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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

#131

Post by thr0waway1239 »

ForrestN wrote: post #120

I recently saw a very astute analogy between Facebook and cigarette companies. I suspect that in some years there will be testimony about what Facebook knew, and when, with respect to the addictiveness of its product and its links to mental health problems. I'm quite sure they know how harmful their product is and that's probably behind a lot of this absurd "we're going to save the world" rhetoric. This whole fight e…

Remember Steve Jobs' quote about A players hiring A players? There is a similar pattern at play here where the D-level folks (in terms of ethics) hire E and F-level folks and on it goes. You only need one ethically compromised individual at the top - e.g. Zuck, and soon the org is infested with replicas of similarly compromised folks.

>>respect to the addictiveness of its product

You forgot to mention that this addictiveness is not even a natural thing - it has been refined and A/B tested with 1% improvement week over week until the user base has been turned into the 21st century version of Pavlov's dogs - that image is exactly what I see when I look at people who get anxiety over a lack of instant messages for a WHOLE 15 MINUTES.

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

#132

Post by vowelless »

ForrestN wrote: post #122
cylinder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised the left has become so sympathetic to the corporate media all of a sudden. These people colluded to stop a once in a lifetime opportunity in Bernie Sanders to help their friend and collaborator Hillary Clinton, and so we ended up with Donald Trump. This was only a year ago.

What is your evidence that they colluded? I agree that the media in general (at all levels, not just the corporate media) disastrously failed us during the election. But I don't think anyone has proven that they "colluded to stop a once in a lifetime opportunity," right?

I'm not sure if I can link to wikileaks here but some of the emails showed collusion with the DNC in general and with the Clinton campaign in particular during the primaries. For an example, see the emails about the debate question leaked to the Clinton campaign for the primary debate in Flint, MI (although this was by someone, I think, hired by CNN who was later hired to head the DNC).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/do...

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

#133

Post by fmoralesc »

mistermann wrote: post #124
fmoralesc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not what I'm claiming. I'm arguing for a normative claim: when people agree on the facts, they should not disagree on opinion. It is obvious that as a matter of fact, they can disagree / but this 'can' is that of a matter of fact possibility, not one of 'absolute allowance'. People can come to believe their opinions are correct, but that doesn't make them so. We can, as a matter of fact, live with the fac…

> No, that is not what I'm claiming. I'm arguing for a normative claim: when people agree on the facts, they should not disagree on opinion. I'm confused, isn't that exactly what the parent's argument is though? You said that's not what you're saying, and then repeat the exact same thing, contradicting yourself. Personally I disagree with you, if I'm understanding correctly. To me, a huge chunk of the population, you…

I hope to clear this up.

If I understood him correctly, he's saying that I was claiming that if we agreed on facts (if facts were settled, as it were), we would agree in opinions, which is clearly false as a matter of fact. My claim is that we should agree in opinions, if facts were settled. I think difference between would/should is significant here. I am saying: if facts were settled, and we had a disagreement, at least one of the parties in the disagreement should not hold their opinions (would be wrong). I am not saying: if facts were settled, we could not be in disagreement.

If it was possible in principle to settle the facts, our apparent entitlement to hold certain opinions would be, in a sense, illusory. We can act on the assumption that it is not, for sure, but that doesn't make our entitlement right.

I am not even claiming that facts are settled (that is, that we know what is true as a matter of fact). Since they are not settled, we should be more cautious in our taking of opinions, and of course that goes both ways.

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

#134

Post by snarf21 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #101

We as an industry have kicked around "how to save journalism" for years now. Here's what I've got: If you want journalism, sponsor endowments for journalists to report in certain areas, like foreign policy or local government. At the same time, and critically, sponsor endowments for editors to put a tight reign on these journalists. Completely decouple good journalism for hunting-for-eyeballs. Then let the content cu…

I agree with you but the unsolved problem is the "... and make some kind of business out of it, if they can". Netflix is $10 a month and look at all the value you get there. News will have to be half or (maybe much) less than that. Can you build a good news product on $1/month? I'm not sure you can.

Additionally, how do you make people actually want the news? A sound bite or tweet or headline is super easy to digest and doesn't take a lot of time and makes people feel like they are in the know. Just regurgitate any article title and you're an expert. On top of that is the click baiting for eyeballs (driven by ad money) removing at least the journalistic integrity of putting out information with some basis of fact.

True news will always have some bias but we have to find a way for it to not be ad supported. The only way I see that happening is some kind of subscription or independently wealthy patron.

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

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #101

We as an industry have kicked around "how to save journalism" for years now. Here's what I've got: If you want journalism, sponsor endowments for journalists to report in certain areas, like foreign policy or local government. At the same time, and critically, sponsor endowments for editors to put a tight reign on these journalists. Completely decouple good journalism for hunting-for-eyeballs. Then let the content cu…

> If you want journalism...

Buy newspapers. Ads, paywalls and the death of journalism are instrinsically linked. If you reject the first two then you promote the last.

Endowment, patronage, and advertising share the problem of the person paying the bills not being the user.

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

#136

Post by tyingq »

eigenvalue wrote: post #103
ThomPete wrote: post #98

I think the problem with journalism is that it was never the actual business. What it was, were supporting and adding sophistication to the news industry, but it was never actually central to the business. But the value of news was that it didnt used to be widely available. That was actually what people paid for. The news and clssifieds, not the journalism. And so what we see are all these people in the news industry…

The actual business was really the classified advertisement section, which was killed by Craigslist and eBay!

Also, obituaries. Newspapers charge insane fees for these.

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

#137

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hxta98596 wrote: post #38

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 o…

"32% [of Americans] say they have 'a great deal' or 'a fair amount' of trust" in the mass media; that number drops to 14% among Republicans, "down from 32% last year."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media...

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

#138

Post by DanielBMarkham »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #135
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #101

We as an industry have kicked around "how to save journalism" for years now. Here's what I've got: If you want journalism, sponsor endowments for journalists to report in certain areas, like foreign policy or local government. At the same time, and critically, sponsor endowments for editors to put a tight reign on these journalists. Completely decouple good journalism for hunting-for-eyeballs. Then let the content cu…

> If you want journalism... Buy newspapers. Ads, paywalls and the death of journalism are instrinsically linked. If you reject the first two then you promote the last. Endowment, patronage, and advertising share the problem of the person paying the bills not being the user.

The person paying the bills with newspapers never was the users in the first place. Newspapers were traditionally funded by advertising, not subscriptions.

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

#140

Post by captainlego »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #101

We as an industry have kicked around "how to save journalism" for years now. Here's what I've got: If you want journalism, sponsor endowments for journalists to report in certain areas, like foreign policy or local government. At the same time, and critically, sponsor endowments for editors to put a tight reign on these journalists. Completely decouple good journalism for hunting-for-eyeballs. Then let the content cu…

Would it be feasible to address the problem by passing laws that would penalize news organizations who publish/promote blatantly false information?
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