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Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

nytimes.com

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Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#81

Post by ken »

stopit788 wrote: post #46
dawhizkid wrote: post #7

Not sure about anyone else but every time I read an article about something I'm actually an expert in or few times about myself or a company I've worked for I see at least a handful of factual errors and/or exaggerations that aren't real.

journalists are not exports in every field so they sometimes make mistakes just like you probably do at your job.

When I make a mistake at my job which could impact others, I report it immediately. Do journalists do the same? Newspapers are infamous for publishing retractions and corrections at the bottom of page 17, in tiny print, 2 weeks later -- if at all.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#82

Post by deogeo »

tivert wrote: post #63
nytLOL wrote: post #57

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opinion/saddam-s-bombs-we...

> A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 20, 2003, on Page A00023 of the National edition You know what an op-ed piece is, right? If you don't, here's a definition: > An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page" or "opinion editorial", is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial…

Just because they put it in the op-ed section doesn't mean they weren't pushing war propaganda.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#83

Post by untog »

8ytecoder wrote: post #79
untog wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the articles false? I don't really understand the reasoning here. Facebook is one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world now, why should NYT not report on them? One straightforward way for FB to stop this reporting would be to stop doing shady things.

It doesn't have to be false. What gets picked for reporting reveals a lot about bias as well. The other thing is the magnitude. Being objective would be to consider the truth, the relevancy and the magnitude of issues. If NYT doesn't like FB, they can give front page coverage to every negative news about FB irrespective of how big the issue is and how many people it affects. It's like raising a sev-1 ticket against a…

But can the same not be said of every news organisation out there - that they stand to lose at the hands of FB? So who is qualified to report on FB, no one?

You're not wrong that NYT would have a motivation to report negatively about FB. But that doesn't automatically mean that is the motive, though. All their reporting I've seen has been notable, and not hysterical. There's been additional good reporting by TechCrunch and ProPublica, I'm not sure how NYT's coverage differs.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#84

Post by nytLOL »

tivert wrote: post #63
nytLOL wrote: post #57

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opinion/saddam-s-bombs-we...

> A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 20, 2003, on Page A00023 of the National edition You know what an op-ed piece is, right? If you don't, here's a definition: > An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page" or "opinion editorial", is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial…

I know what an op-ed is. I guess your point is that they don't fact check op-ed's so it doesn't count?

The NYT itself felt it's reporting was bad enough it warranted an apology: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/the-public-e...

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#85

Post by jmts »

aggronn wrote: post #24
jayalpha wrote: post #8

"The impact on journalism has been clear. Just within the past week, we have seen over 1,000 planned layoffs at Gannett, BuzzFeed and HuffPost" I had never considered the click-bait outlet "HuffPost" as "quality journalism". "We can start with the fact that “free” isn’t a good business model for quality journalism." Well, paid journalism is not a guarantee either: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/claas-r…

I'm just incredibly baffled by what you're proposing the solution is if its not a cultural shift towards paying for content? In an exclusively programmatic ad based market, the only long term winning strategy is to write click-bait and fake news. We should all be extremely concerned about what the writer is getting at. If you're going to call it whining, and say they need to change their business model, what should t…

I think there are a couple of issues here.

If we shift toward paying for content, is there not going to be a market for subscriptions to fake news as well as subscriptions to real news? Paying for content alone doesn't solve the problem of fake news. How does Joe Average even know which subscriptions are the right subscriptions? Please don't let an algorithm decide for them.

In terms of payment itself, I feel the going rate is a big issue. Checking the NY Times just now, they're asking $5 per week of me for a basic subscription. Let's make the math easy and call that $250 per year, and assume four subscriptions are needed to be sure we have a well rounded intake, giving a $1000 per year news budget. For a person with a net income of $100k+ per year, maybe this is not a big spend. But for people on lower incomes - who I would argue are likely the people most susceptible to fake news - this becomes a much greater expense and will discourage them from subscribing to anything. Compared to freely available news, it would be putting disadvantaged people at a even greater disadvantage, and let's face it - in a democratic society, I'd rather everybody have access to the same information, than know half the population is making decisions based on garbage. Garbage in, garbage out.

In terms of what the new model should be, I don't think I have any answers. I just know that I have a budget for news and it is not in the order of a thousand dollars a year for a well rounded intake, however I also want everybody to have access to the same news, so I don't think paywalls are a good idea.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#86

Post by untog »

prepend wrote: post #65
untog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is NYT not an independent news source? It's not owned by some giant media conglomerate, it's family owned. And last I checked it was one of few media companies reporting good financial results, not cutting costs.

Good point. I meant that they are not independent from their owners’ profit motive. They are publicly traded [0] so their motive is not truth, it is maximizing shareholder equity under US law. So arguments like this article, even cloaked under “opinion” don’t carry weight because it’s just propaganda to sell more papers. [0] https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:NYT

> their motive is not truth, it is maximizing shareholder equity under US law.

There's nothing about those things that is mutually exclusive. If your entire business depends upon you being a truth teller it is in the interests of both the company and your shareholders for you to tell the truth. Manufacturing a story could be devastating for NYT's reputation, and consequently for their shareholders.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#87

Post by yellowapple »

standardUser wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #9

There is no feature of paying for news that makes it more real. The NYT and WaPo should stop mixing news and editorial and relying on "anonymous administration officials" and intelligence agencies; that would set an example to other outlets.

Using anonymous sources is a tried and true practice that has been around since the dawn of journalism. Would you rather news media only report things so inconsequential that everyone involved is happy to be publicly outed?

We need some mechanism to actually authenticate anonymous sources if we expect them to continue to be taken seriously. It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist. It's a "tried" practice, yes, but I have my doubts about how "true" it is in this day and age.

I don't pretend to have an actual answer to how we'd build such a mechanism or what it'd look like, but there's a need for it nonetheless. Maybe some trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party that can say "Yes, this unnamed source is legitimate"?

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#88

Post by 8ytecoder »

untog wrote: post #83
8ytecoder wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be false. What gets picked for reporting reveals a lot about bias as well. The other thing is the magnitude. Being objective would be to consider the truth, the relevancy and the magnitude of issues. If NYT doesn't like FB, they can give front page coverage to every negative news about FB irrespective of how big the issue is and how many people it affects. It's like raising a sev-1 ticket against a…

But can the same not be said of every news organisation out there - that they stand to lose at the hands of FB? So who is qualified to report on FB, no one? You're not wrong that NYT would have a motivation to report negatively about FB. But that doesn't automatically mean that is the motive, though. All their reporting I've seen has been notable, and not hysterical. There's been additional good reporting by TechCrun…

I'm not arguing that. Just that it doesn't have to false to have a hidden agenda or bias

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#89

Post by aklemm »

standardUser wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #9

There is no feature of paying for news that makes it more real. The NYT and WaPo should stop mixing news and editorial and relying on "anonymous administration officials" and intelligence agencies; that would set an example to other outlets.

Using anonymous sources is a tried and true practice that has been around since the dawn of journalism. Would you rather news media only report things so inconsequential that everyone involved is happy to be publicly outed?

This Trumpian idea is insidious. It’s a willful ignorance that pervades right-wing thought. If only it were solely to their detriment.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#90

Post by ddingus »

Frankly, NYT is spot on.

Media in the US has consolidated to a handful of players, who have many conflicts of interest. These result in a big business bias in media today.

It's rare to get news and commentary written from the labor point of view, and that's needed a lot more than financial expansion of entities like the NYT.

Progressive minded people should simply start to fund labor centric media and compete with the big money majors. I'll bet that competition goes pretty well, and some of that can be seen in TYT today, largest online news and opinion entity there is, by views. TYT owns under 35-40, operates on a mix of AD revenue and membership income to avoid having those same conflicts of interest, and that allows it to differentiate nicely from the usual players.

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