[HN Gopher] Opinion: Remember reading the paper?
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Opinion: Remember reading the paper?
Author : BostonFern
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-02-05 21:07 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| thrown_22 wrote:
| A lack of lived experience is the reason for the divide.
| Journalists are all upper class and largely clueless what it
| takes to survive as a blue collar worker. You don't trust people
| who get the basics wrong constantly to get anything else right.
| devindotcom wrote:
| What a strange assertion! As a journalist myself, and having
| met many in my profession, I can tell you this is not at all
| true.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| Having talked to a few dozen of you in an official capacity,
| no, you are under the delusion that you are of the people
| while acting like how you think the upper class acts.
|
| It's rather bizarre.
|
| The simplest test to see if you're working class: Do you own
| an ash tray for tobacco?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Journalists are all upper class
|
| Almost no journalists are upper (haut bourgeois) class, they
| are almost entirely (like, all but a small fraction of a
| percent) working or middle class (proletarian or petit
| bourgeois intelligentsia.)
| alar44 wrote:
| You can't possibly be serious. Or maybe you don't know the
| difference between a journalist and a TV news reporter. They
| are not the same.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| There was always a political divide.
|
| What's new is Americans killing each other over it.
|
| The polarization is extreme in part because news sources now need
| clicks to survive, and Outrage gets more clicks than reason.
|
| End result is some Americans become so outraged they loot and
| burn cities and in some cases, kill. And seemingly, their peer
| pole finds the mayhem understandable.
|
| That's what's new.
| [deleted]
| wffurr wrote:
| How is that new? 1860? Shea's rebellion?
| harshreality wrote:
| Not new. See: McVeigh, Kaczynski, 1960s race riots, etc.
|
| What's new is the media being able to saturate everyone's
| attention with these events. In the past, there would have been
| some TV and radio news, and articles in each newspaper, but
| those didn't occupy people's attention like internet news and
| regurgitated social media news does now.
| mikewarot wrote:
| This posted by an organization that restricts access to facts in
| order to make its news match a desired narrative. How
| delightfully ironic.
| freen wrote:
| Ahh yes, failure to publish every possible fact is clearly a
| liberal conspiracy.
|
| Maybe we should make it illegal to teach kids about slavery,
| that'd really help.
|
| Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
|
| It's also extremely frustrating to people who are personally
| committed to pursue what is _true_ (to the best of their
| ability), regardless of the consequences.
|
| Every fact seems to have an attached political value or
| leaning. So various journalistic outlets intentionally omit
| facts that don't agree with their narrative -- which is lying
| by omission. That combined with falsely associating certain
| events with certain groups to smear their reputation makes
| the modern news indistinguishable from oppressive propaganda
| -- and that on _both_ sides of the aisle.
|
| Such suppression of truth ought to be unheard of in what used
| to be known as the "free" world. What happened to
| impartiality?
|
| _Truth_ above all is what creates freedom, not any
| particular narrative or agenda.
| wffurr wrote:
| What really kills me about the news paywalls is that there's
| still ads behind them!
|
| I subscribe to the Boston Globe and every article has unrelated
| low rent scam ads for junk on them. Just let pay the extra 50C/
| or whatever those ads are worth.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's little known that, in the bad old days, subscriptions
| subsidized the ads in newspapers and magazines and not the
| other way around.
|
| The subscription also qualifies the viewer as someone who has
| money and is committed and is a better prospect to advertise
| to.
| pklausler wrote:
| Weren't classified ads a real moneymaker for newspapers in
| the pre-web era? I don't know how that revenue compared to
| display ads, but losing it all to the web must have really
| hurt.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I really like the model of Talking Points Memo, an independent
| news site covering American politics. I subscribe to their
| "Prime AF" plan which 1) has a great name and 2) just doesn't
| have any ads, ever. It's really jarring to read it when logged
| out though, because their regular ad-supported site has so many
| ads it will cripple your web browser.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Title probably needs a tweak - "policial"?
| asimpletune wrote:
| Honesty just paying for stuff would make so much of the internet
| better.
| dado3212 wrote:
| Isn't this the opposite of what this article is saying?
| podiki wrote:
| Interestingly, this is on NPR, a publicly funded source. I think
| that would go a long way towards alleviating this problem
| (perhaps through taxes on those giant corporations that have
| locked down local and national media), though of course needing
| strict separation from the source. I don't think that would be
| the hard part so much as the will to do it, or more likely the
| will to overcome the lobbying and big money in this arena.
| fullshark wrote:
| I can't imagine the us right trusting a publicly funded news
| source. The future is two or more well funded agitprop news
| sources in front of paywalls, amplifying the news stories that
| their benefactors care about politically. This was basically
| the way news always was in America (federalist and anti
| federalist news papers).
| clairity wrote:
| npr is funded mostly by advertising (they call it sponsorship
| to gussy it up a bit, but it's still advertising). something
| like 2% comes from public sources. the rest generally comes
| from member stations paying for content, who in turn also get
| most of their funding from advertising. they're just as
| beholden to corporate interests over the public interest as the
| rest.
| chernevik wrote:
| Because there is nothing Orwellian about a government-funded
| "news" source.
|
| No thank you, never.
| alar44 wrote:
| Oh come on. A quick Google search will show you that NPR
| receives a few percent of its funding from the government.
| Grow up.
| chernevik wrote:
| Then it won't much miss it, and I won't have my taxes
| subsidizing an outlet I find inaccurate, biased and
| unreasonable.
|
| So simple to solve, one wonders why it hasn't been solved
| long ago.
| alar44 wrote:
| What is the problem?
| jerkstate wrote:
| I was trying to figure out how much public funding got and ran
| across this article about some reporting on npr's reporting:
| https://www.newsweek.com/where-does-npr-get-its-funding-call...
|
| Which in retrospect makes NPR look petty, partisan and
| disinterested in actual investigative journalism. But the
| article also says that they receive "minimal" public funding
| (4% of their operating budget)
| devindotcom wrote:
| This article doesn't really report on the reporting, just
| says how some prominent Republicans didn't like one article.
| I don't see how a rather straightforward news post on the
| then President's comments makes NPR look petty and partisan,
| either.
| bavell wrote:
| Here is NPR reporting on made up news about the supreme
| court just two weeks ago:
|
| https://youtu.be/PQY7a0z7JqI
| devindotcom wrote:
| This was addressed by NPR's public editor. It was not
| "made up."
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2022/01/20/1074
| 540...
| devindotcom wrote:
| You may choose to believe the press release. The NPR
| article is more than the mask anecdote, that is just the
| intro. The reporter cites sources familiar and her
| editors stand by the sourcing. I imagine the truth is
| somewhat messier than the statement that they are "warm
| colleagues and friends" implies.
| jerkstate wrote:
| This explanation is super weird.
|
| > No one has challenged the broader focus of Totenberg's
| original story, which asserts that the justices in
| general are not getting along well. The controversy over
| the anecdotal lead, which was intended to be
| illustrative, has overwhelmed the uncontested premise of
| the story.
|
| Gorsuch and Sotomayor issued a joint statement that they
| are warm friends. Doesn't that challenge the broader
| focus of the story? How are we supposed to take them
| seriously unless we want to believe what they're saying
| uncritically?
| vmception wrote:
| I started paying for New York Times and Bloomberg - using
| devtools to circumvent paywalls doesn't work when using phones -
| I really enjoy the quality and depth of reporting. But I am sad
| that they're "likely" left _-only_ views on all topics, which
| means its not that useful for many topics to be shared with many
| people. Even trying to share non-political topics that I simply
| enjoyed can have an issue when the publication is New York Times.
|
| Its the same reaction I would likely have to someone sharing a
| random no-name conservative blog or even Fox News.
|
| So I wish there were more news sources with a _history_ of being
| reputable that also didn 't accumulate partisan baggage when they
| got afraid that the other side would get power. It seems
| irreconcilable since New York publications and capital have such
| a long head start on reach and growth and relationships.
|
| ESH
| joshuaheard wrote:
| Any idea presented here is lost in their biased world view: Only
| the "rich" who are "left-leaning" can afford "accurate
| information". While the poor conservatives, who once were able to
| use their "pocket change" to buy tabloids, are now relegated to
| free "disinformation".
| evilpotatoes wrote:
| Sneering is all they have left. Their credibility is in tatters
| with all but out of touch pmc types.
| ketzo wrote:
| It seems like you disagree with all of the quoted sections, but
| it's unclear what you think the actual truth is. Would you
| elaborate?
| joshuaheard wrote:
| I don't know. As I stated, their idea is lost in their
| comically biased worldview; the fact is that studies show
| Republicans are richer than Democrats. Are paywalls creating
| a second-class of news readers? It's an idea worth exploring,
| but this article fails to do that.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| I feel like the real problem is that the lines between editorials
| (opinion pieces) and hard news has been blurred to such a
| significant enough degree that I think many people fail to even
| realize the difference anymore.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Setting aside all of the other issues with this opinion piece's
| thesis, it is odd that it is coming from NPR, one of several news
| sources funded by public donation that are free to listen
| to/browse to/watch. Are they saying NPR doesn't count as accurate
| news?
| pklausler wrote:
| This was an opinion piece, not really hard news, and it begs the
| question as it were by assuming that some news sources are
| "accurate" and other are not. I think that a more easily verified
| test of quality -- or perhaps worthiness of my attention, anyway
| -- is this: Does a purported news organization have a
| journalistic code of ethics (don't pay sources, &c.), a history
| of enforcing that code, and an easy-to-find corrections page on
| the Web? I want my media diet coming from those sources that
| admit error, publish corrections, and hold their reporters
| accountable to a standard. And from those that do appear to do
| these things, I can make selections that seem to support an
| empirical approach to the truth and an abhorrence of patent
| nonsense. (Do they have a science denier on their op-ed page,
| like the NYT? Do they sponsor events featuring Deepak Chopra,
| like the Atlantic? No thanks.)
|
| It is also amusing that NPR is _not_ behind a paywall.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| For me, the problem isn't the paywalls, I can easily devtools my
| way around those. The problem is that the "accurate news" has
| gone completely off the deep end. Since around 2013, the
| traditional news sources, NPR included, have decided to adopt a
| highly race-based viewpoint, obsessively injecting race into
| every conceivable topic. Feel free to take a look at the charts,
| it's indisputable fact:
| https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/th...
|
| It wasn't always like this - I remember a time when the internet
| was a far more peaceful place, before all this crap started
| getting shoveled in peoples faces. The polarization since 2013,
| and Trump, is a direct result of this change in my view. Only god
| knows what the hell happened to these organizations, but until
| they hold back on the ridiculous race bait, the political divide
| will only get worse and worse.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| As long as the incentives to push racially(generally identity)
| framed politics remain the same, I don't expect the results to
| change. A media system financialized by ads will remain aligned
| to drive impressions. Proposals which rely on asking businesses
| and people to change behaviors without changing incentives are
| destined to fail. Until then, asking media to stop driving
| outrage is tantamount to asking them to stop making money.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| I cannot physically force people to read or listen to real,
| accurate information. And rarely would a news outlet ever be
| referenced as an accurate, authoritative source.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The title "Restricted access to accurate news accountable for
| political divide" is utterly misleading. First, it's not the
| title of the linked article, which is an opinion piece. There is
| zero research or data in the linked piece to support the
| conclusion in the title, and I highly doubt that if the NY Times
| or Washington Post did away with their pay walls that the
| political divide would go away.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the title to the article title now.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| devindotcom wrote:
| It cites a professor who recently wrote a book on the topic:
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/news-for-the-rich-white-an...
| rdiddly wrote:
| The title and the article itself also both seem to take as a
| presupposition the notion that the truth is what's behind those
| paywalls, while what's out here for free is inherently
| "disinformation." (There is plenty of truth in free independent
| news outlets, and plenty of disinformation being disseminated
| by corporate ones.)
| pklausler wrote:
| Ironically, NPR is free. (Unless you support your local
| public broadcaster, which I do, since mine is pretty good.)
| Glyptodon wrote:
| A perceived decline of quality in Newsweek certainly intersected
| with my grandparents' turn towards Fox News in the late '90s. But
| there's a lot more to it. I spent years on the tail end of that
| shift trying to convince them that NPR was relatively even-handed
| only for NPR to doom that effort right when it started to take
| hold with goofy scandals and a stream of new programming that
| embraced being perspective-centric. (Inability to report with an
| objective and even hand about guns didn't help NPR, either. They
| say news stories about things you're familiar with always seem
| atrocious. I've definitely witnessed it with tech stories in
| mainstream news. But it tends to be extra atrocious with guns, I
| guess because a lot of folks find the topic rather visceral.)
|
| I also have found that otherwise relatively interesting writing
| in all kinds of sources has become less family shareable over the
| years as edginess and expletives have penetrated more and more
| quarters. I wish people would write more opinion pieces to be
| shareable with grandma instead of raising hackles for the sake of
| it.
| clairity wrote:
| i personally have no dog in the gun debate (i don't like guns
| but generally support 2nd amendment rights), but this story is
| propaganda for npr, which has taken a steep nosedive in quality
| and objectivity over the past few years. they want to claim the
| moral high ground but have no leg to stand on. i can't even
| listen to more than 5 minutes of npr before having to shut it
| off in disgust.
|
| their coverage of recent geopolitical events is decidedly
| tribal and partisan: for instance, making russians and the
| chinese out to be cartoon villians for easy dunking on. that's
| not to say that either regime is saintly, but it's done to
| pander to the basest tribal instincts only, nuance and
| discernment be damned. it's truly awful.
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