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Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

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Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#41
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been talking about saving local news for more than 20 years. And the economics just don't work for the most part--whether in most cities or in smaller towns. I live in about a 7,000 person town. Let's say half the people would pay $20/year for a local paper--which we had at one point. That's wildly optimistic I know. Throw in some advertising. But I'm guessing you're still something under $100K/year. So y…

But the local papers have always had ads in them to supplement revenue, so I imagine you could still reach $100K or more. In a lot of small towns that’s still enough to cover an editor-in-chief and an additional reporter.

A lot of those ads were things like classifieds. That market is solidly eaten by the internet.

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#42
post #32

> There’s no evidence that the deal directly affects coverage in either the news or editorial departments. Before the Facebook News deal, the Times famously published an op-ed titled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook,” by Chris Hughes, a cofounder of Facebook turned critic. And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu and Kara Swisher, among others, have been similarly critical. In December, the editorial board welcomed a l…

Tech blogs are regularly bribed for good coverage, and tech companies are known for doing it. Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism.

The Verge has historically been very favorable to Apple and Google. Why? They get exclusive interviews with Google and Apple executives. An interview with Sundar Pichai is worth millions in ad revenue, and if a blog is too critical of a company, they won't get interviews. Offering an interview to a news outlet is really not significantly different from cutting them a check.

Apple has been known for pretty much cutting out any site that dares to step out of line. I think whatever is left of Gizmodo is still banned from Apple events after Gizmodo reported about getting hands on a prototype iPhone.

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentally tune out anyone who uses the word "elitist". To me, it's one of the clearest signs that they're arguing using prejudices rather than evidence.

Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is that not elitist? https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/13696539131216773...

Why not discuss the actual coverage rather than attack the journalist?

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#44
Let us be real, folks:

- You are reading this comment.

- You are likely highly or fairly paid.

- You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t count)

Edit: Added likely to comment. Icing on the cake is if you consume almost all your news through Twitter / social media.

Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop and reflect your role in all this?

Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with information distribution in one way or another through their employment.

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentally tune out anyone who uses the word "elitist". To me, it's one of the clearest signs that they're arguing using prejudices rather than evidence.

Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is that not elitist? https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/13696539131216773...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elitist

one who is an adherent of elitism : one whose attitudes and beliefs are biased in favor of a socially elite class of people

I don't care much for her coverage but she's attacking a company whose CEO is worth a lot of money. Hard to say any of the people being criticized isn't part of the elite

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#46
I’d really like to see a transcript of this interview with Thompson. My media literacy alarm is going off - why does the article splice together “far, far more” and “very much so” rather than quoting exactly what he said in context?

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#47
post #4

[flagged]

Funnily enough that law is empirically false, and most of the time (although it's near a coinflip) the answer is yes

Interesting, I found this article which backs you up http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#48
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is that not elitist? https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/13696539131216773...

Why not discuss the actual coverage rather than attack the journalist?

From the article below:

The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times’ star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the “slur” word “retarded” during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop uprising.

Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a “male voice” that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she — rather than the person she falsely maligned — was the victim.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#49
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? If you don’t want the social aspect of news, you can get the AP stories through the AP News app or subscribe to rss feeds to major papers. The AP keeps papers from covering the same story from their own angle, you’ll usually see the same AP stories printed in papers across the country. I agree it’s hard to filter the news on your own and quality journalism does seem to be…

> Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? I'm not on an Apple platform and don't even know what this is. I suppose it works for Apple subscribers?

Then why not look it up?

Re: Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

#50
post #32

> There’s no evidence that the deal directly affects coverage in either the news or editorial departments. Before the Facebook News deal, the Times famously published an op-ed titled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook,” by Chris Hughes, a cofounder of Facebook turned critic. And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu and Kara Swisher, among others, have been similarly critical. In December, the editorial board welcomed a l…

How does it seem like "no" or "not yet". We will never know what even worst news would've come up if they weren't getting bribed.
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