Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#2I would argue that independent journalists are not journalists. Journalism requires being held to a body of professional standards upheld by a common organization of other trained journalists. A lot of the problem with our current media landscape is that someone's speculative opinion piece on JoeBlowKnows.com is held in the same esteem as a fact checked, multiple source article from the New York Times. Ethical independent 'journalists' can surely exist, but lets call them what they are: bloggers.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#3They're not really independent as long as they're stuck on Substack's domain. You can export your list and maybe get some % to move to another newsletter host, but any links to past newsletters will forever be on their domain.
Substack keeps saying "eventually" on using your own, but with no clear timeline or real justification for not launching with it. Same reason I won't touch Hey.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#4Previous thinking (based on experience) was that people paid for access to a news platform rather than to individual name-brand writers. This was apparently why earlier efforts at micro-payments for articles failed and/or subscriptions failed.
Ben Smith seems to think something has changed in the market such that people are now willing to make small payments to individual writers. However Smith does not say what has changed.
I’d be curious to know what’s different this time and welcome any insight from the board.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#5I would argue that independent journalists are not journalists. Journalism requires being held to a body of professional standards upheld by a common organization of other trained journalists. A lot of the problem with our current media landscape is that someone's speculative opinion piece on JoeBlowKnows.com is held in the same esteem as a fact checked, multiple source article from the New York Times. Ethical indepe…
I respectfully disagree completely. I'm an attorney, and my profession is completely beholden to this kind of credentialism, where you can't possibly do the work if you aren't a member of the club.
I happen to believe that the work is the work, and it's done well or poorly regardless of your membership in an organization or an association. And at least for attorneys, most of the work isn't nearly as difficult as we like to pretend. It's just more lucrative for the profession to be scandalized at the idea that people who aren't trained professionals could do many of the things we do.
Journalism does require standards, but I'd say as long as the standards are adhered to, journalism is happening.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#6I would argue that independent journalists are not journalists. Journalism requires being held to a body of professional standards upheld by a common organization of other trained journalists. A lot of the problem with our current media landscape is that someone's speculative opinion piece on JoeBlowKnows.com is held in the same esteem as a fact checked, multiple source article from the New York Times. Ethical indepe…
I would argue pretty much the exact opposite, writers on substack are a step above journalism. NYT especially is an advertising company that realized people also pay to have their own views confirmed. (And when opinion columnists occasionally don't do that, lots of people comment that they're going to unsubscribe! Further proving it to them. The product isn't what's true, its whatever makes number go up.) This is obvious in all the little lies they tell that conform with how they think that their audience views the world. I can give some examples:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/international-students...
> Amid ‘Trump Effect’ Fear, 40% of Colleges See Dip in Foreign Applicants
After reading this article, do you think colleges overall are seeing a significant drop in international applicants, a significant increase, or it stayed about the same?
What actually happened: "39% of responding institutions reported a decline in international applications, 35% reported an increase, and 26% reported no change in applicant numbers."
source: https://www.aacrao.org/docs/default-source/default-document-...
Or this: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/upshot/free-market-for-ed...
After reading this article, what do you think about the general views of economists on school vouchers? Note how they couch this:
> But economists are far less optimistic about what an unfettered market can achieve in education. Only a third of economists on the Chicago panel agreed that students would be better off if they all had access to vouchers to use at any private (or public) school of their choice.
They want you to think that economist are on-net against vouchers. Now read the source: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/education/
36% agree, 37% uncertain, 18% disagree. It's not "only a third", its really that twice as many economists agree with vouchers than disagree, plus a wide amount of uncertainty.
NYT is full of this stuff. It's terrible. They constantly editorialize even factual sources to confirm the views of their anticipated readers.
Broadly speaking if the people with megaphones tell you that people with megaphones are good, and are more important than ever, and intimate that the truth is their domain, consider for a moment that it might not be. Just because someone has a megaphone does not mean they are a light-bearer, no matter what motto they put on their masthead.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#7I would argue that independent journalists are not journalists. Journalism requires being held to a body of professional standards upheld by a common organization of other trained journalists. A lot of the problem with our current media landscape is that someone's speculative opinion piece on JoeBlowKnows.com is held in the same esteem as a fact checked, multiple source article from the New York Times. Ethical indepe…
It's generous to assume that our news organisations actually do follow that kind of rigor on all non-opinion pieces all the time when there is a conflict of interest, be that political affiliation or in the presence of financial incentives.
There are countless examples of bad journalism from the NYT to Vice all the way to the links of Breitbart.
Look at the Scott Alexander case in recent days or looking further back the scandal around Johann Hari.
I think this would be a good thing and at the very worst not worse than what we have now.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#8I would argue that independent journalists are not journalists. Journalism requires being held to a body of professional standards upheld by a common organization of other trained journalists. A lot of the problem with our current media landscape is that someone's speculative opinion piece on JoeBlowKnows.com is held in the same esteem as a fact checked, multiple source article from the New York Times. Ethical indepe…
I would argue pretty much the exact opposite, writers on substack are a step above journalism. NYT especially is an advertising company that realized people also pay to have their own views confirmed. (And when opinion columnists occasionally don't do that, lots of people comment that they're going to unsubscribe! Further proving it to them. The product isn't what's true, its whatever makes number go up.) This is obv…
yes, you've just done better investigative journalism than most major news reporters these days, who hew so closely to the party line regardless of merit. i can hardly read nytimes (or listen to npr) anymore because of it. alas, they've traded away their fragile reputations for soulless clicks and cash.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#9Previous thinking (based on experience) was that people paid for access to a news platform rather than to individual name-brand writers. This was apparently why earlier efforts at micro-payments for articles failed and/or subscriptions failed. Ben Smith seems to think something has changed in the market such that people are now willing to make small payments to individual writers. However Smith does not say what has…
My take is that previous attempts were "how can we get news readers to pay", and current attempts are "what news do people who pay for news want".
And in general, if you pay for news, you want opinionated voices you can deeply trust, and whose bias you're familiar with. That's not possible on an aggregated news platform, since that by its nature will try to be all things to a fairly large group of people - you need a mass audience to pay for all the writers. Individual writers can afford a smaller audience. (Which also means they can avoid giving away much content to regularly draw an audience)
What that means for large-scale/expensive reporting is an interesting question, because the independent model doesn't work for that almost by definition.
Re: Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]
#10Previous thinking (based on experience) was that people paid for access to a news platform rather than to individual name-brand writers. This was apparently why earlier efforts at micro-payments for articles failed and/or subscriptions failed. Ben Smith seems to think something has changed in the market such that people are now willing to make small payments to individual writers. However Smith does not say what has…
>I’d be curious to know what’s different this time
possibly a more personal interaction with the people who create the content. Same reason twitch or patreon has a lot of appeal. it's a sort of community more than an actual transaction in exchange for content.
Traditional journalists and name-brand writers rarely ever entered into personal relationships with their readers and in many ways it was important to not be swayed by the readership themselves. With the rise of these independent creators it seems more like the opposite. I honestly don't think this is good for publishing necessarily because it's kind of like a mini-cult even.