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Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

nytimes.com

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Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#121

Post by ardy42 »

yellowapple wrote: post #87
standardUser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using anonymous sources is a tried and true practice that has been around since the dawn of journalism. Would you rather news media only report things so inconsequential that everyone involved is happy to be publicly outed?

We need some mechanism to actually authenticate anonymous sources if we expect them to continue to be taken seriously. It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist. It's a "tried" practice, yes, but I have my doubts about how "true" it is in this day and age. I…

> It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist.

Are you suggesting that reputable newspapers are making up unnamed sources or are too careless to privately confirm that they're real?

> I don't pretend to have an actual answer to how we'd build such a mechanism or what it'd look like, but there's a need for it nonetheless. Maybe some trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party that can say "Yes, this unnamed source is legitimate"?

It's been invented, and it's called journalism. That trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party is the newspaper itself.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#122

Post by mac01021 »

Zaskoda wrote: post #80
bargl wrote: post #32

I want a service where I can subscribe to journalists not news papers. I want to know that they are getting a portion of my subscription and being successful. I want 0 advertising in this news paper. Where do I get it? Is this something we need to create? I'd love a fact check o meter on each journalist as well, but I think that'd be very open to bias, so I don't know how that'd happen. Anyway, I don't subscribe to n…

(as per my other post) crowd sourced investigative journalism... money gets pooled and goes directly to the journalist doing the research... plus a reputation system that's it, that's all we need to change right now... seriously, it will work

How does the reputation system work? And what depends on it?

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#124

Post by jccalhoun »

Want me to pay for real news? Be worth paying for. 90% of "news" (like everything else) is crap that isn't worth supporting. I am not inclined to subsidize the good things by paying for bad things.

That being said, I do wish google or some other search engine would get better about favoring original sources rather than other sites that just take stories and rewrite them. I hate seeing a headline to a story only to find out that it is just re-reporting what some other site reported. Often it is a game of telephone where site A rewrites a story from site B that rewrote a story from site C.

If a search engine could find a way to return the original site first then it would help highlight original reporting and make re-reporting less worthwhile.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#126

Post by wtmt »

If paying for the real thing meant they were priced appropriately (there are many facets to this) and didn't shove tons of ads and didn't track users, it has a chance of working. Take Ars Technica as an example (I'm not a subscriber). Its paid subscriptions neither show you ads nor have a single tracker (it did take some time to get there though).

For people in a country like India, where print newspapers (that have ads) can be bought for a whole month for about ₹150 or so (a little more than $2), subscriptions to foreign sources are quite expensive. Absurdly, there are newspapers in India that charge more for the digital edition (compared to print), while still showing plenty of ads and having the benefit of adding trackers! (Example: The Hindu)

Unless mainstream news outlets improve their business models and the user experience, I for now have very less sympathy for them. The fact that Facebook and Google are a lot more worse for everyone is why I even have sympathy for these organizations in the first place.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#127

Post by jccalhoun »

Reading the comments here, I am surprised that so many comments are saying that the New York Times and mainstream media in general are fake news. I'm no fan of the NYTimes (I think it is too much filler and not enough substance) but I'm curious as to what commenters think is real news or what makes the NYTimes fake news.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#128

Post by NeedMoreTea »

sosborn wrote: post #92
8ytecoder wrote: post #77

A few complaints I share with the other people in this thread: - It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently. As someone in tech I can clearly see what they get and what they don't. Extrapolating it - it's not at all clear they understand economics or foreign policy or policy impact or environmental concerns and how to address them ...etc. - Bias: every single on…

> At least present news as it is? This is exceptionally difficult. My favorite example is choosing which photo to run for a story. Let's say a photographer take photos of Trump at an event. He has a photo of Trump smiling, a photo of Trump frowning, a photo of Trump scowling and a photo of Trump laughing. Which one is correct? They are all technically correct because they happened, but they all convey different tones…

Exactly.

There was a very famous image of the UK miner's strike, at the battle of Orgreave, 1984. Another photographer captured the same scene that day. They give a very different impression.

Both images compared: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/photogr...

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#129

Post by phreack »

Didn't the NYT have the dark pattern of being one-click subscribe, yet made you fill forms and emails and physically call them to unsubscribe? (At least up until a few months ago, last I heard)

Stuff like that is an absolute deal breaker and turns lots of users away from subscriptions entirely, before even talking about article/content quality.

Re: Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

#130

Post by RhysU »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #116
8ytecoder wrote: post #77

A few complaints I share with the other people in this thread: - It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce quality content consistently. As someone in tech I can clearly see what they get and what they don't. Extrapolating it - it's not at all clear they understand economics or foreign policy or policy impact or environmental concerns and how to address them ...etc. - Bias: every single on…

NYT's feature stories often seamlessly weave in certain choices of words that reflect the author's personal bias/ignorance. It's like enjoying a decent dessert then suddenly chewing on a piece of fingernail in it. Even WSJ doesn't really have this problem.

The WSJ pleasantly keeps its editorial content on the editorial pages. The NYT thinks all pages are editorial pages. Note this is different from choosing what to print. Both papers do that.
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