US Media Is Collapsing | Hacker News Reader

US Media Is Collapsing

jacobin.com

> Mass layoffs are tearing through US media. To preserve a functioning media ecosystem, we need three things: immediate aid to struggling journalists, public subsidies to smaller news outlets, and eventually industry transformation into a publicly funded system.

People don't seem to want what we're selling. So the government should tax them, then give us the money to continue providing what they've demonstrated they don't want. Did I get that right?

In Canada we’re trying that and now we have major media dependant on a government paycheque and specifically depending on a certain political party because the other wants to get rid of it. Now you should evaluate our freedom of press and potential bias.

If you think your media is biased, you should see the kind of bias that comes from media funded only by unregulated capital markets.

Reporters whose paycheck depends upon government subsidies, what could go wrong? I feel like I see this pattern a lot where people see a changing industry with a lot of legacy companies struggling to adapt and their first inclination is to step in with the government to save them/prop them up. I say let them sort it out and try to adapt. They might not be successful but at least we won’t be stuck propping them up.

I also don't like subsidies. Id prefer either full state ownership of the press, or state-funded worker coops.

Like this? http://rodong.rep.kp/en/

Yeah totally, u got it right this time sport!

Anytime someone proposes something like this - what would you expect would have happened if this was the case when Trump was president and we had COVID?

Would the outcome have been better, or worse?

There is no need to guess. Many European countries have national broadcasters which remain independent of the government, including mine.

The BBC even has political appointees at its head but is still critical of the UK government, especially on its COVID response.

In my experience French state media tends to uncritically repeat the Macronist party line, but YMMV I guess

So the BBC reports on the royal scandals as much as the Sun?

Or does the Sun act as a counterweight, perhaps?

Hmm...the BBC is definitely not impartial. As a cursory examination of Laura Kusenberg's hit job on Jeremy Corbyn will show.

Also https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64648164

There was negligible difference between 45 & 46 on issues of COVID. Capital was driving that decision framework as always.

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

And the state will use it to disseminate awesome propaganda, e.g., Russia Today and China Global Television Network.

Maybe? Maybe not. It's been done before. For example in CH our biggest national broadcaster is a state company. It's not as totalitarian as you might think. It is biased for sure, but as biased as private operators.

Don't forget private cable networks also reflect the political orientation of their owners.

But we already have awesome propaganda at home, orchestrated by capital.

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

While Sweden has SVT, Norway has NRK, Denmark has DR, etc. Cherry-picking from totalitarian states is a very weak argument...

Wow so totalitarian, amirite guyz?

You forgot UK and BBC.

And Japan and NHK.

I detest all media equally, but I particularly detest those funded by tax monies because they don't even have to ask for their requisite funds.

> Id prefer either full state ownership of the press, or state-funded worker coops.

As long as it means abolishing paywalls I'm all for it.

There should be no gatekeeping of news or information generally in a healthy human-first society.

What the hell? I hope you're just trolling.

Nope. We are overdue for a massive shift in how things are incentivized.

I'm not suggesting the reporters doing work shouldn't have their basic needs met. Everyone should. The profit is everyone can read all the news.

More things need to be opened up for the public good. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. Most notions of intellectual property should be abolished. AI training is making it painfully obvious. Let everyone and everything benefit from everyone and everything, especially where technology makes this trivial compared to the old days of costly physical distribution.

I can hardly think of any media publications that are still relevant, and worth subscribing to--and they're all business related (FT, Barrons, Economist). Anything that used to be a hobby (music, photography, etc.) has now moved onto another medium like YouTube. It's sad because I used to absolutely love browsing magazine stands, but now the content is already 3-4 months out dated and usually just a regurgitation (without citation) or something that already circulated online.

> I can hardly think of any media publications that are still relevant, and worth subscribing to--and they're all business related ... Anything that used to be a hobby (music, photography, etc.) has now moved ...

Because businesses keep paying, and hobbyists stopped paying as soon as they had any alternative.

Too much consolidation in media. Local and alternative voices fade. (IMO)

The solution to monopolies is not to rubber-stamp them into existence. HN folks can probably rattle off hundreds of great ideas and innovations from small companies that were bought -- ideas and innovations which just disappeared or were turned into milquetoast.

The internet brings both rather universal self-publishing and the network effect.

People will only outlay their limited cash on things that seem to 'have value'.

Do the products of the modern media companies have any 'value'?

IIRC there was a US president whose name I have forgotten who often complained about media companies producing very little but 'Fake News'. Fake News has no 'value' at all. Those companies deserve to die.

>Mass layoffs are tearing through US media. To preserve a functioning media ecosystem, we need three things: immediate aid to struggling journalists, public subsidies to smaller news outlets, and eventually industry transformation into a publicly funded system.

Could she work harder to undermine her own point with this whiny intro

I mean, who didn't see this coming when companies like Clear Channel started buying and homogenizing everything they could get their grubby hands on?

I love the idea of media co-ops. I'm a subscriber to one: republik.ch and so far I haven't been disappointed by what I've read.

Collapsing because of technological changes, and most journalists being clickbaiters and liars.

IMHO, it's better we're left with the few successful media houses (WSJ, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, etc.) carrying the industry on its backs, the rest should be free to fizzle out in a free market...times have changed.

> IMHO, it's better we're left with the few successful media houses (WSJ, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, etc.) carrying the industry on its backs

Where do these fit in:

mainstream media outlets

  ABC (Disney)

  MSNBC / NBC (Comcast)

  FOX / FOX News / CBS news (Paramount)

  CNN (Warner Bros. Discovery)

Cable news should be better classified under "entertainment".

The previous millennium already called it “infotainment”.

Indeed. There's less "info" now.

> public subsidies to smaller news outlets, and eventually industry transformation into a publicly funded system

Ah yes, state run media, Pravda and Isvestia! Always the same result, state-approved propaganda.

State-run media is very common in the Nordics (SVT, NRK, DR, etc.), not the same result.

Always the same result is your opinion, not reality.

Are you sure about that? Sometimes news can appear "fair and balanced" if it fits in with one's own bias. Every news organization heatedly claims it is "fair and balanced".

I'm pretty sure, you can check for yourself with Google Translate.

I wouldn't know because I know nothing about Scandinavian politics.

Every news source is biased.

Do these newspapers ever significantly attack the politicians that control their funding?

Of course, every news source is biased, humans are biased and I'd say it's impossible to be absolutely objective in reporting the news. That doesn't mean the bias is as detrimental as news sources in the US landscape.

One example of bias from SVT was the unwillingness to criticise immigration policies but not due to political reasons but probably more cultural ones (not appear racist, a bit of "Swedish shame" in that). Doesn't mean it invalidates the whole organisation because of it.

> Do these newspapers ever significantly attack the politicians that control their funding?

Yes, they do, reporting on government scandals is absolutely normal (i.e.: Karolinska University hospital corruption). Even though there's a tendency for right-wing governments to try to rein in the reporting I wouldn't say even then it's influenced much. The BBC under the Tories is a clear example of that being eroding over time, which is a shame since the BBC used to be more trusted before the past 10-12 years.

Bias is also apparent in what is not reported.

And I mentioned an example explicitly by saying SVT was unwilling to report on immigration policies issues for a while, what's your point? I did agree there is bias in any news media, but bias isn't black-and-white in determining the reputation of a news/media agency, there's a point where it's detrimental and there's a natural point where it's expected but does not affect the reporting as much to disregard the organisation as a whole.

There's worlds of difference between what Fox News does and what SVT does, I'd much rather live in a society where SVT provides news to a large cohort of the population rather than Fox News.

You stating the obvious is not moving this discussion forward... Your bias against state-owned enterprises is clear, not only from this chain of comments, still in this case it's unfounded and just your ideology.

> Your bias against state-owned enterprises is clear

This is an incomplete statement. The biases of any media company are clear. The bias of a state-funded media company are in favor of those in power that control the funding. The biases of a free market media company are those that finance the company.

The difference is that with the free market, you have multiple biases to select from, and it is not backed by the power of the government.

> till in this case it's unfounded and just your ideology.

I know how human nature works. Consider the Don Lemon vs Elon Musk interview. Musk was going to finance Lemon big time. To kick it off, he was going to let Lemon interview him. Lemon proceeded to do his best to insult Musk and try to get Musk to say something embarrassing. Afterwards, Musk decided he was not going to finance Lemon.

Whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

It's a fantasy that having government funded media means independent journalism.

US media is collapsing?

Good. I want more.

I feel like I've noticed an increase in low-level comments like this lately. I'd expect to find this comment on a really popular subreddit where the masses go. Basically contains a knee-jerk reaction to the headline/title and nothing else.

I think most people in the US rightfully have a total disdain for the media. The vast majority of articles are clickbait, propaganda or are outright wrong. Many big organizations (Hearst) have outsourced the majority of local reporting to the third world countries where they can pay pennies on the dollar.

> I think most people in the US rightfully have a total disdain for the media.

yes and no.

> In 2022, there were 161.42 million people registered to vote in the United States.

> As of December 7, 2020, 66.7 percent of the eligible voting population in the United States voted in the 2020 presidential election

2020 election had 158.398m votes

~239m eligible voters

I'm lead to believe that a significant portion of those "active voters" are influenced/pay attention to/care about the media. Whether it's a weird "self-harm" relationship where it makes them upset/sick/mad, they still "do it to themselves"

>I'm lead to believe that a significant portion of those "active voters" are influenced/pay attention to/care about the media.

By that definition, I am not one of them.

> I think most people in the US rightfully have a total disdain for the media

Their lack of media literacy is part of the problem.

It's probably somewhat tied to the article at hand, ironically.

E.g. when you see a low-effort "water is wet" article, the primal urge is to leave a low-effort comment and move on with your life. There's almost no benefit to discussing these articles, because the points have already been made, hashed, and re-hashed hundreds of times. In other words, the value add of this article to me is 0.

Media's been collapsing for a while now, because technology makes a lot of markets into winner-take-all markets, with a LOT of losers like local newspapers and below-average quality independent journalists.

Very few US media outlets are worth anything imo, basically WSJ, Bloomberg, and (very marginally) Politico. If you are lucky your local paper may be worthwhile for local matters but not for anything else.

Where do you get your news?

Really idiotic stance, with all due respect.

And I likewise respect your right to hold that opinion.

Unfortunately for the media, they wasted far too much of my time and good will to ever have my respect or sympathy ever again. If they are collapsing, that is a good thing and I want more.

> Unfortunately for the media, they wasted far too much of my time and good will to ever have my respect or sympathy ever again.

How did they hurt you?

Had quite a few friends (and I still consider them friends even if they do not reciprocate anymore) driven off the deep end by the media's constant rage sensationalism and fearmongering.

The media is concentrated, incendiary bullshit. They are cancers upon society and I have no pity they are dying. Good fucking riddance.

It's good that the free press is collapsing? Zeig heil mein Hungarian freund

I remember when NPR was outraged at the suggestion that government funding influenced their slant on the news, as they weren't dependent on the government funding they received. So just stop accepting the funding!

In NPRs defense, I haven't seen them change much from administration to administration.

They were captured by one party a long time ago.

They're captured by capital, as are both corporate parties

>Mass layoffs are tearing through US media.

I dont agree with the assumed premise. Article provides some examples but at best it's irrelevant lay offs. Failing media outlets are always going to exist.

>To preserve a functioning media ecosystem, we need three things: immediate aid to struggling journalists

You can look to us in Canada. The government gives the media money, the political interference continued to ramp up until a crisis.

The government has absolutely no business funding the media.

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