Ask HN: How do we hold news media accountable? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do we hold news media accountable?

1 pointchris-orgmenta3 comments

The Issue:

Murdoch et al's interests clearly don't align with the commmon person.

We've obviously entered a new age of misinformation (where spread/penetration has increased, rather than the accuracy of the information itself necessarily).

Sensationalist news is more successful in spreading / catching interest than accurate news.

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My Question:

How do we solve this, rather than just lamenting the situation? Is it a governmental body that should regulate this? A not for profit? Or do we leave it to the free market?

How do we force a higher degree of integrity from media outlets? How do we reduce bias?

Do we need an independent body here?

Do we force, through legislation, the requirement for newspapers to make 'louder' apologies for misleading information?

Do we force, through legislation, large fines for gross negligence?

Do we issue a 'badge' to news outlets that consistently maintain good standards of research and impartiality? How do we maintain the integrity of this badge?

Do we hold individual journalists accountable too, rather than just the org? (Sarbanes–Oxley-esque).

How do independent journalists & bloggers fit in here?

What's the light at the end of the tunnel here?

> Sensationalist news is more successful in spreading / catching interest than accurate news.

This is largely a direct result of the advertising model of the internet/news where advertisers believe they can measure "engagement" on websites. Sensationalist news grabs more eyeballs, and keeps them grabbed more (i.e., more "engagement" being measured) which internet advertisers are willing to pay more to obtain [1]. Since the "news" is advertiser funded in very large part, the "news" is drawn to publish ever more sensationalist stories to increase their magic "engagement" number that the advertiser believe is telling them something in order to bring in more money for the "news". Repeat the cycle over about a ten to fifteen year period [2] and you get the current crop of stories specifically designed to make nearly everything maximally sensationalist.

So it would seem that one solution is to find a way where "the news" is not perversely incentivized to sensationalize every story for the purpose of maximizing their own revenue. I am, however, unsure of exactly what form that solution might take.

[1] I'm ignoring counter arguments that would argue that their measures are likely faulty and/or are not measuring what they think they are measuring. Those arguments, while likely true, miss the fact that the advertisers believe their measurements are measuring what they believe is being measured, so they pay more for more of it, whether it is really there or not. I.e., they have convinced themselves that their measurements are accurate, regardless of reality.

[2] which is about how long it has been since major "news" really /discovered/ the internet and figured out how to try to profit from it.

The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, this guy saw it in 1971

https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-Bagdikian/...

The problem is not only worse than you imagine it is worse than you can imagine.

Immense damage is done to the framework of reality itself by the mere act of saying that the cud the president regurgitated at 4am last night is news but that 1000 important things that happened to your community were not.

It is inevitable that news introduces "harmless" errors such as the airplane hijacker identified as "Dan Cooper" is misidentified as "D. B. Cooper" by reporters, then the F.B.I. puts "D. B. Cooper" as the name on the file because they think it sounds badass.

The most difficult problem is that the media tends to cast discussions into "two sides" that somehow need to be dealt with "equally". Frequently one side or both sides are disingenuous on one level or another, and participation in a bogus discussion is one of the best ways to "run out the clock" and keep other issues off the agenda.

You can get very accurate news from OAN. Some cable companies offer it. Also, they have a video app, and are on the web: https://www.oann.com/

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