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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

#381

Post by LocalPCGuy »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #349
bovermyer wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that newspapers still make the majority of their income from advertising. This is why ads still appear after you're subscribed and logged in to their websites. Shifting to a subscription-only revenue model is not an easy proposition, and requires a huge adjustment that most newspapers are not yet ready to make. Source: I used to work for a major regional newspaper.

This is what I had always heard, that the price of the paper just covered the printing and shipping. It seems like all these papers already have advertiser contacts and should have been able to easily transition into an online advertiser only model. and as far as paying for ads, I find it absurd that anyone pays for cable tv anymore.

I still pay for cable TV because

1) its my cheapest option to have local channels

2) of the DVR options (so I don't deal with those ads), it still has the best experience (tried Hulu, DirecTVNow, YouTubeTV) - YouTubeTV was the closest, but they inject ads you cannot skip in on demand programs and replace your "recordings" with on demand programs as soon as the network makes them available.

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

#382

Post by t0astbread »

This is generally a good idea but what about the people who can't afford to pay for news? Do they not deserve to know what's going on? I'm not aware of what the general consensus on this is and how it's handled but I think objective news (both local and international) are a basic right of citizens of a country.

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

#383

Post by ramsss »

warp_factor wrote: post #358
normal_man wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the Trump-related headlines on CNN right now: Trump says he's on same page as intel chiefs after insulting them Erin Burnett: Tapes don't lie, but Trump ... Even some Republicans balk as Trump targets US spy chiefs None of those would violate your criteria, but any reasonable person would say they are negative. At some point you just have to accept reality and stop expecting news outlets to bend over backwar…

Those headlines are very biased in my opinion, in a subtle way to influence the reader to start each article with a bad view of Trump. >> Trump says he's on same page as intel chiefs after insulting them after "insulting them"? The choices of words here makes us already take a stance even before opening the article. >> Erin Burnett: Tapes don't lie, but Trump ... Seriously? The title already takes a stance on the vie…

[dead]

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

#384

Post by LocalPCGuy »

witten wrote: post #376
e40 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a NYT digital sub and I never see any ads or anything. I think uBlock Origin is required, when using any website, even for websites you pay for.

I had the same setup (uBlock Origin) and I just cancelled my subscription over ads. Not because I saw any, but because every NYT web page had a static (did not scroll) gray banner telling me to disable my ad blocker. And then when I couldn't take it anymore and went to cancel, their retention department had the gall to suggest the message was not from them and maybe was from my browser. Fuck you, New York Times. Payi…

As a counterpoint, I use NYT + uBlock Origin and never see a banner about disabling the ad-blocker.

In general though, I agree that paying customers should not be subjected to ads. But as someone who worked in the news industry (quite some time ago now) I don't think newspapers have learned that lesson yet or can afford to do that.

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

#386

Post by max76 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #349
bovermyer wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that newspapers still make the majority of their income from advertising. This is why ads still appear after you're subscribed and logged in to their websites. Shifting to a subscription-only revenue model is not an easy proposition, and requires a huge adjustment that most newspapers are not yet ready to make. Source: I used to work for a major regional newspaper.

This is what I had always heard, that the price of the paper just covered the printing and shipping. It seems like all these papers already have advertiser contacts and should have been able to easily transition into an online advertiser only model. and as far as paying for ads, I find it absurd that anyone pays for cable tv anymore.

I'm not a cable subscriber but I don't think it's a bad deal for the average American, especially families. DVRs have allowed cable subscribers to skip ads with a bit of planning and a slight delay in viewing for over a decade. This allows for unlimited viewing of the newest content on demand without advertisement. Basic cable seems to start at about $40/month which is about 2x more than having a Netflix and Hulu subscription while offering more movies, the latest season of every show, cable news, and sports.

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

#387

Post by t0astbread »

t0astbread wrote: post #382

This is generally a good idea but what about the people who can't afford to pay for news? Do they not deserve to know what's going on? I'm not aware of what the general consensus on this is and how it's handled but I think objective news (both local and international) are a basic right of citizens of a country.

The obvious solution would be to fund newspapers with tax money but would that work in every country?

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

#388

Post by ysv2 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #184
dman wrote: post #131

I do pay for news, however one request I have for news providers is a greater emphasis on presenting news from all sides. Over the last 4-5 years most news providers have picked a political side (to a much greater extent than I recall in the past). This is true in both countries for which I follow news (India and the US). Given an event I can predict the coverage that venues will give it. This is troubling to me, and…

I would appreciate less emphasis on pretending to cover news from several angles. By doing so they imply that both sides are equally valid even when they're not. For instance I've seen them bring on a climate change denier to give the "other side" on a climate change story; anti vaxxers, et cetera. It's particularly bad when one side is willing to lie.

Yes, some "sides" of some issues are objectively false. But the problem is that even where facts are not in dispute, the mainstream press's strong left-bias influences the facts it chooses to emphasize and the narratives it promotes.

Take the coverage of the Covington High School protest, for example. When the available facts seemed to support the narrative that white, male, MAGA-hat-wearing, anti-abortion Catholic students were racially harassing a defenseless Native American elder, the media was shouting "fascism!" from the rooftops.

But when more facts emerged in the form of a longer video showing the high school students being abused, and with no mere smirk, by a group of overtly racist Black Hebrew Israelites no less--and the Native American elder accosting the students rather than the other way around--suddenly that no longer serves a narrative the left wants to tell, and there's been comparatively little coverage of the aftermath of the mob unleashed by the initial reporting, of the death threats to students and the high school's temporary closure.

This is why it is crucial for the media to present the facts from more than one, very specific angle, even when the facts are largely not in dispute.

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

#389

Post by jmcmichael »

mscasts wrote: post #323
jmcmichael wrote: post #286

This implies that only people who have the means and desire to pay for accurate news will get it. Given that accurate information about the world, our society, and its politics is required for making accurate decisions about how to vote and spend one's time and money, shouldn't we start treating journalism as a public good and funding it independent of anyone's ability to come up with a business model that will work?

My country (Sweden) has a state-sponsonsored news outlet. It is one of the most biased ones. Several other countries in Europe has the same model and it just doesn't work.

Yeah, state-sponsored news has its own problems. The state should probably be the main focus of news organizations. Having the State, target of journalists' investigations, hold the purse strings is perhaps an even bigger problem than the market.

I think there might be a solution where state funds support a local-news system, where the funds are institutionally separated from influence - maybe similar to how the Fed is supported by the State yet remains politically separate from it (ideally).

There are institutional structures beyond the state and market that can produce public goods.

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

#390

Post by malvosenior »

davidhyde wrote: post #231

I think we need to give professional journalists the benefit of the doubt and assume they studied journalism at university and the fact that what they learned is the correct way of doing journalism. Just like computer scientists go to university and learn how to write software properly. What I think happens in reality is that people with no journalism training call the shots by setting the budget and direction in the…

You can follow these journalists directly on Twitter and see that they have amazing bias that they are not ashamed about promoting. After all, the NYT hired someone who has hundreds of anti-white, anti-male tweets to be on their editorial board and to act as their head technology editor.

Whatever they learned in school is taking back seat to pushing an agenda.

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