All the exciting media outlets are dying – what comes next? | Hacker News Reader

All the exciting media outlets are dying – what comes next?

thewalrus.ca

51 pointspseudolus98 comments

The major problem I've observed is that the most important topic is politics - ie, what should we do next?

The world of journalists is nearly the last place on earth people should be looking for political information. There are lies, few serious attempts at understanding the views of opponents, disinterest in the implications of the policies expounded and not even straightforward reporting of what people actually said.

A major problem that the journalists face is that we live in an era where any person with a microphone can broadcast their opinion, and it turns out the thoughtful, intelligent and intellectually honest types don't work in media outlets. People are going to start organising to listen to people of higher quality than journalists. We need high quality information to make informed political decisions. People with journalism degrees, as a community, are not providing that quality.

The internet has revealed just how deeply the misdirection and dishonesty extended. There is too much sunlight now for journalism as an institution to survive in the form it always has. We're going to be better off with a mix of economists, religious leaders, political personalities, technical experts, longform discussion and a melange of small- or big-time podcasters.

Exactly. Now that everyone has a megaphone, there will be rockstar economists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and the like that distribute their message directly.

I would much rather get info directly from a popular expert than from an English major who interviewed said expert.

Even better - I get to decide which people I regard as experts, and not the journalist.

If you know the topic at hand you can somewhat believe you're good at finding the Expert.

If you don't know jack about topic X, you'll end up trusting another newbie, or a charlatan.

Or, you can go around talking to lots of people, go search professors and professionals and ask them. Here you are, welcome to Journalism.

Oh and the same works for photographers (my 24yo son is one of them).

Is picking a newbie or a charlatan that much worse than listening to a journalist who interviews a newbie or a charlatan? Or one who doesn’t understand the subject (as is usually the case) and totally mangles what they get from an actual expert?

I’d rather at least take my chances at picking an actual expert.

You can see how bad journalism is when you read a popular article on something you do understand deeply. Now consider that it’s probably about that bad on every subject.

The problem is that you must understand something deeply to report on it well or describe it well. Only a programmer can be a good journalist on software. Only a former military person can do good war reporting. Etc. If you don’t know what you are talking about you can’t talk about it well.

> Is picking a newbie or a charlatan that much worse than listening to a journalist who interviews a newbie or a charlatan? Or one who doesn’t understand the subject (as is usually the case) and totally mangles what they get from an actual expert?

Given the quality of discourse, and rocketing levels of misinformation on the internet—yes! It’s a lot worse!

How does having "rockstar" experts broadcasting "their message" help unveil the stories of the unfortunate in their daily lives so that society can understand what ails it?

Journalism is not just the repeating of "expert opinions," it's supposed to be about investigation and collecting evidence and taking to normal, not expert people, about the current events affecting their lives.

Truly if we have lost that and it is replaced by "rockstars" with their own message it will be a huge loss to society.

If people only want to listen to experts, then “experts” in poverty will emerge who can honestly talk about the travails of the poor.

Why do we need a journalist to act as society’s eyes when the afflicted part itself can speak? Journalism and newspapers are an emergent property of capitalism, not it’s a feature of society.

You don't have time to do that. People don't have time to listen enough different single-area experts all the time. They also don't have the ability to filter through the agendas of these people, which are pushed with no regard to information integrity. That filter is journalism, and it's still important for functioning democracies.

If people “don’t have the time” to learn then they shouldn’t get to participate in our democracy. Education and due diligence, more easily available now than ever before, are the responsibility of citizens.

But what you’re saying is the contrary of what you want to achieve. The single stakeholders who would inform about their own field lack a systemic view, and they act at least on the personal agenda of furthering their own position in a capitalistic society. That’s a clear incentive that’s not mitigated by any journalistic standard or ethical boundary.

Journalists are a broad and diverse bunch, they have agendas and they’re human but they are called to an ethical conduct that is quintessential to their profession.

Many don’t do that, but grouping them all under one category is a populist approach akin to saying that politicians all steal.

Also, journalism is NOT american tv journalism. In Germany we have immensely talented ethically sound journalists in many top positions in news organizations.

The real problem I see as a journalist is that unfortunately the current misfortunes of the journalistic sector are pushing away first and foremost the best and most talented because staying requires a level of commitment that is just not compatible anymore with the measly reward —- and getting pushed into one bad group like it happened here on this thread.

In my case I can afford to still do the most meaningful journalism possible because I am lucky enough to have developed a successful business on the side that sustains myself without interfering with the topics and news I cover. That’s an insane amount of effort that then inevitably gets belittled by the “journalists are all agenda-driven scumbags” brigades of the internet.

Or, on the contrary, the dismal state of much of US media is causing people to seek out and pay more for higher quality journalism than they otherwise would. That seems to be the substack business model in a nutshell. And thank you for doing good despite the hostile public sentiment.

Why is it easier to filter through the agendas of journalists instead of the experts themselves? As professional mouthpieces, journalists are more likely to have agendas, not less. Recent history has show that journalist are more interested in activism than is integrity.

I feel like what you're saying is true in some platonic ideal, but it's very far from reality.

It’s true in my own personal experience of freelance journalist, who is aware of the worrying shortcomings of journalistic institutions, and yet is neither a privileged, nor rich, nor stuck to an activist position about anything. Facts come first. Would you all be ok if I’d generalize saying that programmers are smelly introverted incels?

This was the hope one or two decades ago. But now that the dynamic has somewhat played out, it's become apparent that when "rockstar mathematicians" complete with rockstar charlatans, the charlatans win most people over. Reality has nuance and details that constrain the earnest actors, while the charlatans can fully focus on telling people what they want to hear.

I switched most of my reading to Substack.

That's a pretty awful take IMO. A lot of journalism is bad and always has been. But a lot of it is absolutely necessary. There's plenty of terrific newsrooms that produce a lot more light than heat. And all the independent media on substack or running a YT channel or whatever would be nowhere without mainstream news. Few if any have the resources to do much original reporting. I read a few and they are extremely dependent on interpreting the reporting they received from other sources that they are digesting and repackaging for their audience. Frequently an audience that is expecting a particular spin on everything.

I couldn't agree more - and after all the misdirection, I'm rather looking forward to finding commentators of integrity once again. And I think the search for honest commentary will be part of the pleasure of restoring our trust in one another once again.

> A major problem that the journalists face is that we live in an era where any person with a microphone can broadcast their opinion, and it turns out the thoughtful intelligent and intellectually honest types don't work in media outlets. People are going to start organising to listen to people of higher quality than journalists.

Have to disagree with your last sentence there - from what I've seen, people in general want drama and someone to echo their existing opinions back at them. This is partly why there is so much poor quality journalism - that's what sells best, so that's where most of the money is.

What we need is quality journalism (which does or at least did exist - I believe The Boston Globe have a strong history of that for example) but I fear what we'll get is any person with a microphone broadcasting their opinion, which means more demagogues and other shouty idiots spouting half truths. I mean, that's what we have already tbh so I don't see things changing for the better in the vacuum left behind by traditional media outlets.

> I believe The Boston Globe have a strong history...

Based on who's fact checking? The Boston Globe's? For all I know the Boston Globe might be the bees knees, but institutions of journalism should go. It isn't appropriate to put trust in "The Boston Globe". That isn't a real entity with opinions and it isn't an entity that we can vest trust in. Names should be named, individuals should be identified and their record should available.

The internet has allowed us to see behind the curtain. These institutions are full of people, and it is now possible and reasonable to scrutinise the individuals and their records in ways that were previously impossible. And the majority of them have records that are indefensible. As an example, pretty much every election I've seen suggests that the US body politic is a lot more sceptical of the military-industrial complex than the media wants to pretend, I don't think the bloodthirsty consensus would emerge anywhere near as readily - if at all - were people choosing their own talking heads like what is happening in the world of podcasting. That is materially important to the state of the entire globe.

> "...That isn't a real entity..."

> "...These institutions are full of people..."

I'm confused - are media outlets real entities or not? There is such a thing as company culture, and organisations in general can very much be said to have values, that are set and enforced by the people who work there.

In any case what this whole subthread is apparently arguing for is that we should kick out a bunch of people, and replace them with another bunch of people, and this will somehow yield better results? It's nonsense. You only have to look at Twitter to see what that world would look like.

I use Twitter to follow the select few journalists, academics, government agencies, and writers that I trust and enjoy reading.

There is no competition at present. I didn’t wish this situation into being. It’s where I find the world in 2023.

With tv you couldn’t just choose to consume better content, but that’s the whole point of Twitter. No bozos. You can word filter “Trump” and get on with life.

Twitter is absolutely chock full of bozos, and while you being able to filter them out is benefit to using the platform, the drawback is that many of them are greatly empowered by it. To follow your example, Trump's relationship with Twitter is well documented - maybe you wouldn't have had to filter him out in the first place if not for his ability to directly reach the public, or the public's avid interest in the kind of drama that he likes to involve himself in.

I'm not talking about individual utility, I'm talking about societal effects.

My point is simpler: Twitter gives me the whole universe of content, with knobs to dial in my preferences. There is no alternative platform that allows that. And trump is just one of many word filters I use to prevent ever seeing the bozos. To me, they very literally do not exist.

OK, fair enough - but did you find these people on Twitter itself, or did you find out about them after reading some other mainstream media outlet and then followed your curiosity?

I would guess lots of people get famous on popular outlets _first_ and are then followed on Twitter.

Journalists are supposed to investigate, podcasters are supposed to have an opinion about the news, but not investigate itself. That's why the article says that journalism as a profession is dead.

> podcasters are supposed to have an opinion about the news, but not investigate itself.

While I see a traditional framing for the role of journalist, podcaster is a new job, so why should it be bound under those assumptions ?

I tried looking at my podcast list, and for most of them the hosts are either people in the field, basically on the ground ehen it comes to the news (when they're not creating the news themselves) and long form reports, including interviews and original research.

There's "news" podcasts out there, but coming from NPR for instance I'm not sure it's much different from the press/tv ones.

I am really disappointed that this would be the most voted comment on the topic, as it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what most journalists actually do. Also, grouping journalists from all over the world, and with all sort of different specialization, into one bucket is so shortsighted. I say that as a long-standing journalist, who branched out and supports themselves in order to afford remaining in journalism as a freelancer. But no, all my efforts go under "misdirection and dishonesty" just because I'm a journalist.

No matter how grass-roots you imagine journalism to be on the path of becoming I believe it will end up resettling into a specialized organization, because it requires cross-domain research, an ability to vulgarize, and an ability to investigate and witness events, better than any of the individuals and organizations you listed.

Honest question: how many people employed as journalists do you personally know?

I ask because this sort of comment against an entire profession is generally a symptom of a level of separation that allows for the lack of nuance like "journalists are dishonest".

I am troubled by these views shared by so many on HN too. Journalism, especially the editorialised version, as a profession is extremely valuable. There are certainly problems it is facing with the advent of the internet but a replacement that consists of "individuals broadcasting their views" is going to be a worse deal because there will be no expectation for having an editor that sounds out their views. There is no check valve for individual ambition.

I would like to see a system that incentives factful reporting instead of sensationalism of course, but I have seen enough to believe that we can't do that with individuals for similar reasons we choose democracy over autocracy most of the time.

I do know a bunch of journalists, real journos from the 70s and 80s.

They'd really hate to be characterized by "misdirection and dishonesty". That was absolutely not what they did, and their editors would not have allowed it. None of them had any financial incentive to be exciting or polarizing. They all very much wanted to get out the truth of the situation, which was a lot more work.

But they are also acutely aware how bad their profession has become. Even before the Internet, 24-hour news made journalism about attracting attention. They expected to put out one newspaper a day, or one TV broadcast in the evening. They competed against a small handful of other local media outlets -- they wanted to be the first, but did not expect people to come seeking their specific version of the story. They thought their audience viewed the news as a dull duty, not entertainment.

The Internet has made it so, so much worse. The real news outlets still gather news (the wire services, a few major newspapers), but practically everything labeled "news" is secondary, tertiary, or worse. The real primary-source journalists are much like they always were, but few people read those directly. They are mostly fodder for people making entertainment, which does indeed come with lots of "misdirection and dishonesty".

If you want factful reporting it's still out there -- via the same few wire services and primary-source newspapers. It's not hard to find -- start anywhere and click on their supporting links until you get to the boots on the ground.

> thoughtful, intelligent and intellectually honest types don't work in media outlets. People are going to start organising to listen to people of higher quality than journalists.

The first sentence is true because people aren't interested in thoughtful, intelligent and intellectually honest news. It directly contradicts the second sentence.

A big factor in the decline of internet media companies that nobody talks about—every single dominant social platform (except this one) now aggressively penalizes external links in their algorithms.

This should be illegal for any dominant platform IMO, external links are the lifeblood of a free and open internet. They are the only release valve from the walled gardens the inevitably result from human power-law clustering and network effects.

What are you on about? I have to link to external websites from mine? Lost the plot on this one.

Can't tell if you're joking, but it seems pretty clear. If you are a news outlet, reporting on something written by someone else — for example, a government report, a scientific article, even a tweet — it makes sense to link to that external resource in the article. Yet, many websites refuse to do that, because it takes eyeballs away from the ads they're serving. I'd cite a reference supporting what I'm saying here, but I don't want you to stop reading my comment and go to a new page, just take my word for it.

Facebook, Twitter, Elon etc have said external links rank more poorly in the algorithm.

That is why facebook is rampant with people stealing others videos and reposting it on the platform.

There is nothing wrong with this. They get to moderate what’s on their website.

If I don’t want X on my website, I can downrank it. Doesn’t matter if that thing is “hate speech”, “porn”, “links to other websites”, “off-topic comments”

Social media became better at curating news than the news sites themselves, IMO, and most folks end up just reading comments or quotes in the comments. There's also too much noise on most media outlets.

I think most media outlets should look at LWN as a model for sustainability: niche stories, hyper focused on what their audience is interested in.

How are you defining 'better'?

Even when I'm on an actual newspaper's site, I only briefly check the headline and give the article a token perfunctory skim, then spend the bulk of my time reading the comments.

This feels like a gigantic mistake to me. The comments generally have the least facts and most bias. Another link on HN front page right now is about companies being fined by the government for creating millions of fake personas to comment on social media and news site. With the article you at lest know the author is real.

This, is such a succinct summary of what is wrong with the news that I am upvoting it even if you didn't mean it that way.

To be clear: the curation social media does is perverse, because it bubbles the worst, most salacious and panicked stories to the top. Reading comments and quotes without having the context of the article itself is a great way to wind up angry and misinformed. If you're a news outlet, designing your news coverage to support this is unethical, and results in a cultural death spiral. Hyper-focusing on what your audience is interested in is good business, but bad journalism, and freedom of the press is enshrined in law so they can inform us rather than just give us the content we crave.

>the curation social media does is perverse, because it bubbles the worst, most salacious and panicked stories to the top.

As opposed to the mainstream media which… bubbles the worst, most salacious and panicked stories to the top.

Social media did not invent or seemingly run by the aphorism "if it bleeds it leads". If anything, it was a few decades late to the party. At the end of the day, you can't force people to watch something they are not interested in.

> bubbles the worst, most salacious and panicked stories to the top.

I think there's a big difference between traditional newspapers and media. Traditional newspapers definitely have things wrong and are trying to sell subscriptions but "media" channels are the culprits with selling fear and hate.

NY Times Front Page - Polls Close in Turkey as Erdogan Faces Tough Re-election Fight - Want to Make your Mom Happy? Tell her she was right - As Ukraine Makes Inroads in Bakhmut, Devastation Still Reigns - He Told Followers To Starve To Meet Jesus. Why Did So Many Do It?

Washington Post Front Page - Football bonded them. Its violence tore them apart. - Erdogan’s fate in the balance as polls close in Turkey election - Zelensky, in private, plots bold attacks inside Russia, leak shows - 4 ways to reconnect with parenting joy and build a child’s emotional skills

Boston Globe Front Page - Biden pleads for Congress to take steps to curb gun violence - Power Shift: In less than a decade, the state’s electric grid must dramatically transform. It won’t be easy. - Finally, a promising new class of drugs is making its way to Alzheimer’s patients - Alleged leaker Jack Teixeira fixated on guns and envisioned ‘race war’

-------

CNN Front Page - Russia may have just lost four aircraft in one day. What we know - She always felt safe in San Francisco. But the streets are different now - World’s oldest dog celebrates another birthday - The rise of the Supreme Court’s ‘shadow docket’ and how it can impact every American

Fox News Front Page - Marine veteran’s defense fund grows in just one day after being charged in subway chokehold death - Gov. Newsom facing political predicament as reparations experiment backfires - Police searching for gunman after 7 people reportedly shot in border city - NBA star appears to pull the same social media stunt that got him suspended

MSNBC Front Page - Happy mother's day to everyone — except Moms for Liberty - George Santos’ flawed attempt to emulate Donald Trump - This Eric Trump tweet yet again pushes a dangerous way of thinking - James Harden's friendship with a mass shooting survivor isn't a feel-good story

What is LWN?

https://lwn.net/

What do you mean no one talks about it? The media itself (and occasionally even the United States government) were taking about it a lot as they lamented the rise of Fake News and the election of Donald Trump. They asked for it, and suggested if they didn’t get it there might be heavy handed regulation. Facebook gave it to them.

A sample.

"What Facebook Did to American Democracy" — The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/what-...

"Facebook Has Been a Disaster for the World" — The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/facebook-democrac...

"Mark Zuckerberg Has Set Our Democracy on Fire" — The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/zuckerberg-facebo...

"Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy?" — The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/17/can-mark-zucke...

"Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee" — BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58805965

“Fighting Digital Disinformation” - Warren for Senate https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/fighting-digital-disinform...

All of these media organizations are in direct competition with Facebook for advertising revenue (and are losing pretty badly).

They all have a vested interest in Facebook usage dropping.

That’s fine there’s more. Were we talking Buzzfeed? “How Facebook Failed To Prevent Stop The Steal” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/craigsilverman/facebook... “I have blood on my hands” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/craigsilverman/facebook...

One of the silver linings to AI mass generated fake news IMHO is that the professional gatekeepers of traditional media will once again be appreciated for the value they add in verification. The so-called "new media" with few exceptions is totally parasitic on them to do the real work which they would use just enough to maintain respectability over their clickbait editorializing. I don't think it's at all a positive that trad med. had to start adapting to some of that, and I'll be happy to see them less encumbered by it.

Well, time will tell if it's a silver lining or not. In my experience, the traditional media tries to follow the trends instead, like clickbait was just done in scammy websites at first, then more and more "legitimate" websites started doing it and now I sometimes see even The Guardian doing clickbait titles sometimes.

My fear is that they will start using those AI tools instead of doubling down on quality, because they didn't double down on quality before so why would they now?

establishment media does nothing but gaslight and ignore important information

i'm a little ways west of east palestine and when that train derailed it was twitter and reddit that warned me, the media did nothing

plus there are now a ton of individuals across multiple social media sites that are showing information as proper data for a more intellectually honest interpretation of various global trends, crime rates, and economic factors to anyone who looks at it. the news will literally tell you the opposite of what the data says while presenting nothing but the caked-up person who reads their teleprompter. I want better, higher quality information, not gatekeeping.

Which media do you rely on for local news?

I doubt it. People generally want to be told what they believe, not what is right.

I also doubt the journalists do enough real fact checking to matter.

The article uses the qualifier 'exciting' and cites specific examples of what the author considers 'exciting'. Leaving that qualifier in the headline makes this far less panicky than it first sounds.

Hopefully someone can fix the title on here. I was misled.

This is a good thing. Both have overstayed their welcome. Vice made interesting stories in the early 2010s and I watched some of it. The founder of Vice has been so far removed from where he started that he just DGAF.

I really didn't care for BuzzFed at all except for the food videos. It was great to see those group of people spin up their own an channel (About To Eat).

Another example is the Bon Apetit YouTube channel. Before Covid hit they were one of my favorite channels to watch. They just had a great mix of personalities and ideas. The sum was greater than its parts and they imploded. The channel has never been the same post Covid.

The other founder of Vice Media left to found the Proud Boys.

I don't think their early years were the hight. The mid 2010s were pretty good though.

It's a shame since Vice's "Motherboard" was pretty good and even broke a few big stories. They understood hacking and tech in ways that traditional media didn't and weren't afraid dig in and involved. Print papers always were so passive, reporting other's investigative work.

It’s a matter of costs. Publishing long form online is cheap and can generate more revenue (a good article can generate a ton of engagement). Publishing long form in print is very expensive and maybe serves as marketing for a daily. Serious investigative work was always expensive. Only large papers could afford to do it and mostly did it for honor/prestige.

I think it's pretty obvious what comes next: people talking to each other.

Journalism as it was structured is mapped one-to-many. The internet is not structured that way, and attempting to simply disseminate information is not going to cut it.

This change necessarily includes echo chambers. We had the early spirit science lizard people ones and we have the ones we have now, but when people can choose who to talk to and share information with you will get this phenomenon. The age of a common narrative binding a diverse society is over.

Journalists are simply not going to get paid to do it anymore. You'll have to do the independent journalist thing, find sponsors for your content, host your own website, do the legwork to get an audience, but the corporate ladder for journalists simply no longer exists.

Original title says “All the Exciting…” then cites Buzzfeed and Vice.

That’s some clickbait misdirection with reworking the title.

Buzzfeed, the legit news arm that is, avtually owon a Pulitzer.

Proving more the degradation in the quality of the Pulitzer than anything else

What do you think Buzzfeed News is exactly?

Edit since people are flagging this:

It’s incredible how the right amount of cynicism can drive you to be utterly blind to the benefits certain things have. Be those high quality news reports, or curing polio.

And blind to their structure. Such as, for example and regardless of the organisation’s name, different people working at Buzzfeed News and Buzzfeed. Or Microsoft and the gates foundation.

It’s reputation washing for a link farm.

What is your evidence for this claim?

Whenever anyone correctly observed that buzzfeed has made the internet worse, someone always comes galloping in on their white horse with the meme “but buzzfeed news is a real serious outlet!”

This has always been its purpose. It exists for the same reason the BP and Exxon have nominal investments in “clean energy”. The same reason that Koch industries donates to the arts.

They’re paying for indulgences and the HN well-akchually crowd buys it hook line and sinker.

If you don’t want to take my word for it you can take Peretti’s and the words of the Washington post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/23/buzzfeed-sta...

“I don’t think they ever gave news a real chance to make money,” she said. BuzzFeed chief executive Jonah Peretti long touted the news team’s burnishing effect on the company’s overall reputation“

They never intended for it to be a self sustaining business. It existed for reputation enhancement of the parent brand.

It is like Bill Gates' philanthropy.

They won a Pulitzer for using innovative and thorough journalistic ideas to shine light on the Chinese concentration camps.

It bothers me that I do not trust any main-stream news source to give me accurate news without molding it into a specific narrative. It's sad that the institutions I should trust the most i tend to trust the least.

The referenced organizations were so one-sided and biased that they alienated over half of the potential consumer base. It's like they can't see their own face in the mirror.

The related posts at the bottom of that article partly explain why it's happening...

BuzzFeed and Vice were exciting?

They were the very soul of digital journalism apparently. Doubtlessly they will be missed if anyone else notices they are gone.

Buzzfeed news had great investigative journalism. Sure it was reputation washing for the rest of the site, but I don't think that makes its content bad.

> “There will always be stories that need assigning,” I told the students in my lecture, “always be an audience who needs something to read.” I still believe that’s true. But with the industry being what it is, career seems like the wrong framework—it’s more like a monetized hobby.

No, there isn't. Because print news doesn't, just, compete with social media, it competes with games, with youtube and netflix and, yes, Facebook.

I realized some time ago that I only really need to know about specific news that is very local (impact <5 km from me at most) and global news. There is no newspaper that will only give me the first, and most give way too much news for the latter.

If you want something to cover local news, you are better of with an AI or a local Facebook group. For the global news, you can take you pick from any of the big media companies, they are pretty much identical.

We stood up a failed local newspaper (yes, newsprint and everything). Local news, local color, but also local commentary on national issues. Who would have thought--human scale and decentralized still has an audience?

vashonloop.com if you're curious

Is the story of how the paper was stood up documented anywhere?

Publications like The Walrus face a double threat.

The first is a shift in add spend that favors content aggregators like Facebook and Google. There's simply little interest in long form low quality content, therefore it attracts less eyeballs and companies would rather spend their advertising budget elsewhere.

The second is unfair competition by state media. While independent companies like The Walrus have to attract readers, the state medias like CBC and the BBC can simply get a check from the government no matter who's watching.

Some irony about the request at the bottom:

> Fund the journalism we need now

> We need you now more than ever. In turbulent times, it is crucial that reliable media remains available to everyone. That is why we depend on your support to keep our journalism accessible and independent. From economic uncertainty to political polarization, the challenges our society is facing today are too important for half-truths.

> At The Walrus, the future of journalism is funded by engaged citizens like you. Together, we can preserve the integrity of Canadian media and ensure that our democracy thrives. Will you join us?

Anyway. I personally hope we see more orgs that are dedicated to niche topics. They do one thing and you go to them to read their one thing, like the institute of war for Ukraine (and iran/Iraq/Taiwan to lesser degrees).

Most news will find its way into the public consciousness if it’s important without journalism.

"Most news will find its way into the public consciousness if it’s important without journalism."

That seems wildly inaccurate. Rumors, misinformation and nonsense fly around faster and more freely than news. Citizen journalism has a place but they'd be nowhere without professional newsrooms with wide reach and deep resources.

Which is why I like specialized orgs for niche topics.

As much as many people here will hate this, it’s worth looking at what daily wire does and why it works, they have $200m+ revenue and are profitable.

In a recent interview Ben Shapiro said it was never about building a publication but building an audience who you can sell products to. Which is why they are selling films and other content like lectures too.

Many left wing orgs could do the same, but all they do is news and advertising. That clearly isn’t enough.

So I’d argue the ones that are dying are the ones that haven’t been able to adapt with a new business model.

Selling low quality products to low information readers/viewers/listeners based on a political message doesn't work in the mainstream context. Rather "right wing news" isn't actually news but rather editorial for the largest "persecuted minority" group, which can be used as an angle for businesses that support the cause.

Some examples from the talk radio I was listening to on a little road trip I just took:

An "anti-communist" MVNO. "Avoid giving your money to those big companies that hate your values". With rates that are higher than Tracfone or even Cricket, and ultimately just reselling big carrier service.

"Invest in gold". I own a bunch of gold myself, but paying higher commissions (and/or management fees) to support radio ads and other hand holding is most certainly not the way to go.

"Avoid probate". Not important (and perhaps even harmful) in most states that have adopted the Uniform Probate Code. But it's a good avenue for upselling expensive trusts and the like.

(And of course much self promotion by the hosts, and promotion of other media in the same sphere)

The equivalent for the left wing would be something like a site for LGBTQ+ people that was marketing small businesses owned/staffed by LGBTQ+ people who understand you. Which I'm sure does work. But it doesn't work for mainstream news outlets that target a broad audience, regardless of how much the right wing insists that those outlets are "leftist".

They've become so incompetent that they can't even use their hegemony's victim ideology for their own profit

Self-publishing.

Twitter.

>"So what do we do for money now?

I get this feeling when youtubers complain about being demonetized. Like, why were you monetized in the first place? Shouldn't this be a hobby for you, where your day job is actually helping people?

Once a profession is named, there seems to be an expectation of durability. But market fundamentalism allows for no such constants. All professions are subject to the market; if there is no demand, if there is no money, there is no profession. In any event, it's a problem that definitely sorts itself out.

I don't understand your comparison to youtubers? They get paid for their work, and complain when the platform demonetizes their videos without being transparent in their reasoning.

I understand if you meant that they were complaining about their views decreasing, or their content not being compatible with the guidelines of the platform, but that is in my experience not that common.

It feels to me like that part of your argument is just a subjective stab at the value of youtube as a job in society.

>...a stab at the value of youtube as a job in society

Yes. Not to pick on youtube - it's just the strongest of the group of entities of which I'd include buzzfeed, vice and the rest. The world is saturated with entertainment, and it's not good for anyone. It's not good that kids grow up wanting to be youtubers not scientists. It's not good for the entertainers who chase the algorithm instead of building things or helping people.

YouTube is a lot of different things for different people, and serves niches that would simply go unserved without them. Comparing them to Vice - well maybe that is valid for some clickbait “news” channel but I like to watch - as one example - instructive chess videos that pretty much wouldn’t exist on any other platforms.

That is a very subjective view, which, as you said in your first comment, will sort itself out eventually if it is meant for it to do so.

The world has moved on. Rick Beato also laments about the future of musicianship because of software tooks and how kids prefer to watch someone do something more than to do the thing.

> It's not good that kids grow up wanting to be youtubers not scientists.

To be fair, it’s not like being scientist is overly appealing. You have years of education which is potentially very expensive all for what? Crappy paying postgrad work and a modern academic career m or maybe a meh job in industry research that still is probably not paying that great.

Not that I think they’d be better off in YouTube, at least on average.

That seems unfair. The profession and the platform are not the same thing - obviously there is a lot of risk in building your business on someone else's platform, but what are their other options?

There are many YouTube channels that are more helpful to other people than most day jobs would ever be.

I'm not saying the content is bad. I'm saying the expectation to get paid for content is bad. Grant is still going to do 3blue1brown even if he doesn't get paid because he cares about math and about teaching math. If he quit his day job it would force him to make new videos he wasn't 100% passionate about; it would force him to change his content to suit the algorithm.

I don't think Grant has a day job besides his 3b1b stuff?

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