Live data from Hacker News

The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

currentaffairs.org

11–20 of 503 posts

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#11
post #7
post #3

I would be willing to pay an amount for better quality news than what can be found for free, however news outlets always seem to lean one way. I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

Pay for quality, but understand the tilt. If you really want to, pay for two services with opposing tilts, but equal (high) quality.

In the UK I subscribe to "The Week", which covers stories by reporting what different newspapers report.

You don't get much in depth, but you do get a good cross-section of how stories are reported, and you get to remove headlines which is the source of 96% of the world's troubles.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#13
I think a more accurate description is that the elite narrative is paywalled but the one for the proles is free - and the elite are absolutely convinced their narrative is the truth. The contents of, say, New York Times or Washington Post reporting on the state of US Covid-19 testing and contact tracing and how it compares to the rest of the world, the evidence on mask wearing, or anything to do with Trump or protests in no way resembles the truth.

Reading them leaves people absolutely convinced that - for example - the US is behind South Korea in per-capita coronavirus testing, despite this not having been true for a long time. Seriously, the number of people I've seen on here and in the Times comment section pointing to this one specific, untrue thing as clear proof Trump must've sabotaged Covid testing because there was no way that the US could have remained behind South Korea for so long otherwise was astounding - and even more astounding was the cleverness of the articles worded to trick people into believing this, or the boldness of the Times in literally printing a news headline accusing Trump of being the liar for pointing out the exact opposite was true.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#14
post #3

I would be willing to pay an amount for better quality news than what can be found for free, however news outlets always seem to lean one way. I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

> I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

No one on this planet is 100% unbiased. It doesn't matter if it's free or $100 per article, it's still written by a human being with personal opinions, experiences, prejudices, &c.

The easiest way to get close to the "truth", which is subjective in many cases anyways, is to read from many sources and cross check the facts between them.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#16
post #13

I think a more accurate description is that the elite narrative is paywalled but the one for the proles is free - and the elite are absolutely convinced their narrative is the truth. The contents of, say, New York Times or Washington Post reporting on the state of US Covid-19 testing and contact tracing and how it compares to the rest of the world, the evidence on mask wearing, or anything to do with Trump or protest…

I highly disagree. Rupert Murdoch is surely one of the most elite of the elites and his vast media empire has managed to brainwash certain folks into calling his vision "populism" due strictly to his outreach efforts.

It would also appear that you didn't read the article, as your point is not the topic of the article.

The article is about copyright law running counter to information accessibility, running counter to an interpretation of "freedom of speech".

The article is about economic rather than technological barriers to information sharing.

That's the problem with knee-jerk first-paragraph-read comments.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#17

I'd like more microtransactions and would gladly pay a few cents or even a dollar to read a good article. The business model is to bundle everything together, for a long subscription - most want at least a month, perhaps a year, full subscription.

It doesn't work.

Because what if you pay 0.5$ for an article, and then you find out it's not what you expected/badly written/...

You basically are not happy and less likely to do it again. If you put payment to the end, then people are less willing to pay, because they already consumed the article. You can't take the information out of the head again if he's not willing to pay.

It's a tricky thing

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#18
post #8
post #3

I would be willing to pay an amount for better quality news than what can be found for free, however news outlets always seem to lean one way. I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

[flagged]

amazing that the truth gets flagged. shame be upon the flagger. objectivity speaks :D

Interestingly, both sides of the subject of an attempted "neutral" reporting will report bias against their side.

It would appear that humans avoid seeing their own implicit biases.

But objectively speaking: when one political party literally rejects science, facts, and logic on a given topic, you can say that reality will be biased against them. This fact is nothing to debate, but is the intention (implicit or explicit) of such a stance. Trumpkins objectively can be said to be painting the sky green rather than admit that the sky is blue.

We often go to great lengths to justify our beliefs. Ask any prison psychologists about the rationalizations they have heard for various acts their patients have committed, etc.

Additionally, when "decency" and "compassion" have expressly been abandoned by the global right-wing, you can call them left-wing values by default. This is akin to Trump calling anyone he doesn't agree with "far-left" but it's expressly defined by the rights expressed divergence from these values that created this "left-wing bias".

Downvoters are not using their logical brains, just knee-jerk reacting from a position of political tribalism. I'm objectively correct, as I'm merely describing the SELF_EXPRESSED DELIBERATE SELF POSITIONING OF THE RIGHT WING when they portray THEMSELVES as mean ruffians.

Complain some more about people taking one at ones own word whydontcha

Post reply on HN