Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (2009)
shirky.com
shirky.com
It looks right now like the thing that might save journalism is the revolution itself. A stable society actually doesn't need much journalism, but people didn't object to it because the cost was invisible to them; it was buried in the decimal places of the price of everything.
Now, in a society in which social upheaval has become obvious, people are seeking out journalism and paying for it. We're in the process of finding out how much journalism people actually want--i.e. how much they are willing to directly pay for.
It might not be very much, in terms of jobs. A person who just wants to know what is going on does not necessarily need 15 news organizations competing to be 1 sec faster to tell them.
And as national upheaval attracts attention, there's not as much left to spend locally. For many folks, corruption on the school board pales before corruption at the highest ranks of the federal government. More attention and money for the NY Times, less for the local paper.
My project, NewsBlocks [1], puts this idea into practice by aiming to convert all the world's news articles -- past and present -- into unbiased, verified data and storing it on a censor-resistant blockchain. Anyone will then be able to use the data - which will be the first global, permanent news archive -- to create new kinds of trusted news applications, such as unbiased news feeds, fake news checkers, voice and chat apps and more, creating a global marketplace for news. We just launched and would love to hear your feedback.
What is 'unbiased' news?
Ok, there are facts like "X is the president of the USA", I think uncontroversial. But most 'things that happened' don't fit in that category, 'news' especially. And the dividing line between which things and which don't is itself a matter of interpretation...
What appears on tv/print/internet news has to be selected from 'all the things that actually happened' according to some view of what's significant, which depends on someone's values, or impression of other peoples' values etc etc. What gets to be included already is interpretation, value-laden, not to mention how its described. A list of bare uncontroversial facts would be trivia - that's what trivia is.
Like in the writing of history, where the facts must be selected, interpreted etc, only a tiny fraction can be included in the writing. This element of personal values, sense of what is important, is what is called 'bias'. I don't believe it's possible or desirable to be rid of it.
It would be nice if there were good tools we could use sift through the data and paint our own picture.
We would need some tools to evaluate how controversial, or how established a fact is. Are there experts that have testified to something? Are there multiple eye witnesses with sworn statements to an event.
Using example about president said X aren't good examples, I don't think - most news isn't like this. Or you will just have things the president said?
When talking about things that happened, I suggest that, apart from disputes about what actually happened, choice of verb is a matter of interpretation. And the 'terrorist/freedom fighter' question. How you see the world, how you describe what happens in it, is a function of what you believe.
Gee, the political spectrum is NYT - Fox News?!.. (They're both on the right, like your two main political parties)
simply strips out those biases - these phrases are amazing for me to read. It sounds staggeringly naïve to me. But sure, go for it. So then it sounds like you think a bias-free TV news or newspaper should be possible? Well, wouldn't that be a good thing?
Anyway. I look forward to the results, good luck with that. It reminds me of when I started writing a program which could write poetry/jokes. I quickly realized it would have to know everything about the world.[0] But still, actually trying was very valuable, gave me some vivid lessons.
[0] e.g. see in Lakoff's Women, Fire and Dangerous Things the chapter about the dozens of different meanings of the word over and how they're related.
What facts to include? Well why have a limit? Record everything anybody is willing to testify to. Include all sources.
Joe testifies that X happened. Jill testifies that y happened. One or the other might be mistaken or have a heavy bias, but if the data was available we make our own judgments.
Also, we could try and stop using heavy loaded terms like terrorist / freedom fighters for example. We could try and develop neutral language.
The problem right now is that the news strives to be entertaining. Just facts without colour is very boring.
Anyway. Yeah, I don't think 'neutral language' or 'just facts' is at all possible. Even if you think you've achieved it..it will seem 'biased' to other people.
I don't think anybody is saying it will be easy. It's a big crazy idea that we would like to step toward.
Hehe ok great, I love that. Good luck! I wish you the best.
People need to be held accountable for what they post publicly online.
Aggregators such as Facebook and Google should be sued, fined, or otherwise punished for publishing incorrect facts, and copyrighted material. They should not be extended special exemptions.
Aggregators will need to verify the identity of anybody they are allowing to post, so they can in-turn sue, fine, or punish users.
Might be the death of the internet as we know it today, but I'm not sure I will miss it.
Maybe not the whole internet, but there will have to be a de-anonymized, trusted place.
Contrast that with HN, which accommodates the full spectrum from anonymous, through pseudonymous, to fully-linked to offline identity. The quality of discourse here is high, and yet the costs and burdens to both users, and moderators, are reasonably low.
The idea of enforcing identities has been proven unhelpful. Plus, there are strong voices among unpopular and persecuted minorities that it puts them at elevated risk, both on- and offline.
Just say no to this PII gathering scheme masquerading as "accountability".
:)
You plug a machine into a global network, you give access to information, you should stand by that information.
The ISP's should be common carrier - they are the wires. But the hosts - the hosts should be responsible.
Google Facebook Reddit et al want to have it both ways: editorial control (kick off untoward content) and immunity from responsibility. Pick One!
>I used to think that the problem with newspapers and journalism was a revenue problem. (e.g. CL took their classified ad revenue). Like a lot of people, I thought that eventually someone would figure out a new source of stable revenues and all would be fine. I now see that the problem is much bigger than that.
>I think the important point that is easy to miss is that we are in the very early stages of a major social revolution, probably the biggest in human history. Institutions like the Catholic Church or the NYT and the MSM (today) are what communicate and sustain the culture (whether you agreed with them or not). This is what the internet has broken. It takes time for new institutions to form but that is the process that is underway right now and that process will probably take decades.
This article is not really about newspapers and is a must-read if you want to understand the current crazy social and political milieu we live in. My comment is still true; we are still in an historical social revolution and knowing this helps me cope. It is hard to see the big picture sometimes and this article helps me understand.
NB: Fun fact, I emailed Clay Shirky with my comment at the time and thanked him for writing it. He emailed me back and wrote (paraphrased) "Yep!" and thank me for reading it.