Post AvurTGeJjNaXTcn9MG by otfrom@functional.cafe
(DIR) More posts by otfrom@functional.cafe
(DIR) Post #AvtpkTnpgZn480MWFE by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-07T19:21:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
you don’t want news organizations optimizing for viewership or subscriptions.what should they optimize for? that’s a hard question.but definitely not viewership or subscriptions.
(DIR) Post #Avtpx2ZaEkGDROgdge by admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org
2025-07-07T19:23:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity Viewership and Subscriptions are merely proxies for profit. Problem solved ;-)
(DIR) Post #Avtq1ITh2oPfvZxf9s by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-07T19:24:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@admitsWrongIfProven under current institutional arrangements.
(DIR) Post #AvtqJL0eN34UzXylkG by admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org
2025-07-07T19:27:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity Makes no sense to view this without including all the relevant factors, like readers disposition, anyway. If nobody wants to know accurate information that is relevant to them, being accurate or relevant makes no sense, even for the most altruistic journalists. So institutional factors are relevant, but far from the only constraints.
(DIR) Post #AvtqW2jBeXJo3ZrwvY by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-07T19:30:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@inertiate yes.
(DIR) Post #AvurTGeJjNaXTcn9MG by otfrom@functional.cafe
2025-07-08T07:15:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity but optimising for viewers and subscriptions has been the business model since the first newspaper put in the first advert.The only new thing is that publishers know more about which articles get the view and which adverts get the click.
(DIR) Post #AvurvuNNcZJAnOWhWq by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-08T07:20:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@otfrom i don’t think that’s right.selling and running classified ads was a lucrative business largely decoupled from subscription revenue or readership. you just had to be known as the (or one of the few) local hosts of classified ads.network TV news divisions were loss-leading prestige shops. NPR, PBS too much rely on ad-like sponsorship, but the relationship between audience size and sponsorship level is tenuous.greater degree of decoupling from audience increases possibility of quality
(DIR) Post #AvuxXBtPxNHLbm6oDY by otfrom@functional.cafe
2025-07-08T08:23:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity interesting.I found this to be an interesting take: https://business.columbia.edu/cgi-economics-policy/chazen-global-insights/historical-view-newspaper-advertisingLooking briefly at some other bits of early newspaper stuff (1700s) it looks like a lot of the printing was about directly influencing (either politically, religiously, or both) so is probably best seen directly as advertising/propaganda/evangelism.I'm not saying that a click driven news media is good for us, but I don't think we can say that it is new, just different and perhaps worse. I don't think there is a golden age of journalism worth returning to.
(DIR) Post #AvvEJfIjWEeDz15PGq by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-08T11:31:28Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@otfrom I don’t think there was a golden age, but it’s also not true all ages have been the same. This is a very different age than the late 20th Century I grew up in, in some ways better (more viewpoints get a wider hearing), but in important respects much worse (less conducive to using reason — with inevitable unfortunate biases but still — to converge upon a widely shared, pretty functional, consensus understanding of reality).
(DIR) Post #AvvGDPq8I4teCYr9pA by otfrom@functional.cafe
2025-07-08T11:52:40Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity I completely agree on there being fewer voices heard in the last quarter of the 20th century. I don't remember it being that reason driven with people like Reagan, Thatcher, Bush I, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Tipper Gore, and televangelists.I still wasn't entirely prepared for the US turn to authoritarianism (how I'd describe Bush II) into straight up white supremacist kleptocracy. I didn't expect they'd make the subtext into text and the media would be fine with it
(DIR) Post #AvvRD8JcXqCZLXiVmK by otfrom@functional.cafe
2025-07-08T11:55:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity I think living in the UK prepared me for very partisan papers aiming for eyeballs via outrage
(DIR) Post #AvvRD9hlNZ6jei1J32 by otfrom@functional.cafe
2025-07-08T12:34:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@interfluidity tho apologies if I'm drifting off the original topic too much
(DIR) Post #AvvRDASCauFpyjkOQq by interfluidity@zirk.us
2025-07-08T13:55:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@otfrom partisan papers are fine! great! but a society needs institutions that credibly adjudicate something like a shared reality. within that shared reality, people with diverging values and interests will still be very partisan! but they will have to make their cases in ways consistent with consensus about what actually exists and has occurred, or face effective discipline. that i think is what we’ve lost, however imperfect the reality adjudicating institutions genuinely were.