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Comment by ghostbrainalpha | Hacker News Reader

> THis means you want to get peoples attention - at all costs.

But that is a very narrow view. The New York Times could claim they have proof Trump is an Alien from outer space. For the day, they would win the attention of the world.

But the cost would be their credibility, which would lessen the share of attention they would receive on every day afterward.

So the NYT pursues a strategy of building a customer relationship. And trying to get as much sustained attention as they can over the course of a relationship. They don't purse getting attention AT ALL COSTS on each individual day, and neither should Facebook.

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Eh, unless attention is worth far more than credibility. If the user base doesn't value credibility, then seeking it is a poor monetization strategy.

In the short-term or the long-term?

This happens all the time. The New York Times has become an incredibly biased source. New York City is an incredibly Democrat-leaning echo chamber (I don't care what party it is, I care that a major news source is biased). New York State at large isn't.

For anyone who thinks this isn't the case it isn't aware of the extent because the paper is paywalled so you can't see how had it is, page back to the debacle where the editorial staff were asking whether it was their job to question politicians' statements, or just "we report, you decide". A lot of people dropped their subscriptions because that's literally the only thing they were subscribing to the NYT for, and the editorial staff were announcing it didn't fit their profit model.

The only readers they have left, are ones who don't mind tuning in to get the DNC agenda for the day. More or less.

I got a free trial, and called to cancel it early (I had to call!), because it's just another tabloid. The only major news source I can stand to read anymore is maybe Reuters? I have to get my news from citizens who comb social media and investigate independently.

> I have to get my news from citizens who comb social media and investigate independently.

And where do you find these citizens? Twitter?

I just saw this comment - your comment is affected by survivorship bias.

Over the past several decades, a huge number of news papers have gone out of print.

In its place there is an explosion of non-newspapers, which have lower barriers to quality, accuracy, and cost.

The NYT website, as you recall was the first website perhaps aside from the WSJ, which jumped the trend of going free in order to survive.

As an aside - Even prior to the internet, there was sweeping consolidation in the media world. Most news papers could not afford to stay in print or defeat takeovers.

There is an older theory on industrialized economies - that most media firms will eventually be taken over, and therefore be soft on their particular conglomerate and sister firms.

How do you explain TMZ, People and the Enquirer / Globe / Weekly World News? Seems taht credibility isn't a necessary condition for popularity... at least not globally.

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