[HN Gopher] Facebook gives money to America's biggest news organ...
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Facebook gives money to America's biggest news organizations
Author : panic
Score : 367 points
Date : 2021-04-19 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (washingtonmonthly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (washingtonmonthly.com)
| johjohjoh wrote:
| Why? The media has been stealing all of their articles and news
| pieces by eavesdropping on people with good ideas since the
| 1950s. They don't deserve a dime of your money or Facebooks
| money.
| graeme wrote:
| It is worth remembering the Australia fiasco. The Australian
| media led by Murdoch basically shook down Facebook until they
| came to am agreement to give the media kickbacks. Then Australia
| agreed not to apply its law.
|
| The European media has also demanded payments, even though the
| value flows from sending traffic to news sites and not the other
| way around.
|
| The media seems to believe it is entitled to be send traffic AND
| to be paid for it. Common story all over the world.
|
| So, to reduce those demands in America, Facebook pays kickbacks
| to the biggest media orgs.
|
| Here, the media publication is presenting it as a grant for
| favourable coverage. But the far more likely explanation is
| Facebook knows the media will shake it down for more money unless
| it gives them a payoff.
| _rpd wrote:
| > the social media giant has been funneling money to America's
| biggest news organizations--and hanging the rest of the press
| out to dry.
|
| The complaint here doesn't seem to be that Facebook is handing
| out money, but rather that not everyone is getting a cut.
| lolinder wrote:
| Which likewise suggests that the money's purpose is to avoid
| another Australia. If the large players are all appeased, the
| small ones stand little chance of influencing Congress on
| their own.
| graeme wrote:
| And further articles like this serve the purpose of
| requesting broader payoffs.
|
| Nowhere does the article question _why_ the media gets
| money for nothing. The article assumes it is the media's
| right and the money should be increased and more widely
| distributed.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| _And that is called paying the Dane-geld;_
|
| _But we 've proved it again and again,_
|
| _That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld_
|
| _You never get rid of the Dane._
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The apocryphal Mark Twain:
|
| If You Don't Read the Newspaper You Are Uninformed, If You Do
| Read the Newspaper You Are Misinformed
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| Accurate title: "Facebook is paying the New York Times for use of
| articles."
| notlukesky wrote:
| How about "Facebook is paying off the New York Times for
| protection articles"
| eli wrote:
| Because there isn't evidence to support that headline
| nillium wrote:
| Wrote this a little while back. Most news orgs -- especially
| local -- are being set up to fail in this environment.
|
| https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...
| ignoramous wrote:
| Whilst BigTech is busy eating News institutions at the top, PE
| firms are busy devouring the bottom.
|
| https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GvtNyOzGogc
| clairity wrote:
| a little marketing tip: summarize both the rationale and the
| conclusion. it's tempting to think just one or the other is
| enough to entice the potential visitor, but no, it's much
| easier to dismiss a link if it comes off as fantastic,
| implausible, or unsupported, which is more likely when you
| leave out one or the other. it's more enticing to get an
| obvious full bite rather than an elusive nibble.
| abraxas wrote:
| Well, the robber barons of the 19th century used to buy up the
| local press. The 21st century ones are going planet scale.
| afavour wrote:
| > There's no evidence that the deal directly affects coverage in
| either the news or editorial departments. Before the Facebook
| News deal, the Times famously published an op-ed titled "It's
| Time to Break Up Facebook," by Chris Hughes, a cofounder of
| Facebook turned critic. And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu
| and Kara Swisher, among others, have been similarly critical. In
| December, the editorial board welcomed a lawsuit calling for
| Facebook to be broken up.
|
| It's kind of a throwaway passage in the article but it feels like
| a crucial point. Maybe I'm wrong but "buying off" to me strongly
| suggests something along the lines of a bribe. We're going to
| give you this cash, nudge nudge, wink wink, maybe that negative
| stuff you print about us goes away. My question is: is this
| actually happening?
|
| The core conflict here isn't new, surely. Newspapers have taken
| advertising money from news-making companies since time
| immaterial. The question has _always_ been whether that money
| affects coverage. And so far it seems like "no", or "not yet".
| And there's a very worthy debate to be had here, much as there
| always has been about advertising in news media, but the headline
| doesn't do that debate justice.
| hsitz wrote:
| > It's kind of a throwaway passage in the article but it feels
| like a crucial point. Maybe I'm wrong but "buying off" to me
| strongly suggests something along the lines of a bribe. We're
| going to give you this cash, nudge nudge, wink wink, maybe that
| negative stuff you print about us goes away. My question is: is
| this actually happening?
|
| My question is: Do you really need to ask that? Human nature is
| human nature; there's little doubt that it's happening to some
| extent. Virtually impossible that it's not happening at all.
|
| The problem to me seems quite similar to campaign contributions
| in politics. Yes, it's indirect, and all parties can say it's
| innocent, no strings attached, the elected representative is
| not "required" to do anything. Those are words that help people
| ignore the reality of human nature. Money is influence.
| dlp211 wrote:
| This is why the business side and news side of (quality) news
| papers have been historically kept separate. It also leads to
| perceived "weirdness" to readers when they see a paper taking
| money from a corporation to run an advertisement alongside an
| article critical of said corporation.
|
| This isn't to invalidate your point completely, but to give
| some insight to those who are not aware of how this conflict
| of interest has been generally handled.
| hsitz wrote:
| Yes, of course, I agree. And it doesn't invalidate my point
| at all. I would say that you're pointing out the problem
| that people don't understand how important it is to avoid
| conflicts of interest, and that we need systems in place to
| minimize it.
|
| The case of Donald Trump is a perfect example. He had
| conflicts of interest galore, didn't even deny them, in
| fact he flouted them, and many people seemed to think
| everything was fine.
|
| We need to be aware not only of the existence of conflicts
| of interest, but also of (1) how corrosive these conflicts
| are, and (2) the crucial importance of designing systems to
| minimize the bad incentives and effects that arise from
| conflicts of interest. Systems, in other words, that
| minimize the harm that -- because of human nature --
| inevitably flows even from well-intentioned people when
| conflicts of interest are tolerated.
| imgabe wrote:
| > My question is: Do you really need to ask that?
|
| Yes, you really need to ask that. When accusing someone of
| misconduct you really do need to ask if it is really
| happening and not just hand wave about human nature and make
| judgements based on untested assumptions. You really _really_
| can't just go along with whatever fits your biases.
| mola wrote:
| You can't know what they didn't publish. So how can you know
| there's no influence? How do you know the NYT doesn't use theis
| bad coverage as leverage in some negotiations? Your attitude is
| very naive.
| donohoe wrote:
| The news/reporting side of the organization and the Opinion
| group are very very separate.
|
| It's important to look at the news gathering side. Reporters
| don't take to being told to 'go easy on this group cos we have
| business ties' - that usually provides the opposite response.
| kgog wrote:
| This x1000.
|
| Although on HN, the core message is "media bad, cos good" so
| I doubt that people will want to understand how media orgs
| actually work.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Sure, reporters don't like it, but it doesn't matter, because
| editors decide what ultimately gets printed.
| longchen wrote:
| ...
| minimuffins wrote:
| These discussions often miss the point and get bogged down in
| trying to prove or disprove individual instances of bias or
| censorship.
|
| The problem for me is prior to all of that.
|
| If the New York Times (say) lacks financial independence, then
| it will always be structurally indebted to whoever foots the
| bill. It's just a matter of fact built into the nature of the
| relationship between the two entities.
|
| Facebook executives may not have established the relationship
| simply to "buy off" the Times. I imagine most of them have a
| real commitment to "fixing the news" in their hearts. But it
| doesn't matter.
|
| If news agencies depend on organizations outside of themselves
| for the basic necessities of their existence and reproduction,
| then they aren't independent. They are dependent on those
| organizations, by definition. What they can report on now has
| conditions and limits. I want to emphasize that this is a
| restriction on what it is *possible* to report on. It might not
| ever produce a distinction that you could easily measure. This
| is a different, and worse, problem than Facebook purchasing
| some flattering reporting. Facebook now (obscurely, tacitly)
| sets the structural conditions (without having to explicitly
| state any rules or appear to be a bad guy in any way).
|
| It's not hard to think of an example of reporting which could
| become impossible under these conditions. Imagine if the Times,
| due to some public outcry, or for whatever reason, took a major
| rhetorical turn toward combating digital surveillance, just
| like they did in the last year with racism and issues of
| cultural morality. A sudden "moral clarity" emerged around
| topics that the paper used to try to be neutral about.
|
| Whether you like those developments or not, I imagine most
| people will agree that the employees of the New York Times, not
| executives at Facebook, or anybody else, should decide the
| course of the Times' reporting. An existential financial
| dependence will of course condition all reporting on the
| maintenance of that dependence.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"My question is: is this actually happening?"
|
| I think what is happening is they are buying their ability to
| publish news. Once accomplished you will see plenty of those
| "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" I think.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Tech blogs are regularly bribed for good coverage, and tech
| companies are known for doing it. Nobody bloody cares about
| integrity of journalism.
|
| The Verge has historically been very favorable to Apple and
| Google. Why? They get exclusive interviews with Google and
| Apple executives. An interview with Sundar Pichai is worth
| millions in ad revenue, and if a blog is too critical of a
| company, they won't get interviews. Offering an interview to a
| news outlet is really not significantly different from cutting
| them a check.
|
| Apple has been known for pretty much cutting out any site that
| dares to step out of line. I think whatever is left of Gizmodo
| is still banned from Apple events after Gizmodo reported about
| getting hands on a prototype iPhone.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism._
|
| There's a gigantic difference between tech blogs and the NYT
| or WaPo.
|
| Nobody expects tech blogs to exercise journalistic
| independence/integrity.
|
| People do with the NYT and WaPo, and loudly cancel their
| subscriptions when the believe that's violated.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Tech blogs are about as independent as news sources get, so
| no, they are very much expected to act that way.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| ? In what world? Tech blogs seem to have the most obvious
| industry ties of most media
| ironmagma wrote:
| Of course they're obvious -- that's good. With larger
| players, you have no idea who they're being paid by (as
| shown, for instance, in the crux of this article). In
| contrast, with "new media" (e.g. a podcast), I can be
| reasonably confident they are only being paid by a few
| key sponsors, and that's public knowledge on account of
| them having purchased ad space.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| They're also very small and therefore more easily bribed
| or crushed, whichever tactic is needed to get them in
| line
| ironmagma wrote:
| The fact they're small means they're more easily
| abandoned, though.
| ecommerceguy wrote:
| > Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism. >>
| People do with the NYT and WaPo,
|
| For me neither of those newspapers have integrity at all.
|
| Edit: there is ample evidence of both "newspapers" flat out
| lying; what I would call straight out propaganda as if they
| are part of an agenda. I doubt downvoters will want to
| debate me but if any of you have the guts please reach out.
| It'll be an easy win for me.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I kinda disagree with the idea tech blogs aren't real
| journalism or shouldn't be held to the same journalism
| standards. Especially with revenue on print media declining
| as much as it has, I'd say smaller blogs tend to do a lot
| of the deep original research online that many news
| organizations would've traditionally done. A blog like The
| Verge is often the original source of major revelations
| about tech companies and their behaviors.
|
| Furthermore, while one might consider tech blogs a niche
| area, we consider Amazon, the world's largest retailer, a
| "tech company", so as "tech companies" start dominating
| major traditional verticals, "tech news" starts to just...
| be "news".
| crazygringo wrote:
| Here's the difference as I see it: major fact-based
| independent news outlets like the NYT, WaPo, etc. are
| essential for democracy. We rely on them for essential
| reporting about war, corruption, scandals, everything we
| need to make informed decisions at the voting booth. We
| expect them to report "both sides of the story".
|
| Industry news is different. We often expect blogs,
| authors, etc. to be openly pro- or anti- on certain
| subjects, to be given favorable treatment by companies,
| etc. We expect them to be "editorial". Such journalism
| can be openly one-sided.
|
| Reporting on the war in Afghanistan is fundamentally
| different from a review of the Oculus Quest 2.
|
| That isn't to say tech blogs can't report unbiased, hard-
| hitting news. They sometimes do, and that's wonderful.
|
| But I do believe that our general societal expectation is
| that industry news sources are free to (and often
| expected to) editorialize without a hard wall between
| news and editorials, while independent objective news
| outlets are expected to maintain that hard wall.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _People do with the NYT and WaPo, and loudly cancel their
| subscriptions when the believe that 's violated._
|
| Nowadays, they mostly cancel their subscriptions when they
| get to read some opinion they don't like.
| makomk wrote:
| That seems a little too optimistic. Nowadays, they cancel
| their subscriptions when they get to read some fact they
| don't like. For example, back in the run-up to the 2016
| election there was an utterly nutso, completely
| nonsensical conspiracy theory about Trump using DNS as a
| secret communications channel with a Russian bank and,
| for some reason, a US medical clinic which the Clinton
| campaign demanded the FBI investigate. After that demand
| went viral on social media, the NYT pushed back in the
| gentlest way possible by saying the FBI had looked at
| these claims and concluded all the evidence was likely
| the result of normal mass marketing emails for Trump
| hotels. (This is also what most experts concluded
| regardless of political affiliation. Other problems
| included the fact it would've made a really awful
| communication channel and wasn't even remotely under
| Trump's control.) Some time later, there was such a
| pushback against this including a campaign of cancelled
| subscriptions, that the Times basically ended up
| apologising and saying they wouldn't do it again.
|
| To this day, the only part of this that has been called a
| conspiracy theory by any mainstream publication is the
| idea that the whole thing could be an entirely
| technically unremarkable result of ordinary mass
| marketing emails for Trump hotels.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Is this the case? The NYT seemed much more reasonable on
| the Russia stuff than say, most cable news.
|
| > the Times basically ended up apologising and saying
| they wouldn't do it again.
|
| This did not happen. I'm assuming you're referring to
| this passage from an article two years later:
|
| > The key fact of the article -- that the F.B.I. had
| opened a broad investigation into possible links between
| the Russian government and the Trump campaign -- was
| published in the 10th paragraph.
|
| > A year and a half later, no public evidence has
| surfaced connecting Mr. Trump's advisers to the hacking
| or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government's
| disruptive efforts. But the article's tone and headline
| -- "Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link
| to Russia" -- gave an air of finality to an investigation
| that was just beginning.
|
| > Democrats say that article pre-emptively exonerated Mr.
| Trump, dousing chances to raise questions about the
| campaign's Russian ties before Election Day.
|
| > Just as the F.B.I. has been criticized for its handling
| of the Trump investigation, so too has The Times.
|
| This is not "apologising and saying they wouldn't do it
| again."
|
| I agree that the term "conspiracy theory" is not used in
| a balanced way. Mainstream democrat theories that turn
| out to be without merit just stop being reported on (such
| as the Steele Dossier), whereas theories from either left
| or right fringe generally are called conspiracy theories.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| The Verge regularly publishes pieces critical of apple and
| google? this is from less than a week ago:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/13/22370158/google-ai-
| ethics...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would say I've seen more critical pieces lately. I think
| over the last couple of years, a lot of this has broken
| down because of _just how egregious_ corporate behavior has
| gotten. But especially around 2015-2016, it was palpable
| how much Verge was holding their tongue in articles
| especially in the months around Sundar Pichai interviews.
| jsnell wrote:
| > An interview with Sundar Pichai is worth millions in ad
| revenue,
|
| Uh, say again?
|
| Let's guess at a CPM of $10, and "millions" to be "2
| million". That would be 200 million hits. You seriously think
| that an interview with a tech CEO whom few normal people will
| have heard of is going to have double the audience of the
| Superbowl?
|
| I'd bet that in reality interviews with tech execs do
| horribly when it comes to generating traffic, but are done
| for the prestige of publishing something that looks like
| traditional journalism.
| [deleted]
| goodoldneon wrote:
| There are reputational benefits that are hard to quantify.
| Getting interviews with big names legitimizes you, which
| probably increases views on other articles
| elaus wrote:
| I don't know if it's really "worth millions", but I think
| you're missing aspects besides CPM. Having an interview
| with such a well-known person gives your blog a lot of
| credibility that you can leverage, e.g. when making deals
| with sponsors.
| readams wrote:
| I actually stopped reading the Verge because of how
| relentlessly negative they were about everything related to
| tech. Which for a tech blog is sort of weird. So not sure
| what you mean about favorable coverage there.
| neonological wrote:
| Anybody know of a good news source that doesn't fall into
| this trap? I hear the economist is pretty good.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The Economist has a history of lies and falsehoods by
| omission when it comes to foreign policy and international
| coverage. Anywhere from their Bolivia, Venezuela, Libya,
| Iraq, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Syria, Chile (the
| editor openly boasted of delivering the coup) and so much
| more. They are often a bit more nuanced compared to coup
| and regime change lovers like Fox, Washington Post, and the
| NY. Times.
| passivate wrote:
| Can you explain more about the 'history of lies and
| falsehoods by omission'? I am not familiar with the
| specific articles about the countries you listed. Can you
| give a few examples? Ideally if we could compare/contrast
| articles with other outlets you think are more credible
| that would probably help!
| reedjosh wrote:
| Move to purely user funded media.
|
| One of my favorite yet least controversial is:
| https://congressionaldish.com/
|
| But it's not hard to find user funded media for all manner
| of topics.
|
| Edit: Also https://reader.substack.com/inbox
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Then the publication has to please its readers, not
| telling them news they don't want to hear. Imagine a
| user-funded source publishing negative news about the
| GameStop mob.
| [deleted]
| lukifer wrote:
| > Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism.
|
| To offer a bit more nuance: consumers care about _enough_
| integrity; and powerful institutions (public or private), who
| stand to win or lose based on press narratives, care about
| _enough_ "fairness" to their own perspectives (and
| interests).
|
| Looking purely at _realpolitik_ incentives, journalistic
| institutions can straddle that line and hit well over 50% on
| both fronts. Not to pick on the guy, but my poster child for
| this phenomenon is Daring Fireball 's John Gruber: he's built
| a longstanding personal brand of integrity, covering Apple-
| centric tech for 20 years, and is frequently critical of the
| company and its products. And yet, he's frequently given
| preferential treatment by the company and its executives,
| because that same history has also signaled a (heartfelt)
| bias to being sympathetic to Apple's values and motives,
| meaning execs have a high confidence that reviews will be
| fair, interviews will be free of the scariest "gotcha"
| questions, etc.
| adrian_mrd wrote:
| This is what is referred to as 'access journalism' and
| indeed, it's heavily prescient in technology - as it is in
| music, showbiz, sports, as well.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| And politics and international coverage
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I would pay for high-integrity tech journalism, and I'm
| surprised that many more don't do the same. Many of our
| businesses depend on that information.
| TomMckenny wrote:
| > so far it seems like "no", or "not yet"
|
| On the contrary, it does indeed and has been known to do so for
| many decades [0,1]
|
| Indeed, in Citizens United, SCOTUS in the concurring opinion
| claimed the founders intent in the 1st amendment was to allow
| monied interests to own and influence media for political
| purposes.
|
| The question is not whether distortion exists but how prevalent
| it is.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#News_media_and_pr
| ...
| slg wrote:
| >The core conflict here isn't new, surely. Newspapers have
| taken advertising money from news-making companies since time
| immaterial.
|
| And if you can find a viable alternative to this, your company
| will be worth hundreds of millions if not billions of
| dollars[1]. The internet has killed the classifieds business
| and commoditized news to the point that most people won't pay
| for it. Accepting advertising from potentially news-making
| companies is hugely important to keeping news organizations
| afloat. Vilifying it whenever it happens is potentially
| dangerous and we should really wait to level these accusations
| until there is actual evidence of wrongdoing.
|
| [1] - https://www.axios.com/substack-andreessen-horowitz-
| newslette...
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I have paid for news, even going so far as to buy a printed
| newspaper, but frankly most of it is worthless: crime reports
| that doesn't matter, a bunch of opinions by people, etc.
|
| Online most are just reprinting Reuters.
|
| I would pay for insight that I can use and exclusive
| (relevant) news, sadly investigative journalism is too
| expensive.
| smooth_remmy wrote:
| Have you tried pay for business intelligence reports? Those
| are still "news" and they have a strong financial incentive
| to tell the truth
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What news source are you referring to? That doesn't
| describe most publications, online or offline, such as the
| NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or the
| Washington Monthly, where the OP article is published. It
| doesn't describe many local publications I know of.
|
| Certainly there are some publications that fit the
| description, but we have many, many alternatives.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "If you don't take money from companies you have a conflict
| of interest with, it's dangerous! Think of the children!" I'm
| sorry but I may have exaggerated for humorous effect, but
| your line of reasoning I reject outright.
|
| There are ways to do this effectually. This is not that way.
| slg wrote:
| This is the New York Times we are talking about. Literally
| everything is within their reporting purview. Who can they
| possibly accept money from that won't present a potential
| conflict of interest?
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Not freaking the Evil Empire of companies would be a
| great start.
| ipaddr wrote:
| NYT provides national coverage. By only accepting and
| showing regional or local ads this problem can be
| avoided.
| slg wrote:
| National stories are also often regional and local
| stories. I just pulled up the NYT website. The top story
| is the Derek Chauvin trial which is certainly also a
| local story in Minneapolis. The second from the top
| Opinion piece is about the NYC mayoral race. Does that
| mean that NYT shouldn't be able to accept any advertising
| dollars from those markets?
| ipaddr wrote:
| What is great about the regional model is the large
| number of regions which removes the need to not accept
| from a regiin. In your example Minneapolis is one of many
| cities the pressure local ad dollars never makes it's way
| to the editorial board.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Their readers and only their readers otherwise no trust
| should be given to their reporting. News is worth what
| people pay for it, and if no one is willing to pay for it
| then we won't get any real reporting.
| lupire wrote:
| Sounds you have beef with the readers for not paying
| enough, and with non-readers who freeload off
| investigative journalism's social benefits, and with and
| plagiarizers like Business Insider. Has a major paper
| _ever_ not been ad-supported?
| CivBase wrote:
| I've re-read your post a few times and I'm sure it wasn't
| your intention, but it keeps reading to me like "bad things
| have become the normal and people should stop pointing it
| out". Whether or not there is a better solution, I think
| there are clearly dangers inherent to monetizing news with ad
| revenue and I think there is value in keeping a careful eye
| on them.
| slg wrote:
| Yes, I agree that there are dangers. However is there any
| evidence of the dangers being a reality in this instance?
| The article directly says there is no evidence. If there is
| no evidence, why is this story specifically about the NYT
| and Facebook?
|
| There is also danger involved in shaming the NYT for
| accepting ad money and in turn having them cut coverage in
| response to decreased revenue. There are plenty of examples
| of that.
|
| I am more concerned with the danger we have evidence of
| rather than the one we don't.
| CivBase wrote:
| > However is there any evidence of the dangers being a
| reality in this instance?
|
| Are we specifically talking about a news organization
| softening its coverage on a sponsor? There aren't any
| examples which spring directly to mind, but there are
| countless examples of other organizations doing this.
| Politicians being bought-out by businesses and lobbyists
| is nothing new. Platforms like YouTube have crafted and
| modified content policies specifically to appeal to their
| sponsors.
|
| News organizations benefit from maintaining an appearance
| of trustworthiness. If they modified their content for
| the benefit of a sponsor, they would obviously try to be
| very discrete about it. Is it a stretch to imagine it has
| or could easily happen? Especially if people stop
| worrying out it? Other than reputation, is there anything
| else to counteract that motivation?
|
| > If there is no evidence, why is this story specifically
| about the NYT and Facebook?
|
| As for the NYT/Facebook thing in particular, it doesn't
| strike me as being inherently worse than any other
| sponsorship deal. I'm not worried about it in particular
| so much as I am generally concerned with how dependent
| news is on ad revenue in general. I'm not vouching for
| the credibility of this story, but I'm worried that your
| comment is too dismissive of the broader subject.
|
| > There is also danger involved in shaming the NYT for
| accepting ad money and in turn having them cut coverage
| in response to decreased revenue. There are plenty of
| examples of that.
|
| I don't know about this. I think whenever an organization
| is dependent on another for revenue, they risk appearing
| less impartial towards that organization. I see HN
| comments accusing Mozilla of appearing to be less
| impartial towards Google because of their relationship
| all the time, despite Mozilla directly competing with and
| regularly speaking out against Google.
|
| News outlets benefit from an appearance of impartiality
| and revenue partnership they form with a third-party
| comes with a risk of damaging that appearance. It's up to
| the NYT to convince readers they can be trusted with the
| partnerships they've made. Frankly, I think they've
| probably built up enough of a reputation that this
| particular deal wont hurt them much, if not benefit them.
|
| > I am more concerned with the danger we have evidence of
| rather than the one we don't.
|
| I'm also more concerned with the dangers we have. That
| doesn't mean I can't keep an eye out for the dangers
| which could be. Even if this particular danger hasn't yet
| manifested, there is clear motivation for it and
| precedent for it in other markets.
| slg wrote:
| >There aren't any examples which spring directly to mind,
| but there are countless examples of other organizations
| doing this. Politicians being bought-out by businesses
| and lobbyists is nothing new.
|
| This specifically is a great jumping off point to
| highlight why this is less of a problem in journalism. In
| politics, the person accepting the money is the same one
| who is acting. The politician shows up the oil industry
| fundraiser one day and is voting on climate change
| regulation the next. Bias will exist there even if it
| isn't conscious or intentional.
|
| It works differently in journalism. From the outside we
| see the NYT as a single entity, but that isn't the case
| from the inside. There is a strict firewall between the
| business and editorial staffs at any reputable news org.
| The people who sell the ads or count the money are not
| the same people who choose what is covered or write the
| stories (this can change at smaller outlets and blogging
| changed some of this online, but the basic premise still
| holds). Anyone who has been to journalism schools has
| been taught the importance of this separation. Most
| journalists feel very strongly about this separation and
| they often speak out when it is violated.
| CivBase wrote:
| That is an excellent point. I wasn't aware there was a
| distinct separation like that. If a news outlet can
| demonstrate that their publishing arm is organizationally
| unaffected by influence from their business arm, that
| would alleviate a lot of my concern about the ad revenue
| model. I do think it will fall on the organizations
| themselves to demonstrate and advertise that separation,
| though. If they can't/won't do that, I don't have much
| sympathy for any loss of reputation which comes from
| deals like this.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The internet destroyed newspapers ability to milk classified
| ads so we should look the other way when journals get in bed
| with the newsmakers? Wait until we have overwhelming proof
| because the system isn't working?
|
| But things are working for the Times not so much for regional
| players. How does this help us?
| slg wrote:
| >Wait until we have overwhelming proof because the system
| isn't working?
|
| Where did that word "overwhelming" come from? I want us to
| wait until there is any proof rather than screaming "WOLF!"
| at a mere shadow. I will highlight this from the originally
| linked article:
|
| >There's no evidence that the deal directly affects
| coverage in either the news or editorial departments.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The lack of a frontpage story since the deal on the evils
| of facebook today is proof that they are not publishing
| the same type of articles.
|
| If you are waiting for smoking gun evidence by the time
| that comes out we won't care. We will be conditioned to
| accept it as the norm by then. Now is the time to speak
| up.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Vilifying it whenever it happens is potentially dangerous
| and we should really wait to level these accusations until
| there is actual evidence of wrongdoing.
|
| Everything makes sense except for this. The fact that a
| business model being broken has caused standards to slip
| isn't a reason not to point out slipped standards.
|
| Also, the fallacy that there will always be some physical
| evidence of corruption has to die. Every single business or
| agency I have ever worked for has formal and informal
| policies about what can be spoken about in media that has a
| retention policy, especially if they were liable to FOIA
| requests. The only way you get evidence of that stuff is
| through making secret recordings (which is why people don't
| talk on the phone about this stuff either.)
|
| It's the appearance of corruption that should be penalized,
| not the ephemeral evidence of it.
| slg wrote:
| >The fact that a business model being broken has caused
| standards to slip isn't a reason not to point out slipped
| standards.
|
| What "standards" are you referring to here? Is it standards
| of the quality of reporting? Has that actually slipped?
| Where is the evidence for that? If not, is it truly a
| problem if the standards of appearance have slipped while
| there is no actual change in the quality of the work?
|
| >Also, the fallacy that there will always be some physical
| evidence of corruption has to die.
|
| Who said the evidence needed to be physical? I don't need a
| smoking gun email or a covert recording. Verbal testimony
| is evidence too. Where are the anecdotes from former NYT
| journalists about being told to kill stories about
| corporate partners?
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| How does it seem like "no" or "not yet". We will never know
| what even worst news would've come up if they weren't getting
| bribed.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It 's kind of a throwaway passage in the article but it
| feels like a crucial point. Maybe I'm wrong but "buying off" to
| me strongly suggests something along the lines of a bribe.
| We're going to give you this cash, nudge nudge, wink wink,
| maybe that negative stuff you print about us goes away. My
| question is: is this actually happening?_
|
| All the time. Using both direct bribes to journalists, friendly
| favors to the owners of the newspaper, and more often than not
| advertising money (which can be open from the company looking
| for favorable coverage itself, or through 1-2 layers of
| subsidies and shell companies which nobody can/will track).
| op03 wrote:
| The AP's NORC Center for Public Affairs Research recent report
| on Trust in American Media shows no one gives a fig what the
| NYT thinks, especially what its critical of -
| https://apnorc.org/projects/a-new-way-of-looking-at-trust-in...
| xxpor wrote:
| The public's perception isn't what's important. It's what
| people in DC think. And they read the NYT op-ed page.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Politicians in DC think, voters in DC are the last people
| asked.
| johjohjoh wrote:
| It doesn't. This isn't how American media is made; this is just
| another money grab by desperate media outlets who are used to
| getting massive revenue that isn't going to be there in a 10
| years.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/NetflixBestOf/comments/dob8pq/discu...
| js2 wrote:
| The headline is provocative, as headlines often are.
|
| The article also focuses heavily on the Times but mentions that
| FB has these deals with other publishers too. To the extent
| that there's ire in the article, I think it would be better
| focused on Facebook.
|
| The ad-supported business model of newspapers has always been
| problematic. In theory there's a firewall between the business
| side and the journalists, but my faith that this is the case is
| reduced when orgs like the NYT get rid of their public editor.
|
| The NDA between FB and the publishers is really gross. It
| shackles the NYT from covering itself and keeps the various
| orgs that have this deal from reporting about it on each other.
| It's not a good sign when the NYT can't hold the WSJ
| accountable. This part is weird tho:
|
| > Facebook has been funneling money to The New York Times, The
| Washington Post, _The Wall Street Journal_ , ABC News,
| Bloomberg, and other select paid partners since late 2019.
| [...] The exact terms of these deals remain secret, because
| Facebook insisted on nondisclosure and the news organizations
| agreed. _The Wall Street Journal_ reported that the agreements
| were worth as much as $3 million a year...
|
| So the WSJ is reporting on the deal despite signing the NDA?
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu and Kara Swisher ..."
|
| Those two individuals are both Op-Ed writers. The Opinion
| section in a paper is not the same as regular news reporting
| and so not beholden to a newspaper's editorial policy.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed
| saas_sam wrote:
| Really? Tom Cotton might beg to differ.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| The question of whether money affects coverage is among those
| which are incredibly difficult to find evidence for without a
| smoking gun. There's no direct proof in whether a given story
| supports or hurts a financier. I'm stretching for an example
| but there is circumstantial evidence the interactions between
| various macro ecosystems push conditions of earth's biosphere
| toward homeostasis, but suggesting this is deterministic is not
| substantiated by any known directly testable phenomena. Until
| we decode latent genetic algorithms, it'll remain speculation.
| Likewise we're left only with speculation in the absence of an
| explicit, "run story or we pull funding" type memo.
|
| That said a lot of economics tends to make sense when examined
| through a lens of incentives. There has been an observable
| shift toward radicalization of news content since this article
| indicates FB began funding its news feature. Opinion pieces
| seem to often displace primary stories based on whether they
| suit a dominant hyperbolic narrative. Whether by FB design or
| simply a natural response to the soaring appeal of hyperbolic
| click bait favored by social news aggregation is anybody's
| guess.
|
| I will say I am appalled by a lack of accountability the Times
| has had over the last year. For example regularly publishing
| summary statistics without acknowledging significant sampling
| problems, figures any self-respecting statistician would never
| consider submitting for academic review are still regularly
| passed off as fact. Moreover discourse regarding what
| constitutes effective policy, consideration of cost and
| benefit, or even determination of what society's goals are let
| alone whether they are realistic has been contemptuously
| derided as conspiracy and dogma of the Trumpian cult. Without
| rational discourse there is little hope for progress, and in
| that regard I arrived at my own foregone conclusions, that the
| hyperbolic nature of news media is one of the most significant
| barriers to positive change we face as a society.
|
| On that note, if you find yourself buying into a fear of
| outsiders you might want to reconsider the fact most people
| share the same fundamental values and our differences between
| one another is often negligible. Believe it or not beyond the
| lazy opinions about issues scantly related to every day life,
| the average liberal and conservative have exactly the same
| amount of love for their friends and family. We often simply
| disagree regarding the means to similar ends. As a single
| global society we all face the same problems, but our biggest
| problem right now is spanning the distance we've created
| between coming together socially as friends and colleagues.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think we shouldn't be naive about how money works to
| influence actions.
|
| Proving the quid pro quo is hard, but just the knowledge that
| the money is there and can go away at the whim of a private
| actor will having a chilling effect on the sort of content you
| report on.
|
| Journalistic entities have an incentive to project an image of
| an unbiased, principles institution untouched by the private
| business world, but as someone who was raised by two editors,
| that narrative is more mythos than reality.
| reedjosh wrote:
| This can be seen easily via pharma adds on major news
| networks. It's not like anybody's ever asked their doctor
| after witnessing the list of side effects scroll by.
|
| Pharma ads as the #1 advertiser on major network news
| channels is purely to reign in negative press.
|
| The very idea of consuming news wherein the primary funding
| comes from a third party is absurd, but it's what people are
| used to.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| No idea why you are being downvoted but this is quite well
| known and acknowledged.
|
| https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/27/media/bloomberg-news-
| wells-...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Miramax was over 10 percent of the ad spend in the NY Times in
| the early 2000s. They conveniently killed the story of Harvey
| Weinstein (head of Miramax) then:
|
| https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill...
| [deleted]
| granzymes wrote:
| > creates the impression that Facebook is a normal, legitimate
| business rather than a monopolistic rogue corporation
|
| Incendiary claims.
| donohoe wrote:
| Judge for yourself:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=facebook&...
|
| Just note what is "Opinion" and what is "News". Opinion will
| always blow different says, but the reported news stories will be
| critical as necessary.
| olivermarks wrote:
| I think we need new laws to make public funding of the media by
| interests who will benefit from a blind eye or active promotion
| of their goals much more visible.
|
| NPR is now heavily compromised by endless donations from
| foundations but still implies its products are funded 'by people
| like you'. At least they say 'made possible by a grant from the
| Warbucks Oligarch foundation' along with a cute little
| advertising line about philanthropy, making the world a better
| place etc etc.
|
| We need a lot more transparency. The Gates Foundation, which
| significantly funds the BBC, Guardian, NPR, and similar
| situations such as GMO bigPharma messaging, need to be made to
| publicly and prominently declare their interests and their
| agendas declared.
|
| 'Access' media is a huge problem because it purports to be
| unbiased when in actuality it is heavily agenda driven. In the
| case of Facebook & the NYT this is a very serious situation that
| further undermines what little is left of the NYT's credibility.
| kgog wrote:
| Might it be time to support LJSA?
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7640
| olivermarks wrote:
| i support that! Also this
| https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/pay-per-day
| minikites wrote:
| Facebook would have to be stupid to _not_ be bribing everyone in
| sight, it 's not like anyone is going punish them. Anyone who
| still uses the site must think it's a good deal and additional
| information clearly won't change their mind at this point. The US
| government can't regulate any corporation without 50% of the
| population losing their shit at "big government overreach".
| There's no mechanism beyond those two to affect change in a
| corporation.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Let us be real, folks:
|
| - You are reading this comment.
|
| - You are _likely_ highly or fairly paid.
|
| - You don't pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn't
| count)
|
| Edit: Added likely to comment. Icing on the cake is if you
| consume almost all your news through Twitter / social media.
|
| Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop and reflect
| your role in all this?
|
| Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great
| scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with
| information distribution in one way or another through their
| employment.
| ds206 wrote:
| Why do you think substack doesn't count as paying for news?
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Substack (to me) is more of a lens you put on to consume the
| news. Multiple other use cases but most people are paying and
| trusting someone to filter the noise for them.
|
| If they realize it or not.
| andreilys wrote:
| The same can be said of NYT, WaPo, etc.
|
| most are taking stories that have already broken and adding
| their own spin on it, often to score points for whatever
| tribal team they represent
| garbagetime wrote:
| I'm not paid at all, and I do pay for my news.
| bogwog wrote:
| > Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great
| scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues
| with information distribution in one way or another through
| their employment.
|
| That's bullshit. The current state of affairs came about due to
| Facebook and Google's actions and business practices over the
| past two decades. Both of these companies massive scale
| (obtained in large part due to anti-competitive practices and a
| total lack of regulation) and reach gives them complete control
| over what we consume and where.
|
| It's a long history with a lot of different parts to it, but
| it's mostly the fault of these two companies. Consumers can't
| be blamed for seeking the most value in the market, it's just
| that the market is fucked because of these two powerful bad
| actors.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > You don't pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn't
| count) ... Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop
| and reflect your role in all this?
|
| I have - well, not now, but a long time ago - and because of
| that, I pay for much of my news.
|
| However it is not true, IMO, that "we caused the problem",
| because disorganized news consumers have less of a pull on what
| happens than organized, conscious forces like large companies
| involved in news media (well before Facebook, see my other
| comment).
|
| PS - I'm not from the US.
| airstrike wrote:
| What are my alternatives, really? Be part of the very small
| subset of NYT readers who actually pay for it and still have
| access to the virtually the exact same content? I'd rather pay
| for something fully paywalled like the WSJ
| stainforth wrote:
| I advocate for publicly funded journalism, elections, etc. but
| our legislators are already captured as well. And yeah if that
| means higher tax revenue to support that then that's just what
| we have to do.
| CivBase wrote:
| Serious question: which news organizations should I consider
| paying for?
|
| It appears like a negative feedback loop to me. News orgs are
| bad because they optimize for clicks and "engagement" to drive
| ad revenue. News works rely on ad revenue because nobody will
| pay for them. Nobody will pay for them because they're bad.
|
| Is there anyone who hasn't succumbed to this cycle which is
| worth my money?
|
| My current strategy is to visit aggregators like HN to help
| filter out some of the better content. Aggregators are subject
| to the biases of the communities they foster so I have to be
| very careful of echo chambers, but they're better than nothing.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I pay for multiple print subscriptions but I see your point.
|
| What's free often proves most costly. Less fortunate people
| can't afford to pay and consume whatever is shoveled into them
| for free. Moneyed interests can afford to subsidize bullshit.
| gpvos wrote:
| I pay for several of my main news sources, but I can't possibly
| pay for all of the news websites I occasionally read articles
| from until either micropayments are made to work or some other
| solution is found.
| screye wrote:
| > to a partisan substack doesn't count
|
| Ouch, that hurts. But, there really isn't any difference
| between secondary-source news outlets and a substack. The
| substack just allows me to know exactly what I'm getting. In a
| world where there is no such thing as neural or fair, the most
| we can do is promote those that are transparent and thoughtful.
|
| > You don't pay for your news
|
| I do pay good journalistic outlets. ThePrint in India charges
| me $10 a month, but they routinely produce good quality Indian
| news. They also openly declare a 'economically liberal,
| socially liberal' for their editorials and it is rare to find
| that kind of openness.
|
| I would've paid for the Economist if I read it more often. I
| would've had an opinion on WSJ if I read it at all. Reuters has
| deteriorated a bit, but they provide first sources which is
| indispensable for the entire industry. But those 3 would be the
| closest mainstream new outlets that I'd consider paying for.
|
| With how blatantly partisan NYT, WaPo, Guardian and the likes
| have become, it is hard to justify giving them a single cent of
| my hard earned money. Especially when they hide behind a veneer
| of fairness, prestige and even-handedness.
| freeflight wrote:
| That's making a lot of assumptions about people on HN, all to
| basically say this [0]
|
| If you want to stereotype the typical HN user, then I'd be
| willing to bet money the average HN user is more aware about
| the dangers, problems and short-comings of social media than
| the average FB user.
|
| Mostly because there are only a couple of million people
| reading HN, even fewer actually participating, while FB has
| billions of active users, the vast majority of which are
| complete laymen about tech. A rather big number of them see FB
| as synonymous with the web, as in a lot of developing countries
| FB struck deals with mobile-carriers so FB traffic won't count
| into the data caps.
|
| Compared to that, the HN crowd is tiny and while they are more
| likely to be employed in the tech sector, it's a bit misleading
| trying to ascribe collective guilt to HN as if every single FB
| employee hangs out here to get inspiration. Case in point: I
| don't even work in tech, I work in healthcare.
|
| In that context I really don't see how not even a handful of
| million people would be able to influence the behavior of
| billions of people on a completely different platform, the
| biggest platform of its kind, the platform that actually
| championed many of the things considered problematic with
| social media.
|
| [0] https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/819/e47...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great
| scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues
| with information distribution in one way or another through
| their employment.
|
| Yeah, yeah. We should all recycle more and drive less too;
| smokers should stop smoking, and the anxious should stop having
| anxiety.
|
| Users didn't create the system that exploits them, and it's
| very weird any time I see someone blaming them for it. Facebook
| isn't a scapegoat - they did exactly what they are accused of,
| and they should be accountable for it.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Fair point. But, what do you really want right now, _blood_?
|
| Say we disappeared Facebook off the planet, do you really
| think -- boom! -- problem solved?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I obviously don't subscribe to a straw man position. My
| comment was about _systems_ exploiting people, because it
| 's a system that needs to be fixed. Facebook is the 800
| pound gorilla protecting the system from change.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Well, first of all I agree. Though I think it's more of a
| line of 800 pound gorillas knocking at your door. It's
| not going away because "we stopped Facebook". For
| example, I actually think Twitter influences the system
| in much worst ways. It's just easier to look the other
| way with those and is trendy to hate on Facebook because
| techy SV people don't use it anymore.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| Maybe you're projecting a little? I don't use Facebook or
| Twitter at all and pay full price for the NYT and Economist.
| serial_dev wrote:
| First of all, I'm not sure what's your point.
|
| But... Why wouldn't a "partisan" substack count? What if I
| spend around 30 seconds a day on Google News, just to see what
| the different propaganda machines try to push for today, so
| it's not something I would like to pay for, but I value and
| trust some "Substack" journalists and opinion people.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| See my other comment.
|
| In most cases, you are probably not paying for the reporting
| of "new" news and instead paying for a filter of existing
| news.
|
| Substack is super great. Just paying for it is not the same
| as paying for a NYTimes subscription however people would
| like to spin it.
| andreilys wrote:
| _Substack is super great. Just paying for it is not the
| same as paying for a NYTimes subscription however people
| would like to spin it._
|
| You're right, in a lot of cases substack writers can be
| more transparent about their conflicts of interest and
| aren't beholden to censors who kill stories that might
| upset NYT readers or writers.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Oof, you missed my point.
|
| I'm not debating that. Just saying it's different.
| aembleton wrote:
| > In most cases
|
| Maybe. I pay for The Mill [1] which is published on
| Substack. The founder of it has written an excellent piece,
| explaining why he created it [2]. It is a local paper, that
| you have to pay for; which means actual journalism. It's
| still small but now has an office and one full time
| employee. I'm hoping that one day this model works for
| cities all over the world; because advertising doesn't work
| for local journalism.
|
| 1. https://manchestermill.co.uk/
|
| 2. https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/the-case-for-a-new-
| newspaper-...
| biztos wrote:
| I certainly pay for some of my news. I subscribe to two US
| newspapers, one international one, a trade newspaper, a glossy
| trade magazine, and two US weeklies that are among the heavy
| hitters of criticism and cultural writing, including a lot of
| news analysis and investigative reporting. And that's just the
| paid subscriptions.
|
| I wouldn't be so quick to assume the HN audience, of all
| audiences, is penny-pinching serious journalism out of
| existence. I bet we even have a fair number of WSJ subscribers
| among us.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| What are some examples of non-partisan news outlets to support?
| Yajirobe wrote:
| > - You are highly or fairly paid.
|
| Not everyone is from the US
| shadow28 wrote:
| Software engineers are highly paid in most parts of the world
| though.
| dleslie wrote:
| Respectfully, not everyone here is American.
|
| Canadaian and UK citizens reading this forum are actively
| paying for the CBC and BBC, respectively.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I don't have a TV license, nor do I read BBC. Plenty of other
| people don't either.
| marnett wrote:
| I've been a proud paid subscriber of The New York Review of
| Books and Harper's Magazine for several years. I advocate often
| just how worth the price is for quality, long form journalism.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| Right. I would like to have Netflix for news. Pay $10 a month.
| And have access to NYT, NPR, The Economist et al. I want it to
| be easy to sign in and out.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would also like everything to be cheaper.
|
| With password managers, it's not that much work to visit
| multiple websites.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| > I would also like everything to be cheaper.
|
| The point is that with "Netfilx for news" you increase the
| number of people paying. Thus decreasing cost for the
| individuals.
|
| > With password managers, it's not that much work to visit
| multiple websites.
|
| It is not just about managing logins. You also have to
| manage payments. And make the decisions about what you want
| to read months in advance. People hate making decisions. A
| lot of people end up jumping over the fence and not paying
| at all.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not think that is possible due to the ease of copy
| pasting journalism. Journalists and their companies are
| also mainly selling their reputation, and it makes no
| sense to muddy it with others.
| jhickok wrote:
| In theory that's like Apple News+, but unfortunately all the
| major news providers (e.g. newspapers) do not make their
| content available with an Apple News+ subscription.
| redisman wrote:
| Have you listened to any of their podcasts in the last 6 months?
| Their main ad is always some propaganda piece from Facebook
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Not too long ago, Facebook took out a full page ad against
| Apple to gaslight consumers that anti-tracking was harming
| small business.
|
| This company is like a perforated colon that keeps leaking
| feces into the collective body of society. Pretty soon we'll go
| into septic shock.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Anti-tracking is harmful to all businesses who advertise, is
| it not?
| randomsearch wrote:
| not necessarily, no
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Tracking is oversold. If you have a gardening blog just
| offer ads for people who like to garden, no tracking
| necessary.
| Spivak wrote:
| It absolutely is. I _detest_ Facebook 's level of tracking
| and invasion of people's privacy but I'll be damned if it
| doesn't enable businesses of any size to market with the
| same power previously reserved for supermassive brands for
| pennies.
|
| I feel like there's basically no allowable nuance in this
| discussion because holding any opinion than "tracking is
| 100% bad with literally no upsides for anyone other than ad
| networks any business that claims to get any value
| whatsoever is being misled" is taken as a defense of the
| current state of internet advertising and is the digital
| equivalent of burying your head in the sand while everyone
| else continues like you don't exist.
|
| If you can't understand and explain why the fence was put
| there then you'll get nowhere trying to argue that it
| should be torn down.
| bogwog wrote:
| > but I'll be damned if it doesn't enable businesses of
| any size to market with the same power previously
| reserved for supermassive brands for pennies
|
| You forgot to add this part:
|
| > _At the expense of the consumer_ , and usually without
| their consent or knowledge.
|
| Facebook is the particular bad guy here, because we
| usually need to rally around one target to get anything
| done (and they are by far the worst offender). But the
| goal is not to take down Facebook, it's to limit or
| eliminate tracking and other practices that violate and
| exploit the privacy of people.
|
| Of course small businesses can benefit from doing what
| Facebook does, just like a homeless person can benefit by
| robbing a bank. That doesn't mean it's right.
|
| Stronger privacy laws might kill small businesses that
| engage in that type of behavior, but it's not going to
| kill the economy. New business will be born, and the free
| market will fix itself.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think its pretty clear that no matter the take on
| tracking, facebook is a bad actor with previous scandals
| including knowingly took money from children,
| experimenting on people's feed, did large scale
| psychological experiments on their own users without
| consent, selling/giving access to user data to political
| firms, collecting email contact data without consent, etc
| etc. And those are only just what I remember off the top
| of my head.
|
| Even if you were ok with tracking facebook is not the
| people I'd trust to do it ethically.
| ilaksh wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
| KMnO4 wrote:
| Another great example of Betteridge's Law of Headlines. If the
| headline is a question, the answer is _no_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
| tome wrote:
| tome's law strikes again!
|
| "In any discussion about an article whose title is a question,
| Betteridge's law is mentioned with probability 1."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545238
| phpnode wrote:
| I'm so sorry tome, but this is actually the Fourth Law of
| Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722251
|
| This predates tome's law by 3 years.
| phpnode wrote:
| The Twelfth Law Of Hacker News: Any reference to
| Betteridge's Law will have at least one reply referring to
| the unreliability of Betteridge's Law.
| tome wrote:
| Very interesting!
| [deleted]
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Funnily enough that law is empirically false, and most of the
| time (although it's near a coinflip) the answer is _yes_
| zepto wrote:
| Do you have a link for the study?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| I read the Wikipedia article linked above. They go over the
| studies there.
| notlukesky wrote:
| To Tome's law?
| [deleted]
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Interesting, I found this article which backs you up
| http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'd really like to see a transcript of this interview with
| Thompson. My media literacy alarm is going off - why does the
| article splice together "far, far more" and "very much so" rather
| than quoting exactly what he said in context?
| echelon wrote:
| I don't see how news is sustainable at current employment levels.
| Most papers cover the same stories from their own angle, but we
| don't need 1,000 duplicated takes.
|
| Social media bubbles headlines and links up from a potluck of
| sources, so there's no central paper to subscribe to and support.
| The end result is ad blocking everything, ignoring paywalls, and
| subscribing or paying no one.
|
| If I went to a paper's website instead of social media (HN, some
| curated reddits), I'd be inclined to subscribe, but none of them
| have great audience participation and discussion.
|
| If there was a Spotify for news journals, I'd be happy to
| subscribe, but that doesn't solve the issue of clickbait garbage
| winning over real journalism and soaking up all the money. Nor
| does it supply enough revenue to feed all the journalists.
|
| The solution, sadly, seems to be mass culling and centralization.
| The world is connected and nobody needs local newspapers anymore.
|
| Edit: not sure why I'm at -3 for making an observation. I'm not
| defending Facebook. The news industry doesn't appear to be
| sustainable in the modern age.
| rtx wrote:
| Improve quality and lock down everything is an option however
| it will take a long time for them to win back the trust.
| Personally I spend around $1000 each on buying books, some of
| which can go towards the news papers.
|
| For magazines I use an app called Magzter its similar to
| Spotify. However only looks good on an Ipad.
| ghaff wrote:
| People have been talking about saving local news for more than
| 20 years. And the economics just don't work for the most part--
| whether in most cities or in smaller towns.
|
| I live in about a 7,000 person town. Let's say half the people
| would pay $20/year for a local paper--which we had at one
| point. That's wildly optimistic I know. Throw in some
| advertising. But I'm guessing you're still something under
| $100K/year. So you end up with just Facebook and NextDoor and
| no one actually doing reporting as such.
| echelon wrote:
| Exactly. I'll longbets anyone that downvoted me that we're
| going to see incredible consolidation and atrophy in the next
| ten years. It can't be stopped, and artificial means of
| preserving it won't work either as it no longer makes sense
| in the Internet age.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| That's an easy bet, it's already started, been in progress
| for years now, and has been widely commented on.
|
| "The number of newspaper newsroom employees dropped by 51%
| between 2008 and 2019, from about 71,000 workers to 35,000"
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/20/u-s-
| newsroo...
|
| "Since 2004, hundreds of local newspapers have closed up
| shop. The author of a report on this trend said areas
| without a local paper suffer in a variety of ways."
|
| https://www.wqad.com/article/news/local/drone/8-in-the-
| air/a...
| stephenhuey wrote:
| But the local papers have always had ads in them to
| supplement revenue, so I imagine you could still reach $100K
| or more. In a lot of small towns that's still enough to cover
| an editor-in-chief and an additional reporter.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| A lot of those ads were things like classifieds. That
| market is solidly eaten by the internet.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm just throwing out numbers. It wouldn't shock me if
| they'd actually have under 1,000 subscribers given that
| you'll have, at most, 1 subscription per household. And to
| sell ads, you probably need an ad salesperson now. The
| economics are just really tough--as demonstrated by the
| fact that most small towns don't have papers.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| >The solution, sadly, seems to be mass culling and
| centralization. The world is connected and nobody needs local
| newspapers anymore.
|
| We do need local papers though, large papers like the NY Times
| and WaPo aren't going to cover local politics or spend money on
| investigative journalism of issues that aren't
| (inter-)national.
|
| Consolidation in the news industry is a boon for corruption
| everywhere.
| [deleted]
| whoopdedo wrote:
| I sometimes think about how we read newspapers before the
| internet. For those old enough, how many of you remember
| someone who subscribed to the NYT? On the other hand, how many
| of you saw someone reading it on a bus? Remember how you could
| walk into any McDonalds or similar restaurant and find a stack
| of the daily papers there for anyone to read?
|
| Makes me wonder how much money used to be raised from
| subscriptions to individuals compared to daily edition sales.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Isn't Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers?
|
| If you don't want the social aspect of news, you can get the AP
| stories through the AP News app or subscribe to rss feeds to
| major papers. The AP keeps papers from covering the same story
| from their own angle, you'll usually see the same AP stories
| printed in papers across the country.
|
| I agree it's hard to filter the news on your own and quality
| journalism does seem to be going behind paywalls now. This
| isn't great for an educated society.
| pvg wrote:
| Not really, since it doesn't include most major newspapers.
| News+ is closer to the Spotify of magazines.
| echelon wrote:
| > Isn't Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers?
|
| I'm not on an Apple platform and don't even know what this
| is.
|
| I suppose it works for Apple subscribers?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I own a Macbook and found out about this just now. It's not
| a heavily advertised service like Spotify. Most people
| don't know it exists.
| chrjxnandns wrote:
| Very helpful contribution to the conversation...
| Jonnax wrote:
| Then why not look it up?
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Where would you look it up? Big Media and Big Tech are
| always lying, man.
| echelon wrote:
| I'm sorry if my tone didn't convey my meaning. I don't
| think an Apple service is an analog to a cross-platform,
| non-device manufacturer content aggregator.
|
| Given Apple platform support on Android and Linux, I
| don't think it's something I'd find much value in. I'd be
| shocked if they even had an Android app. If they don't,
| the suggestion is a total non-starter.
|
| I could be wrong, but based on previous experience, I'm
| probably not going to investigate until I hear my friends
| using Android talking about Apple News.
|
| I'd like to see a _Spotify_ for news. I saw that another
| comment mentioned Substack, which seems interesting and
| could be along those lines.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Yes it is an Apple app, and it doesn't seem to have caught
| on, but it's a good value if you are actually subscribing
| to newspapers and magazines today. Apparently it was built
| from an acquisition of an app known as texture but the
| Android app was shut down after acquisition.
| https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-get-apple-news-plus
|
| Competitors from Google and CNN are rumored to launch soon.
| analognoise wrote:
| We absolutely need local papers, they're critical to uncovering
| the kind of small-town corruption that won't make the national
| news but still greatly impacts people.
|
| We can't seem to support this many journalists anymore -
| because FB and Google suck up the advertising revenue.
|
| Would breaking up big tech also bring back the local news room?
| That would be such a bonus.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Would breaking up big tech also bring back the local news
| room?
|
| For literally small-town (vs. smaller cities), local news has
| been an issue for decades.
| fossuser wrote:
| It's not just ad revenue - substack has taken the best
| writers too.
|
| The quality of writing on substack is magnitudes better than
| what's available on NYT. I'm not sure if NYT was always this
| bad and the internet just revealed them or if they degraded,
| but their product is not very good. Other papers have a
| similar issue.
| [deleted]
| DiNovi wrote:
| thats one way to end critical coverage
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Washington Monthly would know about the topic, having previously
| been accused of being one of the many media companies bought off
| by Bill Gates. Probably looking for a new sponsor themselves.
|
| https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fa...
| balozi wrote:
| The real story here is that Facebook is paying off too few
| people.
|
| And, I bet Bezos is paying Bezos at WaPo. The man is a genius.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| No surprise here. Two peas in a pod.
|
| The assault on independant journalists (e.g Substack),
| independant voices (e.g. Clubhouse) and others continues unabated
| by the likes of NY Times elitists like Taylor Lorenz. Corporate
| media like NY Times even covered the original 2004 Harvey
| Weinstein expose and regularly lies on so many internatonal
| issues as well.
|
| https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill...
|
| Look at coverage of the caliphate series, Iraq war, Bolivian
| coup, Honduras, Guatemala and so many more....
|
| The corporate media just wants to muzzle the truth by falsehoods
| by omission and so much more
| chamanbuga wrote:
| The caliphate series was so well done. I instantly became a fan
| of Rukmini Callimachi. Then RCMP released that Abu Huzaifa's
| story was fabricated. It took NYT 2 years to admit their
| mistake and return their reward. The podcast was not amended
| nor was there any press release from Callimachi about this.
| This is when I ended my NYT subscription.
|
| I still view NYT as excellent journalism, but with such
| questionable practices, that I am comfortable working around
| their pay wall instead of supporting them.
| valarauko wrote:
| Oddly, I had found the Caliphate series quite underwhelming
| when it first came out. To me it was a narrative style I find
| quite grating: there was so little material to go on, that
| Rukmini's journey itself was the story. Not my cup of tea.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Taylor Lorenz is an American culture and technology reporter
| for The New York Times Styles section, covering topics related
| to internet culture.
|
| I think you need to calibrate your meaning of "elite"
| kgog wrote:
| Looks like you drank the SV Kool Aid.
| stupendousyappi wrote:
| I mentally tune out anyone who uses the word "elitist". To
| me, it's one of the clearest signs that they're arguing using
| prejudices rather than evidence.
| notlukesky wrote:
| Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is
| that not elitist?
|
| https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/1369653913121677
| 3...
| afavour wrote:
| Why not discuss the actual coverage rather than attack
| the journalist?
| kgog wrote:
| Because that's not what HN (and its ideological
| libertarian crowd) does.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| From the article below:
|
| The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full
| display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and
| self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York
| Times' star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely
| and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and
| investor Marc Andreessen of having used the "slur" word
| "retarded" during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop
| uprising.
|
| Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather
| than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake
| by claiming it was a "male voice" that sounded like his,
| then locked her Twitter account as though she -- rather
| than the person she falsely maligned -- was the victim.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-
| tattletale...
| nova22033 wrote:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elitist
|
| _one who is an adherent of elitism : one whose attitudes
| and beliefs are biased in favor of a socially elite class
| of people_
|
| I don't care much for her coverage but she's attacking a
| company whose CEO is worth a lot of money. Hard to say
| any of the people being criticized isn't part of the
| _elite_
| kgog wrote:
| Exactly. I love Lorenz's work (flawed as it may be[0]) in
| dismantling or at the very least shining a light on the
| hypocrisy and double-standards of the SV elites[1].
|
| [0] I dare anyone to point me to a flawless employee
| regardless of their employer or job title.
|
| [1] Just google her name you'll find plenty of coverage
| of (predominately) white, old VC dudes unleashing their
| followers on her.
| [deleted]
| jmull wrote:
| That is not. Surely it's obvious that the high-school
| your parents sent you to could influence your attitudes
| later in life, but they don't define them?
|
| (BTW, I don't know who Taylor Lorenz is, and don't really
| care. I'm just surprised by this reasoning.)
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's not that it's impossible to be what one could fairly
| describe as an elitist - it's just one of those words
| that's widely known to cast more heat than light. "Taylor
| Lorenz writes as though the social norms she's familiar
| with are universal", for example, is a less
| confrontational way to express the same thought.
| chrjxnandns wrote:
| My goodness you all are so obsessed with Taylor Lorenz.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Private mainstream media in Canada takes a lot of direct subsidy
| money from government as well (famously, $600m a few years ago),
| and it's to the point where it's debatable whether news outlets
| are real businesses producing something people need or desire, or
| they're just a policy objective.
|
| A real news business, one that publishes non-fiction content
| about current events that people want to read in exchange for
| subscriptions and advertiser dollars, is probably too fringe to
| be considered News at this point, because what most people really
| want is not what is officially approved as good for them. It's
| not official news unless it supports an establishment narrative,
| and somehow journalists and editors have come to believe they
| have official credentials unrelated to the truth and quality of
| their work that are deserving of some kind of recognition, and
| even deference.
|
| I don't even see this question of whether the NYTimes and other
| publishers might be compromised by FB money and others as a point
| of contention. It's like everyone already knows, but they're
| wrestling with whether they can tell people themselves.
|
| > As Doug Reynolds, the managing partner for the West Virginia
| newspapers suing Facebook and Google for damages, told me, "If
| the future of this industry is that we're dependent on their
| goodwill, then we don't have an independent press anymore."
|
| Indeed.
| Spivak wrote:
| > It's not official news unless it supports an establishment
| narrative.
|
| You're so close that's it's annoying that at the last second
| you veered off into right field. There are two different things
| that you're confusing. There's capital-N news which is the
| purview of capital-J journalists; they create a verified bone
| dry account of events and statements made by those involved
| which is more historical record than something you might read
| with your morning coffee. You have always been able to find
| troves of this style of news but it's in the archives of news
| sites, not on the front page.
|
| Then there's storytelling which is what people actually want.
| Someone takes all the news together and, adds some context both
| historical and cultural, and some basic production value to
| create a cohesive narrative. This is a good thing! We want this
| because it shows us how individual events are connected and the
| bigger picture.
|
| It's the difference between reading police reports and local
| news articles and listening to a true crime podcasts -- the
| latter is waaaaaay more popular.
| LegitShady wrote:
| One of the things we're seeing (imho) is that many of the news
| institutions are trading on legacy reputation that is quickly
| running out.
|
| If you ask me which I trust more, 60 Minutes or Glenn
| Greenwald, I trust GG 1000x times more. I would even say I have
| a negative opinion of 60 minutes.
|
| There's a reason Glenn Greenwald is making crazy money on
| substack - its because his reporting comes off as more
| authentic than many 'official' news sources.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| As if buying-off politicians with $upport weren't enough, the
| fourth estate has to be controlled too.
|
| So independent media (fifth estate) is locked-out again.
| Manufactured consent and sentiment for the benefit of
| corporations, by corporations. And, real journalism makes one a
| heretical dissident like Chris Hedges. Inverted totalitarianism
| at work.
| rriepe wrote:
| Every time you sell your credibility, you have to reduce the
| price.
| GCA10 wrote:
| Handy rule of thumb: On any headline with a question, the likely
| answer is: "No."
|
| Or, more precisely: "No, but we wanted to tantalize you into
| reading this piece, where we'll go through 15 paragraphs of
| innuendo and then decide that it doesn't quite add up."
| einpoklum wrote:
| > ... cornering of the digital advertising market by the duopoly
| of Facebook and Google. Facebook's threat to a free press ...
|
| Press beholden to the interests of the advertisers is also not
| free. Granted, it is much less tightly controlled than when a few
| giant corporation funnel in most ad money, but still.
|
| > The social media company is financially asphyxiating the news
| industry even as it gives oxygen to conspiracy theories and lies.
|
| Well, the traditional press has also promoted conspiracy theory
| and lies: Most prominent in the last two decades, and in NYT
| specifically, have been Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass
| Destruction and Trump's supposed collusion with Russia. The
| difference is that, on Facebook, there is less control of which
| lies and conspiracy theories get promoted and which get
| suppressed. It seems the author of that column takes issue with
| this.
|
| Having said that - I do agree with the thesis of Facebook (and
| perhaps Google?) being a significant source of revenue for a
| media outlet meaning it has a measure of control over that
| outlet. Unfortunately, in Capitalism (especially less-regulated
| Capitalism) this tends to happen all over.
|
| > these agreements undermine industry-wide efforts that would
| help the smaller, ethnic, and local news organizations that are
| most desperately in need of help.
|
| Huh? The economy in general and mass media in particular have
| been driving smaller and local news outlets out of business for
| decades before Facebook was popular.
|
| Ben Bagdikian famously wrote about the dangerous concentration of
| (news) media already in 1983, see coverage here:
|
| https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0810/081003.html
|
| Or check out the book on the Internet Archive:
|
| https://archive.org/details/mediamonopoly00bagd
| grawprog wrote:
| So, Facebook is allowed to not only determine what is 'true' and
| 'untrue', on their platform, thereby giving certain news agencies
| essential monopolies on their platform and they're giving money
| to these organizations.
|
| Explain to me how Facebook is not considered a publisher again?
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean I'm not a music publisher if I buy the rights to play
| some artist's music in my store or whatever.
|
| Sure you could say FB is republishing a work which would imply
| some level of endorsement but paying for _use_ on behalf of
| their users seems totally different.
| fossuser wrote:
| It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a bribe and
| extortion.
|
| The case in Australia was definitely the latter and based on the
| quality of NYT reporting on these issues I wouldn't be surprised
| if it's the case here too.
| cratermoon wrote:
| It's always been the case that big advertisers influence the
| media that cover them. In the quaint old days there was a
| metaphorical "wall" between the business side and the news side,
| and neither could influence there other. In theory, that is. In
| practice, at a high enough level, the wall was less of a 16'
| fence topped with razor wire and more like police tape.
|
| Of course, we don't live in the quaint old days. There's no
| distinction between news as journalism and news as business.
| Writers are measured not on how good their reporting is, but on
| how much "engagement" it gets, which is just a proxy for how
| profitable.
|
| Is it a bribe or buyoff? Or just a failure of credibility?
| Newspapers used to have a position called the ombudsman to
| address just this scenario. The New York Times had a position
| called Public Editor. That position was eliminated in 2017[1]
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor
| csours wrote:
| Internet has made 'information' extremely cheap. I think we as a
| society are just beginning to come to terms with the implications
| of cheap information: Cheap disinformation, loss of traditional
| gatekeepers, loss of friction that enabled value capture by news
| organizations, etc.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Advertising is the lifeblood of the media, so he who controls the
| advertising controls the media. Facebook is, like Google, an
| advertising broker. Therefore, Facebook, like Google, _can_
| influence and even decide who gets fed and who doesn 't. It _can_
| shape the incentives of media companies and thus bring them into
| greater conformity with the preferences of the broker.
|
| In general, the centralizing of communication and control over
| communication is dangerous. These are private companies and they
| are controlled by some of the richest oligarchs in the world.
| They are unaccountable. Without regulation, they can do as they
| please. National and otherwise local law is skirted, except when
| countries fight back, like Poland which placed speech on social
| media back under the protection of the law. This way, you can
| explicitly legislate and thus decide politically what sorts of
| things are protected and which are forbidden and punished
| according to civilized standards and the rule of law, not because
| despots like Dorsey or Zuck say so. Want to punish slanderous and
| dangerous rumor? Make this a legal matter with accountability and
| transparency.
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