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The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#31

Post by adnzzzzZ »

eropple wrote: post #24
RyanZAG wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion. If anything is destroying journalism, it's the fact that half this country does not care for fact vs fiction. Why is this a problem that needs to be solved though? A big part of being free is being able to choose what you get to care about, being able to choose what you get to read, and being able to have your own opinions. Remove that, and you're no longer free. Would it be better to not be a free p…

You can, and should, have your own opinions . Does that extend to facts ?

You can look at any situation and pick and choose what facts you want to care about, and that process can be extremely biased and misguiding, even though all the facts will be correct. It's not so cut and dry as facts vs. fiction. If things were that simple the problem would be easily solved.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#32

Post by hkmurakami »

eropple wrote: post #24
RyanZAG wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion. If anything is destroying journalism, it's the fact that half this country does not care for fact vs fiction. Why is this a problem that needs to be solved though? A big part of being free is being able to choose what you get to care about, being able to choose what you get to read, and being able to have your own opinions. Remove that, and you're no longer free. Would it be better to not be a free p…

You can, and should, have your own opinions . Does that extend to facts ?

Questioning our assumptions and commonly held beliefs (even facts!) should be encouraged as an integral part of intellectual discourse.

I'm saddened by the current state of affairs where increasingly polarized factions feel that taking nuanced (rather than absolutist) positions threatens their positions and gives up ground to the opposition.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#33

Post by DenisM »

Here's an interesting observation.

Distributing information in its written form used to be the domain of the Church. Printing press has democratized that, for a while. Eventually the diversity of information was roped in to serve the agenda of the new, capitalist elites. While individual journalists often thrive to deliver the best work, the editors inevitably arrange things to serve the interests of particular business groups, and those who don't toe the line fall into obscurity for lack of funds.

Now, the Internet has produced a new information diversity, which is bubbling and foaming as we speak. That too will get roped in. The viral effect will become the domain of well-funded teams, not of lone geniuses. As the art is perfected it will become more capital-intensive, we will see consolidation in the business. Eventually the bulk of it will be divided between few large players, well-aligned with other businesses, and the whole thing will become orderly and predictable once again. Maybe.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#34

Post by pg314 »

bigbugbag wrote: post #15
rjvir wrote: post #9

This chart ( https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/778260618914652164 ) suggests that Facebook should not a lone scapegoat for journalism's decline - the internet as a whole is a more reasonable target.

Haven't you noticed how the word "facebook" replaced "the internet/online" in many contexts ? It was a part of marketing facebook to the masses. Then again the decline of journalism is not a matter of internet as much than a matter of selling out to advertisers and being bought by rich individuals or corporations. With internet access becoming popular it provided an alternative to the traditional media to get news an…

> a matter of selling out to advertisers and being bought by rich individuals or corporations.

Can you expand on that? I see the decline in circulation and eroding of their ad and classified income as the principal culprit. I haven't seen any prominent examples of newspapers where the rich individuals or corporations have caused a decline. The Washington Post was thriving during the 40 years that Buffett had an ownership stake.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#35

Post by paradite »

Animats wrote: post #18

Crowd-sourcing news quality does not work. There's no ground truth. Google News is suffering from this. I noted on Wikipedia today, in a discussion of reliable sources, that I had searched for info about a Wikipedia topic with Google news search, with terrible results. The top three results were Algemeiner (Jewish), Breitbart News (alt-right), and Mondoweiss ("progressive and anti-Zionist"). This is pathetic.

I assume they were ranked by views or CTR, which is perfectly normal given the current circumstances.

How else can Google News rank them? Follow some news media objectivity ranking on imgur? Hire tons of unbiased people to verify the integrity of all news before adding them into the index?

I'm not playing devil's advocate here but given an uninformed electorate, some form of authoritative truth by either a independent watchdog or government agency is probably a better idea than letting private companies run the media.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#36

Post by crowbahr »

aanm1988 wrote: post #30
frik wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is destroying journalism is also relying too much on news sources like AP, Reuters, etc. Let's call it copy&paste news articles. They should do their homework and investigate on their own, that's their job description after all. We don't need these cheap media that just reprint propaganda-style sponsored stories.

> We don't need these cheap media that just reprint propaganda-style sponsored stories. What's destroying journalism is people like you calling out media as propaganda, fake news, etc...

I mean sometimes reporters do a fantastic job and sometimes in the rush to get the story while it's hot there are legitimately bad stories run as God's given truth.

I do think the buzzwords need to die. Everyone calls everything they don't agree with fake news these days.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#37

Post by indy »

dirkg wrote: post #27

Most people in this country are idiots, and celebrate idiocy. People in Asia/Europe still read newspapers and news is still news, not sensationalist media garbage like here with barely any mention of the rest of the world.

I think you're over estimating the media in the rest of the world.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#38

Post by hxta98596 »

This is an odd editorial. The author stretches to explain how Zuck's Manifesto released this week could destroy journalism. But then she provides evidence that journalism is for all intents and purposes already dead. She cites a (possibly inflated) prime time news audience size of ~3 million people, and 1.5 million digital subscribers for the NYT...So less than 1% of America are using these previously major sources of news. How did that happen guys?

I'm the last person you will find defending Zuck or Facebook (which I do not use and have deleted other apps as facebook buys them). But this Atlantic article felt like a desperate plea for charity of some sort, and preferably cash since the Chan-Zuckerberg Empire has so much. This is yet another editorial complaining about themselves but the author does not offer an alternative idea for journalism to avoid its own demise. Why and how would she? Journalists don't seem to understand business at all and are scared to try.

In just 3 months since the election, journalists and many people in this country seem to have forgotten how biased, incompetent, clueless, fake and corrupt even the "real" news organizations are today. There was no mea culpa in the article for these issues, just a misguided complaint. The pre-internet old days were not so perfect either if anyone reads history...can anyone explain why newspapers, these supposed bastions of objectivity for communities, even endorse political candidates? Is that a newspapers job?

This whole situation reminds me of another time there was a Harvard guy's looong manifesto that no one had the patience to read in full and it was on a very similar topic...the news industry was running around like a chicken with its head cut off back then too [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Industrial_Socie...

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

#39

Post by kraftomatic »

WildUtah wrote: post #17
rjvir wrote: post #9

This chart ( https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/778260618914652164 ) suggests that Facebook should not a lone scapegoat for journalism's decline - the internet as a whole is a more reasonable target.

Facebook should not a lone scapegoat Actually it was Craigslist. Back before the internet, the single biggest pot of newspaper revenue was classified ads.

I think Craigslist is a US problem. Internationally I think the traditional news approach has had many different challenges. Classified advertising also has had different challenges around the world, such as dedicated publications.
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