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Comment by hunglee2 | Hacker News Reader

The American people are quite correct to be skeptical of a media industry corrupted by the ad revenue model, riven by partisanship and unified only by contempt for the people it proclaims to serve. Grounds for optimism that we are beginning to see through it

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> The American people are quite correct to be skeptical of a media industry corrupted by the ad revenue model, riven by partisanship

When media actually relied on ad revenue, it was not so partisans. Advertisers wanted bland stuff that appealed to everyone. It's the subscription model that drives partisanship. People want to pay to support stuff that they agree with.

good argument, though I would counter by saying that partisanship is more to do with the decline of regional newspapers / broadcasters vs the nationals. Bigger market means you can afford to play to extremes to capture one edge of it, rather than cater for the whole

They’re now funded by investors at a loss.

It doesn’t make accounting sense, but neither does politics. Media is power.

There are a few [Citation needed] in here from my point of view

This is an isolated demand for rigor[1]. You didn't demand a citation for the claim that the media is corrupted by ads, and the implication that that's related to partisanship.

[1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

> When media actually relied on ad revenue, it was not so partisans.

Do you have a source for this?

> Advertisers wanted bland stuff that appealed to everyone.

Do you have a source for this? From my point of view a larger audience will drive the price up so I fail to see a correlation. Also, a broader audience leads to less targeted audience, so that seems cost-ineffiecient

> It's the subscription model that drives partisanship.

Do you have a source for this?

> People want to pay to support stuff that they agree with.

Do you have a source for this?

You are framing a bouquet of personal opinions as facts here.

>From my point of view a larger audience will drive the price up so I fail to see a correlation. Also, a broader audience leads to less targeted audience, so that seems cost-ineffiecient

Do you have a source for this?

I don’t see you posting any evidence “debunking” these claims. Just more of your own opinion. Pretty annoying double standard in arguing.

The problem is that many are replacing unreliable mass media with even more unreliable facebook and alex jones.

No one trusts the media except for all the media they trust.

“The media” has become coded language. People who boast that they don’t trust “the media” usually still trust in bias-confirming media.

There are many media outlets that specialize in selling the reality that a large enough population wishes to be true. These are the outlets people who don’t trust “the media” are gravitating to.

> There are many media outlets that specialize in selling the reality that a large enough population wishes to be true.

Which ones don't do that? It's hard to find journalists who are not activists, or at the very least do not toe the line.

The survey question asks about trust in “mass media,” which most would interpret as corporate media outlets. I doubt survey respondents would consider stuff like AlterNet and The Daily Wire to be “mass media,” even though they report on the news. Here’s the exact survey question:

“In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media -- such as newspapers, TV and radio -- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly -- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much or none at all?”

I do think the question should be clarified though.

Yep. I'd really like to see this broken down by vendor. I'm not convinced those trusting Dems are counting Fox News as "the media" for instance.

i once thought the same way, but I've since changed my view. The more crap we see / hear, the more we train ourselves on aggregate to be more skeptical of narratives we're fed

This might be true for you, and hopefully for me, but for the average person I'd bet more money on them just doubling down on <source of confirmation bias> than becoming more skeptical.

yes you might be right.

I wish I shared your optimism. But one look at the current conspiracy theory laden landscape would suggest you're wrong, I'm afraid. People believe what they want to believe.

Spend only 5 minutes with some of my neighbors, who somehow manage to cram the whole enchilada of how Bill Gates changes our genes through mosquitoes, how the Rotschilds rule the world, how vaccines contain metals, how Hitler was forced to do his thing by the US, how all Jews left Ukraine one week before the war, etc. etc. etc. into that short timeframe — and completely unasked for, of course. They just HAVE to tell it.

More skeptical, my ass.

I think they gain a semblance of perceived control or perhaps a sense of superiority believing these things. Everyone else is wrong or part of the conspiracy and aren’t they clever for having figured it all out. When I run into folks like this they seem so happy with themselves.

It's usually perceived control + sense of superiority + confirmation of existing bias.

Don't give them too much credit, they aren't reading Chomskey by and large or else you'd see a revolution.

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