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Comment by LeroyRaz | Hacker News Reader

The quality of most (nearly all) media is (embarrassingly) poor though. You often find more serious reporting on YouTube than in the press!! For example, the YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across.

Similarly, I think I would rather read a blog written by an expert on their area of expertise (for free) than read a newspaper's (sloppy) filtering of that.

And, if I care deeply enough about a topic, I would rather read a book about it. What service do these newspapers think they serve?

To corrupt an adage, I honestly think the best reporting is generally free (e.g. coffeezilla, e.g., excellent in-depth podcasts, e.g. many excellent articles and essays linked via HackerNews, etc...) and the second best is more expensive than most newspapers can afford to be (e.g., a book).

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It's probably true that if you're good enough at evaluating sources, you can find superior technical detail from a free source than from traditional news. The theoretical purpose of traditional news is to be a reputable clearinghouse for skilled researchers and source evaluators to find good enough sources for a wide variety of things.

There's not enough time in the day for someone with a different full time job to properly inform themselves on every issue, so, in theory, news publications pay people to make that their full time job.

Unfortunately, that's not actually what most people want out of news, and is not something most people are actually willing to pay for, so the average quality of the product has quietly degraded over the years, catalyzed by digital media trends in general and sharply hastened in 2016.

When I read a news story on something I already know about, it generally sounds like sophomoric hogwash. I have to assume the stories that I know little about are also hogwash. I.e., an argument that a newspaper is vetting information makes little sense to me.

That's the purpose of a newspaper. That isn't to say they're doing a particularly good job these days.

>Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

> YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across

Do you pay for any journalism? Or are you comparing the ad-supported cruft to YouTube?

YouTube has great information. But BloombergLaw, for example, remains a far more decisive source than CoffeeZilla. I say this as someone who participated in the FTX estate’s bankruptcy process as an asset purchaser.

I've read many paywalled articles. HackerNews generally links an archive link, and I also occasionally use institutional access. However, I don't subscribe personally to any news sites.

Often, when I do read paywalled articles, I feel embarrassed by how poor they are. On most topics I'm actually informed on, e.g., my area of work, or say reporting on a fully videod courtroom case I've been following, they come across as incredibly ignorant. This is mainly the general newsites though, e.g., the Atlantic, etc...

I might check out BloombergLaw. So far, I think the only news providers I respect, are BellingCat (I thought their work with navalny was incredible), PrivateEye (consistently princibled - and funny - satyrists) and I also have a softspot for the BBC.

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