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The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

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Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#181

Post by only_as_i_fall »

WalterBright wrote: post #147
tootie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's debatable. As much as journalism has been democratized it's also nose-dived in quality. And I don't mean the MSM. The overwhelming majority of "citizen journalists" are producing very low quality or even downright detrimental work. At the same time, a lot of professional journalism has sacrificed quality for revenue. Public media like PBS and NPR affiliates are intended to promote professional journali…

> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.

Do you have a more effective system in mind?

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#182

Post by babesh »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #158
WalterBright wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.

The fact that they're beholden to different stakeholders is precisely why it's important to have robust publicly funded journalism and/or donor funded journalism in addition to traditional for-profit advertiser funded journalism. Just as traditional news outlets are reluctant to upset their advertisers. Donor-funded local newspapers are hesitant to upset big local donors. The BBC is awesome at covering non-clickbaity…

The news that is pushed to you nowadays is already increasingly donor funded. The last 10 years, the tech elite have purchased many sense making media. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs. The New Republic is owned by Chris Hughes. The Intercept is owned by Pierre Omidyar.

The narrowing and shifting of the Overton window is precisely due to donor funded journalism. It is just a reflection of the underlying shift in power in the society and economy as a whole.

Public news being dull is actually really bad. It means that there is no real debate. You are being fed what to think.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#183

Post by babesh »

babesh wrote: post #182
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they're beholden to different stakeholders is precisely why it's important to have robust publicly funded journalism and/or donor funded journalism in addition to traditional for-profit advertiser funded journalism. Just as traditional news outlets are reluctant to upset their advertisers. Donor-funded local newspapers are hesitant to upset big local donors. The BBC is awesome at covering non-clickbaity…

The news that is pushed to you nowadays is already increasingly donor funded. The last 10 years, the tech elite have purchased many sense making media. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs. The New Republic is owned by Chris Hughes. The Intercept is owned by Pierre Omidyar. The narrowing and shifting of the Overton window is precisely due to donor funded journalism.…

Also all 'sides' play this game. It is a reflection of the shift in power in the society as a whole. Oil has lost power. The Koch brother(s) have lost power.

Tech has gained power and now exerts influence. Education has gained power. Healthcare has gained power.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#184

Post by js212 »

WA9ACE wrote: post #148
jbluepolarbear wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pbs apps are made by OPB (Oregon public broadcasting) they’ve been a big partner of pbs for a long time. The apps are really good and they try to keep relevant content and popular shows on the apps.

I work at PBS on one of the teams building these apps, and this has not been the case since I joined. PBS apps are maintained in house out of our Arlington headquarters, with most team members working fully remote during covid, but I fully appreciate you calling our apps good!

Love the PBS app for my kid. He is using it right now :)

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#185

Post by WalterBright »

only_as_i_fall wrote: post #181
WalterBright wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.

Do you have a more effective system in mind?

Nobody's ever come up with one, other than the free market. That's why the Constitution does not allow the government to limit free speech.

I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the belief that it's the profit motive that leads to corruption. Even a casual review of history will amply show that government funded news is not independent journalism nor unbiased journalism.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#186

Post by lsiebert »

aidenn0 wrote: post #165
lsiebert wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's centrist, it's just that looking at facts instead of simply accepting what politicians say at face value often tends to lead to support for political talking points from the left. This isn't intrinsic to left or right wing ideologies, there are plenty of areas where nobody has a monopoly on good policy, but when it comes to Democratic and Republican political leaders, The Dems look to scientific consensus (clima…

I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I think that climate change denial is one of many ways the GOP has sold its soul in the past 20 years, but the Democratic party takes it as axiomatic that certain climate change interventions are less harmful than climate change itself. We can reasonably quantify flooding of coastal real-estate, but that is likely to be only a small fraction of the effects. So the overall…

The very fact that Republicans continue to deny the existence and threat from anthropocentric climate change leads to simple understandings of what Dems actually want to do.

The Democratic party has a wide range of opinions on how to deal with climate change, but I'd suggest people look at the Party Platform from 2020 to see how it wants to address it.

It includes some bold stuff in terms of changing the US economy towards being zero emissions, but with goals set five, ten or fifteen years from 2020. That's hardly setting the cost at infinity.

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/202...

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#187

Post by satellite2 »

Everyone here discuss a new online newspaper. It would be refreshing to get intelligent content for free and not hidden between an amrmada of paywalls but would not be not enough.

At this point, to protect democracy and its values, full fledged state sponsored reverse troll farms are what we desperatly need.

A lot of the engagement is simply led by fake accounts piloted by humans and thus realistic enough to break the organic engagement detection model.

Creating positive content is not enough to win this war. Only using the same dirty tactics as the autocrats will allow democracy to survive.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#188

Post by WalterBright »

relaxing wrote: post #174
WalterBright wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.

Very true. I remember vividly growing up in the 1980s and watching Big Bird explain the moral hazard of government-subsidized school lunches. The segment where Super Grover delivered weapons to Iranian forces in Iraq in exchange for funds for CIA-backed rebel groups in Nicaragua seemed rather convoluted and, frankly, outlandish, but I accepted it with an open mind. These days I am more wise to the ways of the world,…

> I could have instead been exposed to superior, corporate-sponsored values. Alas.

I am indeed sorry you didn't get to enjoy Bugs Bunny, Wile E Coyote, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and other corporate sponsored values. You've been deprived.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#189

Post by root_axis »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #166
root_axis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the fediverse solves this problem. Fediverse nodes are no different than websites with respect to information distribution.

Take YouTube. There is one of it. PeerTube, however, could potentially encompass all video-hosting sites.

The global http network already encompasses all video-hosting sites. If YouTube were a cluster of PeerTube nodes nothing really changes, all the stated problems associated with YouTube's popularity remain. e.g. if YouTube nodes ban your videos and you have to move to a less popular node, you're facing the exact same problem as you would getting banned from YouTube today.
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