes outright falsehoods or extremely biased reporting that paints truth in the worst possible light. There are all sorts of subtle manipulations that they use from word choices, ordering of information, image choices, etc. to manipulate people into believing one thing or another.
Name one outright falsehood in the NYT that isn’t old enough to have graduated high school.
You also failed to elaborate how any system of trust would work in the absence of the reputational system that is mediated by such branding as those you list. Instead, you’re just offering the tired and cynic the-media-is-terrible conspiratorial drivel.
You also failed to elaborate how any system of trust would work in the absence of the reputational system that is mediated by such branding as those you list. Instead, you’re just offering the tired and cynic the-media-is-terrible conspiratorial drivel.
You can see a log of retractions: https://www.nytimes.com/section/corrections
These are just the ones they admit to. Who knows how many unnamed sources don't actually exist or other factual errors pass unretracted.
These are just the ones they admit to. Who knows how many unnamed sources don't actually exist or other factual errors pass unretracted.
> we will have [...] a reputation system that rewards objective, consistent analysis.
This is unlikely. We will get a reputation system that rewards sensationalism, and polarization of viewpoints.
This is already happening in the newspaper industry, where they try to combat it as best they can.
It's magical thinking to believe that technology and a laissez faire approach will do anything but accelerate the decline.
This is unlikely. We will get a reputation system that rewards sensationalism, and polarization of viewpoints.
This is already happening in the newspaper industry, where they try to combat it as best they can.
It's magical thinking to believe that technology and a laissez faire approach will do anything but accelerate the decline.
What we have now is no system, and unsurprisingly it rewards clickbait (i.e. sensationalism and confirmation bias).
Instead, imagine a service built on blockchain where publishers (users who generate content) were rewarded by readers (consumers of content) with tokens that were spent by betting on the validity of said content.
If that content was later proven false, the user would lose their bet. If proven true, the user would win the bet and have the ability to bet again.
Publishers with the most won bets would be ranked highest in terms of reputation.
Instead, imagine a service built on blockchain where publishers (users who generate content) were rewarded by readers (consumers of content) with tokens that were spent by betting on the validity of said content.
If that content was later proven false, the user would lose their bet. If proven true, the user would win the bet and have the ability to bet again.
Publishers with the most won bets would be ranked highest in terms of reputation.
Sounds like American idol for news.
Who would decide if an article is 'proven true'? Some kind of majority vote?
In the jim crow era lots of people would have 'proven' some very unsavory facts about a certain population of people.
Any substantive piece of journalism—beyond simple facts—can't be proven true, because it's trafficking in viewpoints that can't be proven true in a binary sense.
However from a reputable paper, that viewpoint is supported by at least two independent sources, and argued fairly and in good faith.
Who would decide if an article is 'proven true'? Some kind of majority vote?
In the jim crow era lots of people would have 'proven' some very unsavory facts about a certain population of people.
Any substantive piece of journalism—beyond simple facts—can't be proven true, because it's trafficking in viewpoints that can't be proven true in a binary sense.
However from a reputable paper, that viewpoint is supported by at least two independent sources, and argued fairly and in good faith.
If 51% of users assent that a piece of information is true, then it would be deemed true by the system.
Unfalsifiable information would not (and should not) be apart of the system. It is wholly irrelevant for public consumption. Opinions would be relegated to Facebook and Twitter.
Unfalsifiable information would not (and should not) be apart of the system. It is wholly irrelevant for public consumption. Opinions would be relegated to Facebook and Twitter.
> Unfalsifiable information would not (and should not) be apart of the system.
Then that's not human discourse. We are people, not robots.
Then that's not human discourse. We are people, not robots.
You would be free to share opinions outside of the system.
News is meant to be objective reporting of facts. Facts must be falsifiable.
News is meant to be objective reporting of facts. Facts must be falsifiable.
Very little news (other than trivial news) is conclusively proved (or even provable) true or false in a way that all sides would agree on. All this would lead would be either just reporting after the fact news (a man was arrested in town X this morning charged with crime Y) or stories (even more) full of hedging language that cannot be conclusively falsifiable ("sources claim...", "some experts believe...", "we're hearing credible rumors that..." etc)
News is meant to be objective reporting of facts. Modern journalism has been corrupted by opinion and activism.
Hedging language would be discouraged by a system that rewards factual reporting.
Hedging language would be discouraged by a system that rewards factual reporting.
News is meant to be objective reporting of facts.
I disagree, or at least that's not the only part of news. News should also include presenting the information that is on hand and the situation as it's currently understood even if the details are too murky to raise to the level of "fact". In addition I actually do want analysis from my journalists. I don't want them to just tell me that congress passed the XYZ bill and a link to the text (objective facts), and want them to tell me what effects they believe the bill is likely to have (opinion).
I'm even OK with activism by journalists as long as they're up front with what they're doing, keep it separate from their overall reporting, and don't let it get in the way of telling the truth.
I disagree, or at least that's not the only part of news. News should also include presenting the information that is on hand and the situation as it's currently understood even if the details are too murky to raise to the level of "fact". In addition I actually do want analysis from my journalists. I don't want them to just tell me that congress passed the XYZ bill and a link to the text (objective facts), and want them to tell me what effects they believe the bill is likely to have (opinion).
I'm even OK with activism by journalists as long as they're up front with what they're doing, keep it separate from their overall reporting, and don't let it get in the way of telling the truth.
Why can't we have a "Spotify for newspapers"?
Because nobody pays for news and publishers don't cooperate. This has been tried 100s of times. See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038820
I think the patreon model works well for content producers.
News isn't valued the same and donations isn't a good business model for a publisher that has full-time employees.
Very few content producers make anywhere near a full-time salary and many have to do extra things like merchandise to augment income.
Very few content producers make anywhere near a full-time salary and many have to do extra things like merchandise to augment income.
Isn't "Apple news" something like that? I remember Apple also had a NewsStand (which I never used).
Do you mean a monthly paid service (e.g. $10) that would provide infinite or finite number of articles (e.g. 200 articles for $10, or 1000 articles for $20)?
I see a problem in that area. How would a company get paid? The <insert title of serious newspaper> will want to price their articles more thatn the <insert title of trashy gossip newspaper>. It would be a mess to figure this out.
And who will be hosting all these articles?
This is an interesting point to discuss/develop.
Do you mean a monthly paid service (e.g. $10) that would provide infinite or finite number of articles (e.g. 200 articles for $10, or 1000 articles for $20)?
I see a problem in that area. How would a company get paid? The <insert title of serious newspaper> will want to price their articles more thatn the <insert title of trashy gossip newspaper>. It would be a mess to figure this out.
And who will be hosting all these articles?
This is an interesting point to discuss/develop.
The big papers post too much fake news. They have little legitimate value. This and not mass copyright infringement or a shift to watching vloggers and specialty social media groups regurgitate the days events is responsible for the decline. Legitimate honest journalism does not exist for the most part. People know when they are being lied to and do not take kindly to being played for fools. No one is going to pay to read Pravda except for laughs. Yes there are some exceptions that do real journalism. Some.
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One of the biggest effects on local news publishers was Craiglist. Local classifieds were a major revenue stream.
Yes, ironically Craig Newmark is now praised as a champion of journalism despite the fact that CL played a big role in the demise of newspapers. Not saying he should be blamed though -- if it wasn't CL, it would've been someone else, and very likely someone less scrupulous.
What are the relevant numbers that support his claim? To me it seems sponsored content is very much on the rise.
I think this is an even bigger problem for local news papers than the major mainstream news channels.
“It upsets the people in the newsroom to talk that way, but the ads were the most important editorial content from the standpoint of the reader,” Buffett said."
That is an interesting point and true for Newspapers. The opposite is true for online newspapers.
That is an interesting point and true for Newspapers. The opposite is true for online newspapers.
> The opposite is true for online newspapers.
How do you figure? Money is money and every organization needs it.
How do you figure? Money is money and every organization needs it.
I think he means for Newspapers the value was in the ads like classifieds and sales information from local businesses.
Everyone seems to equally hate online ads. They don’t provide much value to the consumer.
Everyone seems to equally hate online ads. They don’t provide much value to the consumer.
Go digital and Concentrate on creating good content with a subscriber model, there are many willing to pay for consistently well written articles.
Do we have examples of that on the local level?
It’s working OK on the national level. NYTimes, Washington Post, WSJ, the obvious examples. They are either operating at scale, writing about national issues that a huge cross-section of the population cares about, or they are providing important business information.
Where is it working on the local level? I grew up near Peoria, and, well, I’m not sure this will play in Peoria. Is there really a subscriber base for a ~400,000 person metro area? I am doubtful. My elderly parents still subscribe to the actual physical newspaper (at a shockingly high price), but I swear they are in it for the obituaries. Once the over 70 crowd dies off...
It’s working OK on the national level. NYTimes, Washington Post, WSJ, the obvious examples. They are either operating at scale, writing about national issues that a huge cross-section of the population cares about, or they are providing important business information.
Where is it working on the local level? I grew up near Peoria, and, well, I’m not sure this will play in Peoria. Is there really a subscriber base for a ~400,000 person metro area? I am doubtful. My elderly parents still subscribe to the actual physical newspaper (at a shockingly high price), but I swear they are in it for the obituaries. Once the over 70 crowd dies off...
I just see this as part of the impending economic downturn. Ads are always the first to go.
Article doesn't reference anything re: overall ad spend being down, just ad spend for newspapers specifically. Overall spend looks to be growing [1] so would assume people investing in more efficient channels.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272314/advertising-spend...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272314/advertising-spend...
Yeah I guess my idea was more along the thought that as ads get less and less effective that the least efficient methods go first.
That's an interesting thought, is this just a hunch or have you looked at data/analyses that say ads dieth before the fall?
It's just something I've always heard other talking about. Although I started to look into it and there is some that believe it doesn't lag or lead that it's directly tied to GDP.
The fate of the ad industry is directly tied to the overall economy, says Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group. That means when GDP falls, advertising falls in unison; it's neither a leading indicator before a downturn nor lagging indicator trailing the overall economy's performance, he says. "All of a sudden, a crisis is a good time to reassess all your behavior," Wieser says. "Advertisers scrutinize their budgets much more than they did in the past."
From this article: https://adage.com/article/tech/industry-executives-report-up...
Thanks for spurring me to dig into this a bit more.
The fate of the ad industry is directly tied to the overall economy, says Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group. That means when GDP falls, advertising falls in unison; it's neither a leading indicator before a downturn nor lagging indicator trailing the overall economy's performance, he says. "All of a sudden, a crisis is a good time to reassess all your behavior," Wieser says. "Advertisers scrutinize their budgets much more than they did in the past."
From this article: https://adage.com/article/tech/industry-executives-report-up...
Thanks for spurring me to dig into this a bit more.
What signals are you using to determine this? How bad is it going to get?
Seppin is right I don't know for sure but their are some indicators that you can watch. Bond yield curve inverting is one. Although there are some contrarians that are saying this time is different. The other big signal I look at is employment numbers in areas where raw materials are produced and refined. I've not done much reading on it but I've seen it as a leading indicator. Please take everything I saw with a grain of salt I'm not an economist I just try to keep up.
Why won't the US establish some sort of publicly funded national media agency?
Here's some countries that have publicly funded broadcasting networks, and still rank above the US on the 2018 Press Freedom Index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index):
- France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_24 - UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC - Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Publieke_Omroep_(o... - South Korea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Broadcasting_System - Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Broadcasting_Corporat...
It seems like it is viable to establish a publicly funded institution dedicated to national-local news. There is the Post Office and the DMV, so couldn't there also exist small offices of reporters and journalists to broadcast and publish news that is funded from taxes and public grants? Even if it is not as granular as the Post Office, there would at least be an agency responsible for the information and entertainment broadcast by the media network.
Additionally, there could exist public-private relationships similar to how the BBC operates BBC Studios, so there is still some incentive to run certain programs "like a business", so to speak.
Some kind of national media agency could also help disseminate government data to the public that is already being distilled and published by private news corporations. For example, a lot of "newsworthy" information or background comes from government sources, such as census data, economic data, and weather data. Journalists read and distill openly published government information to make it accessible to the public, and the government could do the same thing to put more effort into the 'public presentation' side of the information they produced.
There's no guarantee this would be 100% perfect; whether the news comes from the government or a corporation there's always uncertainty in bias and truth. Having a public news agency doesn't stop corporations from existing, it's just another network but with a public safety net. If people want the news, then deciding to use their tax dollars to fund public news is an available option.
The current state of public broadcasting in the US is pretty weak and detached: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting#United_Sta...
Other than NPR and PBS, how often is public broadcasting (tv, internet, audio) actually watched or listened to in the US? It seems pretty low.
Public broadcasting networks like the BBC and CBC could be nit-picked, but overall they still produce some solid content that draws large audiences. BBC One and BBC Radio 1 are consistently good and interesting, even for a non-Brit.
Here's some countries that have publicly funded broadcasting networks, and still rank above the US on the 2018 Press Freedom Index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index):
- France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_24 - UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC - Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Publieke_Omroep_(o... - South Korea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Broadcasting_System - Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Broadcasting_Corporat...
It seems like it is viable to establish a publicly funded institution dedicated to national-local news. There is the Post Office and the DMV, so couldn't there also exist small offices of reporters and journalists to broadcast and publish news that is funded from taxes and public grants? Even if it is not as granular as the Post Office, there would at least be an agency responsible for the information and entertainment broadcast by the media network.
Additionally, there could exist public-private relationships similar to how the BBC operates BBC Studios, so there is still some incentive to run certain programs "like a business", so to speak.
Some kind of national media agency could also help disseminate government data to the public that is already being distilled and published by private news corporations. For example, a lot of "newsworthy" information or background comes from government sources, such as census data, economic data, and weather data. Journalists read and distill openly published government information to make it accessible to the public, and the government could do the same thing to put more effort into the 'public presentation' side of the information they produced.
There's no guarantee this would be 100% perfect; whether the news comes from the government or a corporation there's always uncertainty in bias and truth. Having a public news agency doesn't stop corporations from existing, it's just another network but with a public safety net. If people want the news, then deciding to use their tax dollars to fund public news is an available option.
The current state of public broadcasting in the US is pretty weak and detached: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting#United_Sta...
Other than NPR and PBS, how often is public broadcasting (tv, internet, audio) actually watched or listened to in the US? It seems pretty low.
Public broadcasting networks like the BBC and CBC could be nit-picked, but overall they still produce some solid content that draws large audiences. BBC One and BBC Radio 1 are consistently good and interesting, even for a non-Brit.
Germany has this as well. It's massively overpriced and generally only an outlet for the major ruling parties and the government. The sooner it dies, the better. There's no real journalism involved, at all.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which includes PBS and NPR) is on scale with BBC and has significant federal funding. There's also Voice of America which covers US and global news but is more obviously propaganda.
balthasar(1)
The golden age of advertising started about ten years ago and we are starting to see its decline about now. The golden age of advertising for users that is, not advertisers. For over thirteen years we've enjoyed a web where power users can get their content for free using adblocking while the ignorant casuals supported our internet by looking at ads. I like to think of it as a symbolic repayment for all the time we spend doing free tech support.
That golden time is coming to an end I fear. More and more users are blocking ads, which has driven site operators to use more aggressive and more blocking-resistant advertising. I can see a time coming soon where ads are so intertwined with content it's effectively impossible to block them without crippling your browsing experience.
That golden time is coming to an end I fear. More and more users are blocking ads, which has driven site operators to use more aggressive and more blocking-resistant advertising. I can see a time coming soon where ads are so intertwined with content it's effectively impossible to block them without crippling your browsing experience.
With all due respect, you may want to recalibrate your crystal ball. Native advertising was born a decade ago out of the very situation you describe. Publishers now sell their editorial space just like ad space. Want an article in Ars Technica about your product that’s disguised as a legitimate story? Just pay them $75,000+ and you can have whatever you like. The net effect of ad blocking is the complete corruption of editorial. The ads are so intertwined with the content because they are the content.
Serious question: why does society not push billionaires to put money towards society-wide issues like this? Because it’s “bad business?”
To use Mr. Buffett as an example. His current net worth is 86.3 billion. If he took 1 billion of that and created a fund to support independent journalism, it could employ ~500 full-time journalists at $60,000 each (all-in cost) purely on the interest (3% annual return.) Not to mention the fact that he would likely receive donations and support from the public at large.
For comparison, The NY Times employs about 3,800 people. So, for a miniscule amount of his net worth (of which the principal is unaffected), Mr. Buffett could create an organization 1/8 the size of one of the largest newspapers in the world.
So again, why do we give people like this a pass when they very clearly have the ability to make a difference? Especially when they are publicly complaining about the issue.
To use Mr. Buffett as an example. His current net worth is 86.3 billion. If he took 1 billion of that and created a fund to support independent journalism, it could employ ~500 full-time journalists at $60,000 each (all-in cost) purely on the interest (3% annual return.) Not to mention the fact that he would likely receive donations and support from the public at large.
For comparison, The NY Times employs about 3,800 people. So, for a miniscule amount of his net worth (of which the principal is unaffected), Mr. Buffett could create an organization 1/8 the size of one of the largest newspapers in the world.
So again, why do we give people like this a pass when they very clearly have the ability to make a difference? Especially when they are publicly complaining about the issue.
Many societies in the world does in fact collect money from billionaries to put towards society-wide issues like this and others. It's called taxes, and in the case of media, public service. The BBC is one such example, funded by tax money from billionares.
It is funded by anyone in the UK who watches live TV or the BBC's iplayer, not just billionaires.
You have to pay for an annual license. It's about £150 a year I think, so in the ball park of Netflix or amazon. Just like Netflix et Al, if you don't want it you don't have to pay for it (unlike taxes)
You have to pay for an annual license. It's about £150 a year I think, so in the ball park of Netflix or amazon. Just like Netflix et Al, if you don't want it you don't have to pay for it (unlike taxes)
If society decided newspapers don't matter, why should a billionaire prop them up?
Not only that, but do you really want all of the news organizations to be owned by billionaires?
Except it doesn’t need to be. Set up a trust, form a company and don’t be the CEO. Trust sends money to the company for eternity, as long as the company follows any rules that were set by that trust (journalists must follow a specific code, etc).
It’s a great idea. Nobody will do it though because money.
It’s a great idea. Nobody will do it though because money.
This is weird logic. Why doesn't your argument apply to literally all philanthropy. Society decided Kids starving in Africa don't matter, why should a billionaire prop them up?
But also they decline because they are not read. What is the point of publishing newspapers that are not read anymore. Are we going to force people to read them?
Society != market forces. I certainly don’t think that the value of everything in life should be determined purely from economics.
He does actually own about 30 newspapers so probably not far off the 500 journalists you mention.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/study-when-local-news...
And it's one that requires money to solve, because to cover local politics well, you need someone who sits through the local city council meetings, with their hours of discussion of things like 'sign ordinances' to write up a summary, or maybe bring attention to something that they're spending a lot of money on.