Why journalists deserve low pay
csmonitor.com
Why journalists deserve low pay
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#2Very good article.
It also neatly explains why certain magazines/papers, like, for example, the Economist, are doing fine even as the industry collapses: they provide hard, strong value in the form of unique insight and analysis communicated extremely clearly.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#3I agree with the general gist of the article, but I'm not sure I agree with this:
"Wages are compensation for value creation"
This implies that compensation in general (not wages in particular) is always relative to value creation, which I don't think is true for most definitions of value (other than monetary.) 'Wages are compensation for the creation of financial value' would be more correct.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#4Very good article. It also neatly explains why certain magazines/papers, like, for example, the Economist, are doing fine even as the industry collapses: they provide hard, strong value in the form of unique insight and analysis communicated extremely clearly.
Perhaps "Why lazy journalists deserve low pay" would be closer to the mark. But that's less of a reader-baiting headline, common in much of today's journalism. Oh, the irony...
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#5One of the things I appreciate about HN is that once or twice a week, I come across a submission which is a journalistic piece that has truth and beauty in it. Whoever claims that journalists "produce only instrumental" and not intrinsic value lives in a universe different from mine.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#6Very good article. It also neatly explains why certain magazines/papers, like, for example, the Economist, are doing fine even as the industry collapses: they provide hard, strong value in the form of unique insight and analysis communicated extremely clearly.
Perhaps "Why lazy journalists deserve low pay" would be closer to the mark. But that's less of a reader-baiting headline, common in much of today's journalism. Oh, the irony...
Well, I'd say it's more than that. It's a fundamental shift. We'll need fewer journalists (the lazy ones) to get the same quality of news we get today.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#7I agree with the general gist of the article, but I'm not sure I agree with this: "Wages are compensation for value creation" This implies that compensation in general (not wages in particular) is always relative to value creation, which I don't think is true for most definitions of value (other than monetary.) 'Wages are compensation for the creation of financial value' would be more correct.
Wages are expression of price for labour. What's your price?
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#8This article is terribly confused. The declining state of media organizations has nothing to do with journalists and everything to do with the manner in which the businesses have been run over the past 20 years.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#9I agree with the general gist of the article, but I'm not sure I agree with this: "Wages are compensation for value creation" This implies that compensation in general (not wages in particular) is always relative to value creation, which I don't think is true for most definitions of value (other than monetary.) 'Wages are compensation for the creation of financial value' would be more correct.
Wages are expression of price for labour. What's your price?
Can't agree with you more. To create anything humans must utilize their labor. That is where the real value lies. The "market," "capital," and the "financial system" are nothing but totems (created by our labor) that we worship as if they were given to us by the gods.
Interesting, too, that the author pairs harmony and beauty as having "intrinsic" value. We might think of beauty as intrinsically valuable but, once you name any created object beautiful, that beauty is rife with cultural baggage that defines what is and what is not valuable. Which brings me to my next point.
To call one object beautiful necessarily means that other objects are not beautiful, or are less beautiful, or are beautiful in a different way. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing "harmonious" about this act. Thus, how can beauty and harmony be intrinsically valuable or "good" when beauty necessarily excludes harmony?
I guess I'm not a big fan of moral philosophy.
Re: Why journalists deserve low pay
#10While this piece focuses on the journalists themselves, the other aspect of the supply-and-demand perspective here is that society's requirements are shifting as well.
It could be that there simply isn't a widespread demand for the type of journalism whose decline we're observing. As generations pass, the older always seems to lament the loss of "quality and integrity" in their entertainment and news media.