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The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

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51–60 of 503 posts

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#51
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.

This could be possible some 20 years ago, maybe. But these day even if you choose to just describe bare fact, you will still be criticized for the choice of words, such as "riot". Moreover, if you describe facts in full, including some background details, you will be crticized by people shouting "How is this relevant?!"

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#52
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and how much you think journalists should earn? 10k/yr?

Newsrooms probably pay for too many things. You could probably get most opinion for free, lifestyle content for next to nothing, etc. The weekly jobless claims articles could be handled by cheap content mills. A lot of columns like personal finance and restaurants could easily be purchased freelance on the market. The Huffington Post demonstrated that non-investigative content can be had for free. So there should pro…

But this is the same "race to the bottom" rhetoric that justified the entire "disruption" to the music and publishing industries that gave us Netflix and Amazon, respectively.

I'm less and less convinced that we are doing the world any service by demonetizing all content and cutting the heads of all tall talent, hence the authors presumption of a sort of public UBI or other non-private-sector basis as a condition to liberating the content.

The IP systems certainly are byzantine and punitive towards actual free information flow, as outlined in the article. However, if one approaches this as a typical Free Market Libertarian American (tm), as the author expressly does NOT, one arrives at different economic conclusions, and basically, journalism will not survive the complete demonetization of all content for ONE reason:

content will become even more corruptly tied to out-of-band payment than is currently the case.

why bother writing articles against the big bad polluter, when you can get paid to write apologism for them?

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#54
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.

What is unbiased? If you were a late 18th century french reporter writing a report about the death of king Louis XVI, would you write "King Louis was murdered", "King Louis was executed", "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason", "citizen Louis Capet beheaded on the order of the National Convention" or something else? All of those descriptions can be considered true and yet none are unbias…

What's the bias you see in the statements "King Louis was executed" or "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason"? Both the terms "execution" and "high treason" are objective descriptions takens from the proceedings.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#56
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.

You can aggregate across news sources, eg factr.com

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is unbiased? If you were a late 18th century french reporter writing a report about the death of king Louis XVI, would you write "King Louis was murdered", "King Louis was executed", "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason", "citizen Louis Capet beheaded on the order of the National Convention" or something else? All of those descriptions can be considered true and yet none are unbias…

What's the bias you see in the statements "King Louis was executed" or "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason"? Both the terms "execution" and "high treason" are objective descriptions takens from the proceedings.

Sure, but that assumes legitimacy of the proceedings, which "was murdered" does not.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#58
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not a fan of the left-right dichotomy; it's a kind of shorthand derived from historical reasons, which encourages tribalism. Even to take it at face value, 'left' and 'right' are only directions, not absolute positions. There is no objective centre.

That sounds like the 'Reality has a well known liberal bias' joke.

> Colbert then mocked Bush's sinking approval ratings:

> Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in reality. And reality has a well-known liberal bias ... Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, [...] because 32 percent means it's two-thirds empty. There's still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh...

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#59
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is unbiased? If you were a late 18th century french reporter writing a report about the death of king Louis XVI, would you write "King Louis was murdered", "King Louis was executed", "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason", "citizen Louis Capet beheaded on the order of the National Convention" or something else? All of those descriptions can be considered true and yet none are unbias…

What's the bias you see in the statements "King Louis was executed" or "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason"? Both the terms "execution" and "high treason" are objective descriptions takens from the proceedings.

No? Treason is in the eye of the revolutionary judge. The trial was never a fair one, the outcome was clear from the start. And from an unfair trial and an unjust judgement you can't lawfully execute someone, you can only murder him execution-style.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#60
post #10
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 use twitter for that. Don't follow journos/news orgs. Just follow topics and saved search terms.

On top of that, multiple sources from social media and news organisations paints the real picture of what's really going on and exposes a particular narrative and who is omitting information.

The real danger is getting your news from a single social media or news org source.

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