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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

#101

Post by mrec »

vslira wrote: post #48
superxpro12 wrote: post #2

The "Free News" model is certainly something I've struggled to solve. How exactly can you provide impartial, objective reporting when you cant afford the salaries? If the people arent interested in paying... what else can you do?

I don't think the following is a great idea for many reasons, but it's an idea that has been on my mind for a while and I'd like to share it to hear some thoughts: Germany has (used to have? I don't follow this closely) the "church tax": citizens are obligated to pay the tax no matter how much faith they have, but are free to channel it to a denomination/organization they believe in. Maybe a liberal, democratic state…

When I lived there (late 90s) you weren't obligated to pay that tax if you declared that you were an atheist.

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

#102

Post by boplicity »

nyeah wrote: post #49
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…

On the other hand, some claim that biased news sources can be misleading.

This often happens when the news source is not honest about their biases, or if they don't make their biases clear. Fox News is the classic example: Their tagline is "fair and balanced," but their clear objective is to present the Republican/Conservative side of the story. This dishonesty about their bias is at the core of their credibility problems, though, to be clear, it does work in terms of effectively deceiving many people.

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

#103

Post by arjie »

monkaiju wrote: post #76

Hmmmm, the sentiment is nice but it coming from the Salt Lake Tribune is pretty rich... As someone living in SLC I've seen the "quality" of their journalism firsthand, even helped write a piece about it back in 2023: https://copdb.org/articles/name-the-bastards/

The old saying is that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product[0]. The argument is usually that when you're getting things for free, you're being sold to advertisers in some sense. But it could just as well be that if you're getting things for free, the ability to influence you is being sold to those who want to influence you. In fact, with sufficient cynicism, all sorts of such theories can be considered plausible. Your experience seems to indicate that perhaps one does not need that much cynicism.

0: I've never thought much of the saying because I think you can have multiple people participate in an economic interaction.

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

#105

Post by lofaszvanitt »

idle_zealot wrote: post #6
superxpro12 wrote: post #2

The "Free News" model is certainly something I've struggled to solve. How exactly can you provide impartial, objective reporting when you cant afford the salaries? If the people arent interested in paying... what else can you do?

There's an even more fundamental problem: even if you can pay the salaries, how do you ensure that your organization remains aligned with the original goal? How do you prevent it from being subtly influenced by the confluence of interests it will be exposed to by virtue of wielding influence? How do you defend against less than subtle interests? Note that charging for the news does not defend you against this.

What a shill comment :D.

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

#106

Post by socalgal2 »

boplicity wrote: post #102
nyeah wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, some claim that biased news sources can be misleading.

This often happens when the news source is not honest about their biases, or if they don't make their biases clear. Fox News is the classic example: Their tagline is "fair and balanced," but their clear objective is to present the Republican/Conservative side of the story. This dishonesty about their bias is at the core of their credibility problems, though, to be clear, it does work in terms of effectively deceiving…

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

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

#107

Post by conception »

afavour wrote: post #96
conception wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never saw either as a purchase option on any major newspaper or site. It’s a chicken and egg problem. You need to be large enough to be able to get big name partners on board to seed the network. Edit: in reality this already exists. Amazon/Apple Pay/Google Play already have reloadable gift cards/accounts. Just like using it on the web, click yes to pay ten cents with whatever. The accounts can still be used to buy…

Blendle was largely targeted in the Netherlands and Germany so if you’re in the US it isn’t surprising that you didn’t see it. But it had major publishers on board and it failed. But you’re right, it’s a chicken and egg problem that won’t get resolved. If an org is already making money via subscription they have no incentive to do micropayments.

Patreon is probably the closest successful model of this. A indie newspaper could maybe launch via it. That’s basically newsletters today in a way.

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

#108

Post by socalgal2 »

tr_user wrote: post #68
oersted wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an obvious answer: a good public news service. I know, I know, that one is problematic too. Some countries have pulled it off relatively successfully, but it's never perfect. The thing is, this is exactly what the government is for: services that individuals don't want to pay for, but are important to have as a society. This is possible if there's a real division of powers in the government. Yes, that sounds…

NPR got defunded and here in australia, the ABC are run by political appointees while the rest of the corpo media start branding it as leftist talking points. You can't fix this if the funding source isn't independent and it's competing against a lot more money

It’s hilarious that you think the issue was funding and not the fact that NPR was and is a voice for the left and the opposition thought it was unfair for the government to be paying for one side’s propaganda.

If you can’t hear it you aren’t listening

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

#109

Post by DennisP »

jvalencia wrote: post #75
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…

There's another problem here which is that there isn't enough content. I've on multiple occasions now thrown various news perspectives into AI and asked it to research what the actual facts of a contested issue were. In most cases, it comes down to one quote from one speech. The spin was pages and pages of commentary, most of which is opinion based. The news outlet wouldn't have enough to report if they just told you…

It's not like the one comment is the only newsworthy thing that day. It's a big complicated world with so many important things happening that we can't possibly keep up. It'd be easy to fill up the news with a tiny fraction of them, instead of picking one or two facts and spouting lots of opinions about them. Doing the latter is just a choice they've made.

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

#110

Post by slwvx »

superxpro12 wrote: post #2

The "Free News" model is certainly something I've struggled to solve. How exactly can you provide impartial, objective reporting when you cant afford the salaries? If the people arent interested in paying... what else can you do?

> How exactly can you provide impartial, objective reporting when you cant afford the salaries?

The Salt Lake Tribune (as in the article above) CAN afford salaries.

> If the people arent interested in paying... what else can you do?

People ARE paying. I'm a subscriber to the Tribune and a donor.

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