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Making the news available at no cost is a victory

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Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#131

Post by mmooss »

rvz wrote: post #129
mmooss wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are also sites with free news, such as AP, NPR, CNN, Fox, etc.

funded by....donations from corporations and billionaires?

I don't know, what are they funded by? Is that how AP is funded? The NY Times, WSJ, FT and many others are now funded by subscriptions. Your claim from a few comments up doesn't seem to match reality:

> That is unrealistic and not sustainable without an ad model or being funded by a company doing over a billion dollars in revenue already.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#132

Post by claudiulodro »

rvz wrote: post #31

That is unrealistic and not sustainable without an ad model or being funded by a company doing over a billion dollars in revenue already. Starting the timer and will stop it when they become non-free or switch to a paid model.

Texas Tribune, CalMatters, Montana Free Press, Mission Local -- there are a lot of very successful nonprofit newsrooms throughout the country.

It's actually more stable than ad-supported business models because small donor subscription revenue is consistent (like a SaaS business), unlike ad revenue which is much more volatile.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#133

Post by pibaker »

techblueberry wrote: post #126
boplicity wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people think you should avoid having bias. That may be the correct thing in some circumstances, but I think it's better to intentionally have bias, to make that bias explicit, and then to intentionally work within the framework provided by that bias. It should be open, public, and visible. This allows for full transparency with the audience, increasing trust, while also giving a public "anchor" to guage your wor…

While I understand why this is true, there are degrees and even if there are subtle ways in which article selection and etc define bias, it would be nice to read something where the intended bias was to present the facts as unbiased as possible. Like I want to read where someone tried to do that even if they failed because that’s the nature of the kind of writing I want to read. A publication that avoids overt editor…

What makes academic perspectives less biased than populist ones? Getting an phd does not immunize you against bias. And as bad as populist reporting may be, it is at least more representative of your fellow citizens' opinions.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#134

Post by techblueberry »

pibaker wrote: post #133
techblueberry wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand why this is true, there are degrees and even if there are subtle ways in which article selection and etc define bias, it would be nice to read something where the intended bias was to present the facts as unbiased as possible. Like I want to read where someone tried to do that even if they failed because that’s the nature of the kind of writing I want to read. A publication that avoids overt editor…

What makes academic perspectives less biased than populist ones? Getting an phd does not immunize you against bias. And as bad as populist reporting may be, it is at least more representative of your fellow citizens' opinions.

That’s what I said, I want reporting heavily biased towards diverse academic perspectives.

Why do I care about my fellow citizen’s opinions? I feel like I’m drowning in my fellow citizens opinions.

Maybe I read the news for different reasons than other people. Why do you read the news?

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#135

Post by autoexec »

techblueberry wrote: post #128
autoexec wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'd be a good start to have stories selected and reviewed by a diverse team of editors and fact checkers to make sure that the reporting is factual and that it isn't presented from a limited and biased perspective. You'd also have to be willing/able to burn bridges and risk losing advertisers, donors, viewers/readers, and supporters by reporting on things that offend those same people. That alone would be a…

I think part of the problem is - what I imagine most educated people want(maybe I’m wrong) when they talk about this “diverse group of editors” is this like classically liberal view that is actually incredibly narrow when one looks at the range of more populist perspectives. Like thefp.com is probably somewhat close to what you describe but is the exact opposite of what I’m looking for. What I want is this theoretica…

> Maybe thefp.com would be a good starting point to ask - why is that not what you’re looking for?

It's a bit hard to judge the site since it doesn't show full articles, but it does seem to be supporting only one side of at least some narratives. For example, I didn't see any article on the genocide in gaza that wasn't denying its existence. That particular issue aside, my overall impression is that it probably does what many left leaning news sites do: try to remain factually accurate in what it says while only presenting one side of the story and neglecting stories on anything that doesn't forward their narrative. thefp.com is better than many other right leaning news sites since it isn't just outright lying all the time (no pizzagate), but it's not honest reporting or covering enough perspectives. I might have just checked it at a bad time but it also seems very heavy on opinion instead of actual news or investigative reporting. It's got a lot to say about moms and politicians and celebrities but nothing about Nagatitan.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#136

Post by aslkjfelkamsep »

flexagoon wrote: post #12
kgwxd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"beholden to donors" is a nonsensical phrase, unless "donors" is defined with a wink, a nod, and air-quotes.

I think I have a pretty good guess of who the donors are for a newspaper in Salt Lake City

The Salt Lake Tribune was explicitly founded in the 1870s as an anti Latter-day Saint newspaper. I'm guessing that the people you think are donors, are not actually donors.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#137

Post by socalgal2 »

thwarted wrote: post #120
socalgal2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bias is extremely thick but more subtle on NPR, This American Life, Radiolab, Science Friday, etc. Sometimes they claim to cover both sides of an issue but their belief / agenda is clear in how they frame and respond to one side the other and how much time they give

Sometimes a given presentation is called biased but it's not that the reporting is biased but that the actual event is or the source material is biased or lacking. "Dog bites man" is not biased against the dog if they don't or can't get the dog's take. And if they do get the dog's take and the dog wastes everyone's time by ranting/barking about cats and they don't print it, it's not the reporting that's biased, the d…

I'm talking about things like say "rent control" (just an example). NPR's and related programs, the core creators arguably believe in it. If they have a segment on it they'll gloss over any evidence that it's a net negative. They'll present it as a solution, talk up how awesome it is through a 20 minute segment with positive words and excited attitudes. "IF" they ask someone about possible negatives they'll kept it short and surround it with questions and attitudes of "don't trust this person" and "dismiss this counter evidence". Then they'll end with some sob story about the people rent control helps.

It's the same for 100s of other topics on which there is strong arguments to be made that the proposal will have the opposite of the intended outcome.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#138

Post by rightbyte »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #26
rightbyte wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that the donors should have an another political agenda than the political agenda of whatever companies that pays for ads.

The donors are just going to be the figureheads of these companies, right? That's already how it tends to work... Tesla/SpaceX didn't donate to Trump's campaign, Musk did. It wasn't Palantir, it was Peter Thiel. (to my knowledge but I honestly didn't check the dono rolls, just going off remembering headlines here) Either way, the outcome is basically the same. If they ban companies donating, CEOs will donate with a w…

Ye sure. The point I am trying to make is that you could run off smaller donators and have an ideological paper whoch does not accept dirty money. Most political magazines I read are run like that where subscriptions essentially are donations.

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#139

Post by rvz »

mmooss wrote: post #131
rvz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

funded by....donations from corporations and billionaires?

I don't know, what are they funded by? Is that how AP is funded? The NY Times, WSJ, FT and many others are now funded by subscriptions. Your claim from a few comments up doesn't seem to match reality: > That is unrealistic and not sustainable without an ad model or being funded by a company doing over a billion dollars in revenue already.

> Is that how AP is funded?

Are these not foundations owned by billionaires funding the AP? [0][1]

> The NY Times, WSJ, FT and many others are now funded by subscriptions.

That doesn't seem to be "at no cost" does it?

NY Times, WSJ, FT already are making billions of dollars sustaining themselves from that and are again owned and backed by billion dollar companies.

Why? Because it is NOT free "at no cost" and there is always someone else paying.

> Your claim from a few comments up doesn't seem to match reality:

The opposite is true. You have only further supported my claim.

[0] https://www.ap.org/about/supporting-ap/

[1] https://www.ap.org/media-center/press-releases/2025/ap-fund-...

Re: Making the news available at no cost is a victory

#140

Post by [deleted] »

socalgal2 wrote: post #137
thwarted wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes a given presentation is called biased but it's not that the reporting is biased but that the actual event is or the source material is biased or lacking. "Dog bites man" is not biased against the dog if they don't or can't get the dog's take. And if they do get the dog's take and the dog wastes everyone's time by ranting/barking about cats and they don't print it, it's not the reporting that's biased, the d…

I'm talking about things like say "rent control" (just an example). NPR's and related programs, the core creators arguably believe in it. If they have a segment on it they'll gloss over any evidence that it's a net negative. They'll present it as a solution, talk up how awesome it is through a 20 minute segment with positive words and excited attitudes. "IF" they ask someone about possible negatives they'll kept it s…

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