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Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

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

#461
Says the most egregious fake news distributor on earth. Right today they launched the ultimate "Venezuelans are starving, humanistic intervention needed" attack on their oil: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/world/americas/venezuela-...

When you ask Venezuelans onsite they'll shake their heads in disbelief about the third US-backed coup attempt in this decade, and the press lies. This time also backed by the EU.

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

#462
post #436
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to meet a climatologist who says this. Usually it is the other way around, they are exasperated that people don't take climate change as seriously as they should.

They need to stop being exasperated, because that implies that they keep hoping people will come around and that disaster can be averted. It can't. We might as well just prepare for complete ecological disaster, or resign ourselves to our fate which is going to be complete civilization collapse due to a climate that we simply can't live in at our current population levels. Basically, instead of trying to convince peo…

Your opinion on the predicted effects of climate change, are so far off from reality, that you are actually more incorrect than the climate change deniers.

No scientist believes that civilization is going to collapse because of climate change.

The predicted effects, according to the scientific consensus, is that sea levels will rise by a meter or 2 over the next hundred years. That is not an extinction level event. Not even close.

The scale of how bad things are, are more on the scale of trillions of dollars worth of damages. Thats bad, but it is bad on the same scale as another Iraq war, and not bad on the scale of billions dieing.

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

#464
post #460
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Dan. Acknowledged re: tit for tat, I did try and end it earlier as you can see but got lulled back when the other poster misquoted me. I was being very cafeful to be civil though - even though this is difficult with someone who won't give a firm opinion on something. I succeeded in that. You haven't said I was uncivil before either - we've had a few discussions about articles I've written that have been on HN and…

I think the bit that struck me as uncivil was "You seem genuinely confused about the nature of reality."

Keep in mind this is someone watching multiple videos that everyone, regardless of politics, agrees depicts something, and the person is saying they depict something else. "You seem genuinely confused about the nature of reality" is the most civil way I could have possibly said that.

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't specifically saying all climate change deniers are nut jobs, just that the ones the media trots out often are. I'm not familiar enough with the denial side to evaluate their position - but that's the modern problem isn't it? We have to delegate to a third party to assess ideas for us because we don't have the time or expertise to fully understand every political position. But if that third party becomes bias…

Why don't you go investigate the denial side? It will probably only take thirty minutes and might be interesting. I did this once. I had fully accepted the media's narrative that these people were all kooks and idiots, so I was curious what could possibly cause them to think these things. I went and read some of their websites for the same reason I went and read some flat earther websites the other day, for amusement…

Thank you for this comment

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your source was a news article from Northeastern, not Northwestern, about a study. That said, the study's data source is cited in the article as: "Fridel and Fox used data collected by USA Today, the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, Congressional Research Service, Gun Violence Archive, Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries, Mother Jones, Everytown for Gun Safety, and a NYPD report on active shooters."…

Another view on their methodology: "The (K12SSD) table at right shows that the majority of “school shootings” over the last 48 years occur outside while on school campus. When tied in with non-shooting “school shooting” definitions, such as brandishing, we get a very different picture. By this project’s definitions, if someone on the sidewalk outside the school brandished a gun, that was a “school shooting”. Three pe…

==I hardly think K12SSD's releases come "with no editorializing". ==

We could have a long discussion about what should and shouldn't be included in the data set. Should a bullet that hits a school building be counted? Should brandishing count? Should we only count incidents where people die? Does there need to be 4 or more injured? etc.,

The comment about editorializing was in reference to how one source was a news article interpreting a data set (the definition of a narrative) and the other was simply a data set.

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

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another view on their methodology: "The (K12SSD) table at right shows that the majority of “school shootings” over the last 48 years occur outside while on school campus. When tied in with non-shooting “school shooting” definitions, such as brandishing, we get a very different picture. By this project’s definitions, if someone on the sidewalk outside the school brandished a gun, that was a “school shooting”. Three pe…

==I hardly think K12SSD's releases come "with no editorializing". == We could have a long discussion about what should and shouldn't be included in the data set. Should a bullet that hits a school building be counted? Should brandishing count? Should we only count incidents where people die? Does there need to be 4 or more injured? etc., The comment about editorializing was in reference to how one source was a news a…

You got rekt. Just let it go.

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

#468
The problem is that journalists do not understand the basic concepts of economics. The news is non-rival non-excludable public good like air or sunshine. By its nature news itself can not have a price.

A journalist does not add any value when writes about some other people doing something and this is being public knowledge. Previously this type of information technically differentiated paper they sold. So, people paid for the differentiated paper. Not for the news per se. Internet provided free distribution and there is no more paper to sell. Hence, nothing to pay for.

Exactly the same happened to the music industry when it was selling plastic--CDs--differentiated by music bits on it. When distribution digital become free and people stopped buying CDs the industry collapsed and only Spotify revived it with an innovative business model. And now people pay for easy access, for service, not for the music.

So, for the press, it is only specialized information and analysis are worth paying for. It's unique POV or data that adds value should really have a price. Just news is a loss leader to attract an audience in this equation. Exactly the same like Stratechery, for example, publishes free weekly posts and podcast to get the audience to pay for daily analysis.

When the press, in general, understand basic economic forces, it will be able to be sustainable. Readers do not need a gazillion of bloggers calling themselves journalists that write basically exactly the same news about an event or device that require effectively zero experience except typing. The price for this is exactly zero. This is a marketing expense to attract users for the real thing.

But there are not so many outlets that produce that real thing. Most produce instant junk news that has zero value and think that this should make a living.

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