The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free • Hacker News Board

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#61

Post by armada651 » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 10:50 AM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #28

lm28469 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction. No one on this planet is 100% unbiased. It doesn't matter if it's free or $100 per article, it's still written by a human being with personal opinions, experiences, prejudices, &c. The easiest way to get close to the "truth", which is subjective in many cases anyways, is to read from many sources and cross check the facts between them.

Even if that kind of neutrality is not achievable it has been practiced by journalists for the longest time and they tried their best. Should we forego every trial because no judge can be impartial? The argument is lacking. That impartiality doesn't lead to economic success and sustainability for outlets is another story of course. Cross checking is required even if journalists wouldn't be as active in framing storie…

The real problem is that for-profit news reporting will always start copying the biases of its readers, because that's how you'll sell more papers to them.

Only state-funded news sources are imune to that, of course they have perverse incentives of their own.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#62

Post by rbecker » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 10:51 AM UTC

fock wrote: post #40

rbecker wrote: post #33

> Breitbart, Fox News, the Daily Wire, the Federalist, the Washington Examiner, InfoWars: free! As is salon.com, theatlantic.com, theroot.com, vox.com, huffingtonpost.com, slate.com, and also somehow missing from that list, CNN! I appreciate the point the author is trying to make, and realize this is tangential, but I would be grateful if he didn't try to deceive me with the choice of examples.

is CNN really putting up anything except news - of which reuters/AP/UPI already give a pretty good overview for free? And while all the left/neoliberal (and clickbaity) things you noted are free, they are less concerned with news, but more opinion – to my knowledge they don't try to make the impression of a news outlet as much as the listed ones (which carry typical news-speak even in their name!)

All those sites look like news sites to me, except the Atlantic, which is indeed limited to opinion/commentary.

Salon's About page: "Salon covers breaking news, politics, entertainment, culture, and technology through investigative reporting, commentary, criticism, and provocative personal essays." A few titles from their site:

    -As pandemic spreads, feds go MIA
    -Did Steve Daines get pharma kickback?
    -The second pandemic: Pollution
    -Many Black, Latinx and poor Americans who needed relief the most never got a stimulus check: study
    -Dr. Fauci says it's not "dreaming" that a coronavirus vaccine could arrive by 2021
    -The COVID-19 downturn triggers jump in Medicaid enrollment

The Root has an explicit "News" section (theroot.com/c/news). Some titles from the site (not limited to that section):

    -Jamaica's Supreme Court Rules That School Can Ban Child With Dreadlocks (No, We're Not Kidding)
    -Protests Planned in St. Louis, Mo. After New Prosecutor Says He Won't Make Criminal Charges in Police Killing of Michael Brown
    -Brooklyn Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Hate Crime Against Black Woman
    -After a Summer of Social Media Trolling By Gen Z, Trump Says He's Going to Ban TikTok From America
    -Rumored VP Candidate Rep. Karen Bass Explains Video of Her Praising Church of Scientology, Denounces Fidel Castro
    -Michigan Appeals Court Grants Release of Black Girl Who Was Detained After Not Doing Online Homework

Vox:

    -The slow-motion 2020 election disaster states are scrambling to prevent, explained
    -The US ambassador to Brazil reportedly asked Brazilian officials to help Trump’s reelection
    -Scientists have backed away from the worst-case climate scenario — and the best one too
    -“The end of arms control as we know it”
    -Polls: Biden and Trump are nearly tied in North Carolina and Georgia
    -As coronavirus cases increase worldwide, an Australian state is imposing tough new restrictions
    -Lawmakers still “not close” to a coronavirus stimulus deal, a day after $600 federal relief expired

Huffpost also has a "News" section (the most prominent of all). Some titles taken straight from their front page:

    -Coronavirus Live Updates: Read The Latest About The COVID-19 Outbreak
    -Top Health Official: Time To ‘Move On’ From Hydroxychloroquine Efficacy Claims
    -College Athletes Threaten To Skip Season Over COVID-19, Racial Justice Demands
    -Watchdog Calls For Probe Amid Fears Of ‘Voter Suppression Tactics’ Through Postal Service
    -Thousands Ordered To Evacuate As Wildfires Scorch Southern California
    -Navy SEALS Investigate Video Of Dogs Attacking Colin Kaepernick Stand-In

The very first section of Slate is titled "News & Politics". A few titles from that section:

    -The US Takes On TikTok
    -The Republican National Convention in Charlotte Will Be Closed to the Press
    -Arizona Congressman Tests Positive for COVID-19, Blasts Republicans Who Don’t Wear Masks
    -Hundreds of Coronavirus Infections at Georgia Camp Raise Tough Questions About Schools Reopening
    -EU Extends Ban on Dangerous Foreign Travelers (Americans)

In sum, there's no way to claim these are not news sites.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#63

Post by alfiedotwtf » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #11

fredley wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for quality, but understand the tilt. If you really want to, pay for two services with opposing tilts, but equal (high) quality.

In the UK I subscribe to "The Week", which covers stories by reporting what different newspapers report. You don't get much in depth, but you do get a good cross-section of how stories are reported, and you get to remove headlines which is the source of 96% of the world's troubles.

Wow, that sounds wonderful. I hardly read Australian news, but I would subscribe to something like that for Australian News!

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#64

Post by kappuchino » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 10:58 AM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #45

freddie_mercury wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that $20 is enough to support multiple newspapers? That's nearly how much the New York Times ($17/month) alone costs and they lost money every year in recent history until 2018 and are only now turning the corner as a business. On the surface I'd assume that actual journalism -- not just clickbait opinion pieces -- is going to cost you way more than $20 a month if you want access to multiple sources…

Don't many services that cost far more than journalism to produce charge $20 a month now? Netflix is $13, Disney+ is $7 a month, Xbox Game Pass is $10 a month... And those movies, TV shows and games cost many millions of dollars to produce. Why is journalism so much more expensive when journalists likely aren't earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and spending millions on investigations?

On comparison: Take the movie "die hard". Since its creation 1988 (i feeld old) it has been rewatched time and time again and been paid for by nearly every channel and streaming service. Now look at an newspaper edition from christmas day 1988. Yes, it still costs less, but you would agree that it was already "old news" a couple of days after and rereading it is not really worth something to you, is it? One invisible cost in journalism is research and failure. I had a boss who humorously said "just research things that we will print", but in my area of experise in journalism - data and investigative reporting - more or less half of the research is a dead end, isn't interesting enough or has issues that make reporting unadvisable. Yes, sports has a better qouta, but has also taken over by bots writing the articles. Also: Can we agreee, that independence can only be achived with decent pay? It is an issue in other areas of work as well, but this is not about those. Journalists need to be paid well and (mostly) independent of their output or you already weaken/poison the base for independent news. And this scales more than you think. Now multiply this to have competition in journalism (like, gasp!, multiple newspapers/mags on the newsstand for one city) and it gets really, really expensive. All that cost was hidden when the only way to locally advertise was in paper (before the internet).

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#65

Post by jhanschoo » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #28

lm28469 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction. No one on this planet is 100% unbiased. It doesn't matter if it's free or $100 per article, it's still written by a human being with personal opinions, experiences, prejudices, &c. The easiest way to get close to the "truth", which is subjective in many cases anyways, is to read from many sources and cross check the facts between them.

Even if that kind of neutrality is not achievable it has been practiced by journalists for the longest time and they tried their best. Should we forego every trial because no judge can be impartial? The argument is lacking. That impartiality doesn't lead to economic success and sustainability for outlets is another story of course. Cross checking is required even if journalists wouldn't be as active in framing storie…

Present day, for local news, you can still get quite close to this compared to your perceived past standard. You can get as close as you can to this ideal on world news as your perceived past standard if you limit yourself to Reuters, AFP, AP.

But many find these sources unengaging since they report events as they occur and do not contextualize them in media narratives to the extent that more commonly popular news outlets do.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#66

Post by quietbritishjim » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:03 AM UTC

corty wrote: post #59

tremon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the bias you see in the statements "King Louis was executed" or "former king Louis executed by means of guillotine for high treason"? Both the terms "execution" and "high treason" are objective descriptions takens from the proceedings.

No? Treason is in the eye of the revolutionary judge. The trial was never a fair one, the outcome was clear from the start. And from an unfair trial and an unjust judgement you can't lawfully execute someone, you can only murder him execution-style.

To me, "executed for high treason" has the meaning that the person or organisation that killed him considered him to be guilty of high treason, and that they considered themselves to have the authority to decide to execute them, not that the paper with that headline necessarily agrees with either of those things. Similarly, a modern newspaper saying that someone "was executed by a gang for theft of their drugs" doesn't necessarily mean that they actually did take the drugs, that taking the drugs did constitute theft, or that the killing wasn't murder. So I think does count as objectively true.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#67

Post by rvz » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

lambdadmitry wrote: post #12

ferros wrote: post #3

I would be willing to pay an amount for better quality news than what can be found for free, however news outlets always seem to lean one way. I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

The FT should serve you well.

Indeed. The FT is probably the only pay-walled source I would be happy to pay for at this point.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#68

Post by hugh-avherald » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

rawfan wrote: post #22

I just want Netflix for journalism. I don't want a super expensive sub to a dozen papers. I want one subscription, they all should be included (maybe offer different tiers if you are an arse) and it shouldn't be more than $20/month. Go.

The problem with a model like Netflix for journalism is that it will take the same path Netflix did.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#69

Post by corty » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:21 AM UTC

quietbritishjim wrote: post #66

corty wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? Treason is in the eye of the revolutionary judge. The trial was never a fair one, the outcome was clear from the start. And from an unfair trial and an unjust judgement you can't lawfully execute someone, you can only murder him execution-style.

To me, "executed for high treason" has the meaning that the person or organisation that killed him considered him to be guilty of high treason, and that they considered themselves to have the authority to decide to execute them, not that the paper with that headline necessarily agrees with either of those things. Similarly, a modern newspaper saying that someone "was executed by a gang for theft of their drugs" doesn…

Depends on the newspaper. Things that the newspaper doesn't want to judge the truth of usually get put in quotes or have attributes like "alledged" or "supposed" added. Without such limiting additions, the newspaper is assumed to embrace the written statement as true and will e.g. be liable for slander. The yellow press will care more about the catchy headline than the slander charges, so they usually avoid being precise and accept the punishment as cost of running their rag...

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#70

Post by evgen » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

lambdadmitry wrote: post #12

ferros wrote: post #3

I would be willing to pay an amount for better quality news than what can be found for free, however news outlets always seem to lean one way. I want somebody to just report and not tilt it in one direction.

The FT should serve you well.

It is sad that the WSJ sold out to the Murdochs and lost their way. It used to be the case that financial papers would have an agenda on their opinion pages, but when it came to making money people needed/wanted the truth or something as close as possible to this -- the market did not care about spin and believing spin that differed from reality would cost you money.

I was a decades-long subscriber to the WSJ print edition and as long as I ignored the last few pages of the first section I was a happy camper. I cannot imagine what possessed Murdoch to engage in such value-destruction, but the FT and Economist are now my go-to sources for getting news that is as low-spin as possible.