Why would anyone pay for news is beyond my understanding. I pay for things I enjoy, not things that make my blood boil.
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New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
171–180 of 360 posts
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weaponizing old, out-of-context tweets is just the new alt-right playbook. James Gunn is the other obvious example. Yes, these people posted things that were bad ideas. They also apologised, made it clear they were not serious about what was said, and moved past it. To claim it makes their entire coverage of racism incoherent is... misleading at best. Imitating the masses of people trolling you as a joke may be a bad…
Oh, please. "Weaponizing old tweets", writings, or politics is not a phenomenon particular to the alt-right. Examples abound: Kevin Williamson, formerly of the National Review, was recently fired by The Atlantic for old tweets. James Damore, a Google engineer, was fired for making controversial statements about gender science that feminists at the company didn't like. Brendan Eich, a software developer who created Ja…
There is a big difference between pointing out someone is actively acting in bad faith, and taking content they have apologised for and say they disagree with now when they don't act in that way any more.
> Kevin Williamson, formerly of the National Review, was recently fired by The Atlantic for old tweets.
He spoke with the editor who fired him because that was still his viewpoint, not an old tweet he apologised for or regretted.
> Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg forced to conclude that his new hire did, in fact, believe what he said he believed. “The language he used in this podcast — and in my conversations with him in recent days — made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views,”
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/5/17202182/the-atlantic-kevin-wil...
> James Damore, a Google engineer, was fired for making controversial statements about gender science that feminists at the company didn't like.
He stood by his comments, in fact, he doubled down on them.
> Brendan Eich, a software developer who created JavaScript and was a co-founder of Mozilla, was forced to resign as the CEO of that company after making a political donation.
This isn't historic, that's current behaviour.
> And there are many more instances of "repressive tolerance" in Big Tech, which Herbert Marcuse and others have described as a tolerance for 'all viewpoints' which actually contributes to social oppression in our culture.
> The weaponizing of alternate viewpoints isn't owned by any one political faction, it's deployed nowadays by all of them, and it leads to a corrosive and toxic public environment.
Your examples are different things - it's perfectly reasonable, in fact, I would argue a moral obligation, not to accept bad actions and support of abhorrent policy from those around you.
My point was that people can and do change - if any of these people renounced their viewpoints, acted in good faith and changed, I would happily support them in any endeavour. That isn't what happened in these cases - there is a fundamental difference.
Even if this does happen to people on the right (and I'm sure there must be cases of it, as with all things), that doesn't justify the recent spate of cases being intentionally pushed by the alt-right. The particular instance being discussed here is wrong in the same way it would be wrong if it was someone on the right.
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#173The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…
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Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
They apparently have no fewer than 130 million monthly readers, though, according to a press release from last year: https://www.nytco.com/year-of-audience/ I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶v̶i̶d̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶.̶ [edit: that number isn't for physical newspapers, see replies]
OT: how did you strike through? Not described in the formatdoc ... [1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
It's in Unicode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikethrough#Unicode
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#175That’s just insane. This is a great accomplishment for NYT but I’m worried about what it means for the rest of the industry. NYT switching its business model has to be one of the most public and well-executed digital transformations of an old company ever. If NYT is the best at this and can only turn 24M a quarter, almost everyone else must be absolutely bleeding. This would confirm most of the newspapers out there a…
> only turn 24M a quarter, That's $24 million left unspent after salaries, benefits, travel and accommodation, equipment purchases, AP and Bloomberg fees, client entertainment, interest repayment, rents, board jollies... I don't see what's unhealthily low about that profit.
It depends on what the ROI and risks are. If you spend $100M a year to earn $1M in net profit, and your business is completely dependent on advertising and/or has declining subscription revenues then that’s terrible. There are much better ROIs to be had, so an investor would be better off investing elsewhere.
Also, reporting faces heavy legal, travel, lodging, equipment, and food expenses and those don’t end up in the asset column in case of a sale. I guess the articles and copyright would help, but it doesn’t seem to be worth much.
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#176The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…
After all, the NYT did leak the existence of the Doomsday Machine to the Soviets. It's why I don't subscribe.
Um, "leak" the existence of a doomsday machine? Isn't the whole point of a doomsday machine that the other side knows you have one?
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
They apparently have no fewer than 130 million monthly readers, though, according to a press release from last year: https://www.nytco.com/year-of-audience/ I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶v̶i̶d̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶.̶ [edit: that number isn't for physical newspapers, see replies]
OT: how did you strike through? Not described in the formatdoc ... [1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
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Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#178I'd sub if the basic package included the crosswords too
It’s strange it doesn’t include the full crossword. I really like the mini crossword game however and “set” puzzles
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#179That’s just insane. This is a great accomplishment for NYT but I’m worried about what it means for the rest of the industry. NYT switching its business model has to be one of the most public and well-executed digital transformations of an old company ever. If NYT is the best at this and can only turn 24M a quarter, almost everyone else must be absolutely bleeding. This would confirm most of the newspapers out there a…
This is just my opinion, but things change. Change is not necessarily bad.
If smaller newspapers cannot make it, it means they don't offer a good enough service to justify their existence. If they were good and provided value, people would pay for it (like they do the NYT).
Given the dismal quality of many small publications--possibly caused by the need to bring people via search engines--I welcome replacing them with independent content creators. Independent content creators often make even a lot of money via Patreon because people like their content and support them, and often the quality and level of knowledge is 100 times better than small publications that are only interested in clicks.
For instance, see the coverage of solar roadways, Hyperloop and many other science-related topics by specialized publications vs. the debunking videos made by youtuber Thunderf00t. While those publications will just have interns write copycat articles to bring in clicks, he's an actual scientist that looks into/debunks the topics at hand with a unique point of view, and actually covers the news critically. I'd much rather give him $5/mo. to keep producing good content then the "professional" newspaper $0.50/mo. to read their crappy content or even worse be bombarded by ads if I visit their website.
Of course, independent content creators will not take a plane to go cover a war or cannot afford to spend 2 years without publishing an article to do investigative journalism, but I think those publications that provide that value gets recognized by people and those will rightfully stay alive.
Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
They apparently have no fewer than 130 million monthly readers, though, according to a press release from last year: https://www.nytco.com/year-of-audience/ I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶v̶i̶d̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶.̶ [edit: that number isn't for physical newspapers, see replies]
OT: how did you strike through? Not described in the formatdoc ... [1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
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