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New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

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Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#321

Post by doktrin »

repolfx wrote: post #269
Dwolb wrote: post #76

That’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…

Instead of 50 professional reporters confirmed writing about an event, we’ll have 5 That's pretty what we already have actually. The amount of original reporting done on a major news story is far, far lower than the number of newspapers out there. This study from 2010 is useful: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/the-googlechina-hacking-cas... Out of the 121 distinct versions of last week’s story about tracing Google’s…

> as far as I can tell the reason is that they've more or less openly abandoned any pretence of political neutrality. They've become anti-Trump cheerleaders that are more in the business of helping their readers feel superior than in the business of real news... The USA doesn't have a president who hates the media for no reason.

Comically absurd. Trump injects himself into media headlines on a daily basis, more often than not because he's picking a fight on twitter with someone over something petty. He has nobody but himself to blame for his unfavorable coverage. Pretending he's a victim here is a cookie cutter case of amoral tribalism and rank partisanship.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#322

Post by criddell »

brlewis wrote: post #294
criddell wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people have cancelled their cable subscription and get by with ad-free services like Netflix and Hulu, MLB.tv, etc... The other things you mention - magazines, newspapers, and billboards - usually don't track you and build a profile on you so they are less objectionable.

billboards - usually don't track you With toll roads keeping a record of who travels on them when, it's only a matter of time until this revenue source gets tapped.

There's nothing special about toll roads. A billboard company could put a camera on their bill board pointed at the nearby road and collect the same data.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#323

Post by rconti »

joekrill wrote: post #137
ehsankia wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I canceled mine last week exactly because of those dark patterns. They also show ads even if you have a subscription, which sounds very backward to me. I'd love to support them, but those practices don't belong in 2018. EDIT: Oh, looks like the cancellation didn't go through and they charged me for one more month, sweet. I might just go to my bank and tell them to block the source. Or even better, I may have found a…

> They also show ads even if you have a subscription, which sounds very backward to me. So are you also cancelling your cable subscription, any magazine subscriptions, physical newspaper subscriptions, no longer driving on toll roads with billboard...? I'm not saying it's right, or good, or valid--but the standard practice, for as long as I can remember, for most mediums, is to still show ads for things you pay for.…

It makes their content borderline unusable. Half the time the page won't scroll at all (mouse or keyboard) and I have to reload. The ads shift around and are always covering a good chunk of real estate on my screen. When you scroll and now your mouse arrow is over an ad, scrolling stops working. There are ads horizontally and vertically. It's bloody awful.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#324

Post by repolfx »

lightbyte wrote: post #276
repolfx wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't solve it. It ensures you have people calling themselves journalists who get paid, but journalism is in decline because (a) trust in journalism is in decline and (b) a lot of it is duplicated. The BBC specifically has a trust issue in the UK. Even one of its own long term journalists wrote a book called "Can we trust the BBC?" (spoiler warning: the given answer is no). https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Trust-B…

>The story literally argues that the UK would not have sandwiches anymore if no deal with the EU is reached. The sandwich was invented in the UK. That is not what the article is about at all, "sandwiches" are just the hook. In fact the word sandwich only appears in the first sentence and the last. The article is about whether Brexit would lead to supply chain issues with food, which could result in food shortages.

No, sandwiches are referred to in the headline, the first paragraph, the second paragraph and the third paragraph ("the space between two pieces of bread"), and the final paragraph.

Regardless of how you prefer to interpret the story, absurd clickbait "hooks" are the sort of thing that drives distrust in the media.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#325

Post by repolfx »

bjourne wrote: post #308
repolfx wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of 50 professional reporters confirmed writing about an event, we’ll have 5 That's pretty what we already have actually. The amount of original reporting done on a major news story is far, far lower than the number of newspapers out there. This study from 2010 is useful: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/the-googlechina-hacking-cas... Out of the 121 distinct versions of last week’s story about tracing Google’s…

Trump hated "the Media" long before he became president. The idea that "the Media" are anti-Trump cheerleaders need some corrobating evidence because otherwise it is bullshit.

That's because Trump is a conservative and conservatives have been losing trust in the media for a long time.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/219824/democrats-confidence-mas...

Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him? From what I recall they all went for Hillary, there was even one paper (the USA Today?) that had never endorsed a candidate before and they went for Hillary.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#326

Post by repolfx »

d46ft7gy8hu wrote: post #293
guessthejuice wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s just insane. It really isn't. It's why wall street is selling on the news. > This is a great accomplishment for NYT but I’m worried about what it means for the rest of the industry. It really isn't. It's why their share price dropped nearly 7% on the news. Their subscriber growth declined. That's not a good thing. > NYT switching its business model has to be one of the most public and well-executed digital t…

Throw away account. If News Corp is the standard we're holding news companies to, we have a serious issue. It's totally disorganized, has no idea what it's trying to achieve and more focused on political outcomes than it is building actual value for shareholders. There is zero leadership, and that leadership there is gets sent to unrelated (but related) companies like Fox. If it wasn't for a few golden gooses that Ne…

I think he's referring to cases like the Times of London, which went totally paywalled and became profitable in 2014 for the first time since 2001:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/dec/02/tim...

(gotta link to the Guardian for that story because, of course, the Times' own coverage is paywalled)

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#327

Post by _dczq »

repolfx wrote: post #325
bjourne wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump hated "the Media" long before he became president. The idea that "the Media" are anti-Trump cheerleaders need some corrobating evidence because otherwise it is bullshit.

That's because Trump is a conservative and conservatives have been losing trust in the media for a long time. https://news.gallup.com/poll/219824/democrats-confidence-mas... Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him? From what I recall they all went for Hillary, there was even one paper (the USA Today?) that had never endorsed a candidate befor…

==That's because Trump is a conservative==

Based on what criteria?

==Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him?==

Is the second part actually evidence of the first part or does it simply reinforce your prior belief? Can you name any candidate in history who was gifted more free screen-time or print-space by US media?

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#328

Post by bornabox »

orf wrote: post #226
chii wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I can imagine is a "digital pass" this makes me think that journalism should be funded out of a commons fund - like how the BBC is funded publically via taxes.

The BBC isn't directly funded by taxes in the usual sense (and therefore the government, which is a tricky situation to be in). It's funded by the collection of a license required when you have a TV, and it's collected by the BBC itself (in reality outsourced).

This works on a national level. Switzerland does it too. But I don't want to read only Swiss Newspapers, I wanna read the NYT and The Times etc. as well. I do think that the digital pass idea is worth thinking about more.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#329

Post by repolfx »

_dczq wrote: post #327
repolfx wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Trump is a conservative and conservatives have been losing trust in the media for a long time. https://news.gallup.com/poll/219824/democrats-confidence-mas... Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him? From what I recall they all went for Hillary, there was even one paper (the USA Today?) that had never endorsed a candidate befor…

==That's because Trump is a conservative== Based on what criteria? ==Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him?== Is the second part actually evidence of the first part or does it simply reinforce your prior belief? Can you name any candidate in history who was gifted more free screen-time or print-space by US media?

Hmm. Are you arguing Trump is not a conservative? He ran under a Republican banner and has many classically conservative policies.

As for the latter paragraph, are you implying news outlets simply sell screen-time and print-space? How can the media "gift" coverage? Their job is to report what's happening and things said and done by a presidential candidate is clearly news. And yes of course the abundance of newspapers openly stating they wanted his opponent to win is evidence of being anti-Trump: that's basic logic.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#330

Post by bjourne »

repolfx wrote: post #325
bjourne wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump hated "the Media" long before he became president. The idea that "the Media" are anti-Trump cheerleaders need some corrobating evidence because otherwise it is bullshit.

That's because Trump is a conservative and conservatives have been losing trust in the media for a long time. https://news.gallup.com/poll/219824/democrats-confidence-mas... Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him? From what I recall they all went for Hillary, there was even one paper (the USA Today?) that had never endorsed a candidate befor…

Yes I need evidence. Especially since you claim it is obvious that "the Media" is anti-Trump it shouldn't be hard for you to bring forward that evidence.

> Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him?

No! You are not allowed to turn the tables on me. You are the one that should show that "the Media" is anti-Trump, I shouldn't have to prove that it isn't.

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