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Please Pay for Your News

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Re: Please Pay for Your News

#71

Post by fancyfish »

mongol wrote: post #20

I would be prepared to pay per article. I am not eager to subscribe to any particular newspaper. I want to consume media "a la carte", not "all inclusive". Unfortunately, newspapers wants me to susbcribe and here we are.

I use Blendle for this very reason. I read from a variety of sources and don't want to pay subscriptions to all of them, since I don't read all of each paper and wouldn't get my money's worth. Happy to a few dollars for a good handful of articles, but not north of $100-$200 when I only really read one section or selected articles.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#72

Post by egonschiele »

nicharesuk wrote: post #58
egonschiele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then I'm really not sure what you are trying to say. It sounds to me like, you have tried a bunch of news sources, and none of them are as unbiased as you would like, so you would prefer the news not exist at all than exist in this state. Or maybe you are saying, you don't want to pay for the news unless it matches your expectations -- but you DO want the rest of us to pay for it so it continues to exist?

I would say, like I said, that wikipedia has been my go to and what I support because it has a HUGE reference list for each article. My question is simple where are the news sources that list as many sides of an issue and list all their sources that they pull from? I don't know where you are getting this notion that I want others to pay for something so then I can deem if it's worthy for me to pay for...

I mean, I'm with you 100%. I don't know why the news doesn't do a better job of presenting both sides of the story. I get around this by getting news from a lot of sources. It doesn't take very long either. My morning news intake:

- minnesota public radio (my local) - economist news briefing - the journal (from WSJ) - WSJ tech news briefing - up first (NPR) - the daily (nytimes).

I would LOVE to add a more conservative one into the mix here. I'm just saying, there's a difference between people updating wikipedia vs people who have a full time job that involves covering the news, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That is worth paying for. FWIW I also pay for wikipedia. But I also pay for nytimes, washington post, and the star tribune.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#73

Post by na85 »

egonschiele wrote: post #70
na85 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that matter? Advertising is repugnant. It's not my responsibility to support their unprofitable business model.

Right, but what I'm saying is this is the best choice we have right now. You are trying to choose a fantasy choice that does not exist. You current choices are: 1. Let the news die. 2. Pay for the news, suck up the fact that it has advertising. 3. Don't pay for the news and hope the rest of us pay for it so it doesn't die. Your "option 4: news without advertising" does not exist. It may in the future, but only if ENO…

I choose option 1 of course. That is objectively the best choice.

The news orgs that will survive are the ones that secure arm's length public funding such as NPR, CBC, BBC, et al.

If Fox or CNN goes bankrupt nothing of value will be lost.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#74

Post by Myrmornis »

egonschiele wrote: post #66
Myrmornis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could say what you're saying explicitly rather than implicitly? Are you saying: we should enthusiastically consume advertising in contexts where it helps pay journalists?

Sure, I can be more explicit. 1. News is very important, especially today. None of us would have known what happened to George Floyd if a bystander hadn't been there to videotape it. That's what reporters do all day every day all over the world for a million other topics. 2. News is dying. Papers are barely breaking even, and with covid-19, plenty of papers have folded altogether. 3. News is a good example of tragedy…

Thanks. I wrote my thoughts elsewhere down in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373088. I'd be interested to hear your response, even if it is highly critical :)

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#75

Post by egonschiele »

Myrmornis wrote: post #56

I don't know whether my position is morally sound, but it's at least pretty clear in my head: - I want society to support professional journalism. - There is an infinity of worthy things to read on the internet. I want to browse content from many sources. - However, it is no longer the 1990s. People don't choose a single newspaper to be delivered to their houses and open it over the breakfast table. - Accordingly, I…

Since you asked, here’s my take. I agree with all the issues you have listed. Given the choices I have now, here’s what I do.

1. I pay for nytimes, Washington post, and star tribune. This costs me around $20/month I think. I’ve wasted more on unused Linode servers.

2. I skim the headlines of all of these. Tbh I rarely find something I want to click on on nytimes and Washington post, but I do on star tribune. 3. Then I listen to podcasts. I listen to Minnesota public radio, the economist daily briefing, the intelligence, wsj tech briefing, the journal, up first, and the daily. Even here I look at the description first and see what I want to listen to. The economist and wsj ones are the best, which means I’ll probably be changing who I give money to soon.

I listen to the podcasts that sound interesting while I’m on the treadmill.

I guess I feel like there are enough options that I’ve been able to find something I like, and I give money based on that. Nytimes is a bastion of liberals, and I’m a liberal, but I don’t find it the best for me. There’s definitely some initial investment required to figure out what works for you.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#76

Post by pmarreck »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #60
pmarreck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With apologies for gently calling bullshit on this, you're basically saying the following list does not exist. Or you're saying it has "center bias," which is kind of like saying a court has "bias towards its decision". Or you're saying this domain is biased, even though it seems balanced (I've looked into it), an accusation that would of course require evidence: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center/ There is an obj…

>There is an objective truth When it comes to the issues that "news" covers for the most part, this is highly debatable (and debated) claim. There are facts that you can state, but even then, there is the choice about which ones to mention and which ones to leave out. Or even which ones to state first.

With your example you can still be misrepresenting the truth, which is essentially deception aka “lying”

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#77

Post by drewcoo »

egonschiele wrote: post #66
Myrmornis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could say what you're saying explicitly rather than implicitly? Are you saying: we should enthusiastically consume advertising in contexts where it helps pay journalists?

Sure, I can be more explicit. 1. News is very important, especially today. None of us would have known what happened to George Floyd if a bystander hadn't been there to videotape it. That's what reporters do all day every day all over the world for a million other topics. 2. News is dying. Papers are barely breaking even, and with covid-19, plenty of papers have folded altogether. 3. News is a good example of tragedy…

1. I can't remember the last time I saw video of police brutality from a reporter. Maybe never. I think that's a great example of reporters not reporting!

2. News isn't dying so much as monopolies have taken over a not-very-well-regulated industry. That kills off competition to create better product.

3. We all pay for news. They sell our eyeballs to sponsors/advertisers. They even run "news" that is actually ads to get us to buy things or vote some way. We pay for it just like we pay Google for all their "free" services.

4. Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. Either way we pay. See #3. Also either way, we complain. Just like you did.

5. I think the complaints are largely because the news coverage sucks. See #1. That's also a pretty good reason to not want to pay more for it than we already are.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#78

Post by foob4r »

notafraudster wrote: post #51

I have a lot of thoughts, but in sum I think the article doesn't say much or engage in much soul-searching or really think about the problem in a serious/interesting way. Here are a few of my thoughts: What about a patronage model? The demand for news is universal and the ability for people to pay the price of news they consume (not at all universal) lends itself better to a patronage model where a smaller number ove…

That's a good discussion, but improving the model and sustaining the institution are orthogonal.

I do agree though that a lot of the problems are structural and systemic - that also does not negate the public's negative outlook towards journalism, or the sense of entitlement (read the comments here).

I do agree though that not enough tech people who can afford to don't pay for their news. Why? IDK. How to make them? Well maybe this post will persuade a few to do that.

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#79

Post by egonschiele »

drewcoo wrote: post #77
egonschiele wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I can be more explicit. 1. News is very important, especially today. None of us would have known what happened to George Floyd if a bystander hadn't been there to videotape it. That's what reporters do all day every day all over the world for a million other topics. 2. News is dying. Papers are barely breaking even, and with covid-19, plenty of papers have folded altogether. 3. News is a good example of tragedy…

1. I can't remember the last time I saw video of police brutality from a reporter. Maybe never. I think that's a great example of reporters not reporting! 2. News isn't dying so much as monopolies have taken over a not-very-well-regulated industry. That kills off competition to create better product. 3. We all pay for news. They sell our eyeballs to sponsors/advertisers. They even run "news" that is actually ads to g…

> 1. I can't remember the last time I saw video of police brutality from a reporter. Maybe never. I think that's a great example of reporters not reporting!

Here's TWO to start you off! https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1266908874105372672 https://twitter.com/JasonLemon/status/1266529475757510656

> 2. News isn't dying so much as monopolies have taken over a not-very-well-regulated industry. That kills off competition to create better product.

Sorry, you will have to explain this more. Didn't Jeff Bezos buy the Post because they were bleeding money?

3. We all pay for news. They sell our eyeballs to sponsors/advertisers. They even run "news" that is actually ads to get us to buy things or vote some way. We pay for it just like we pay Google for all their "free" services.

Again, what do you mean by this? It seems like we have a difference of opinion where I think newspapers are struggling to survive and you do not.

4. Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. Either way we pay. See #3. Also either way, we complain. Just like you did.

See above.

5. I think the complaints are largely because the news coverage sucks. See #1. That's also a pretty good reason to not want to pay more for it than we already are.

Can you define "news coverage sucks"? What would you like to see?

Re: Please Pay for Your News

#80

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

pmarreck wrote: post #76
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is an objective truth When it comes to the issues that "news" covers for the most part, this is highly debatable (and debated) claim. There are facts that you can state, but even then, there is the choice about which ones to mention and which ones to leave out. Or even which ones to state first.

With your example you can still be misrepresenting the truth, which is essentially deception aka “lying”

If there's more than 1 fact, there has to be an order to presenting them. If that's lying, how can there be truth?
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