Hacker News Reader

Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

'This is a stab to the heart of democratic accountability.' Not convinced about this - the internet is a fabulous source of information. Most 'newspapers' run AP service international 'stories' and local news, most of which you'll find a lot quicker online

View on HN

The AP is a news organization that is funded by local news orgs licensing fees. And yes, you can find local news online because news orgs have put it online. When those news orgs close down, they won’t be publishing online.

It is also a fabulous source of cheap disinformation. For every well researched journalism piece, there are thousands of image based memes that influence people's opinion on any subject. That's why social media sites and search companies need to be regulated. Until there is no downside to publishing and marketing disinformation, every organization (legal or otherwise) will have the ability to do so.

I disagree with this: free speech is sacrosanct in the free world. 'Well researched journalism pieces' are all too often written by salaried employees of organizations with a mission to push a political slant and/or agenda. The idea that the material published by these businesses is 'fair and balanced' has never been true as the long a sordid history of yellow journalism proves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism There is no shortage of good investigative writers but a dearth of editors who will publish their work. That material is now largely to be found online rather than under corporate 'news' mastheads.

I think you are mistaking source for distribution channel. The "internet" doesn't produce anything it just distributes it very cheaply.

Technically that's true, but practically it is not.

I can go to a local library and view newspaper articles on microfilm.

But where can I go to find forum discussions and cat videos that were produced before the internet?

Nowhere, because they didn't exist. The internet (and applications built on top of it) encourage and facilitate creation. It's not just about distributing content that would have been created anyway.

It's online because of local news reporters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com