For-profit media is not journalism.
It kind of used to be. There was a level of responsibility despite the organizations being for-profit. But I just cannot pretend this is sufficiently true anymore.
It kind of used to be. There was a level of responsibility despite the organizations being for-profit. But I just cannot pretend this is sufficiently true anymore.
I don’t really see any reason why journalism shouldn’t be for-profit. For example, a business model of producing informative articles and then selling access to those articles could be completely ethical, and a reasonable way to do journalism.
Ad supported media is just a toxic business model though.
Freedom of Speech can be given to everyone very generously, if Broadcasting (distribution) is controlled.
During the hey days of newspapers without Postal subsidies/Railway subsidies and paper mill subsidies it was very expensive for publishers to ship tons of paper across the country everyday. Even today world wide lot of Govts run the Post Office and Railways. And they subsidize rates for newspapers and magazines. Good luck getting that subsidy if you piss off the wrong people.
Same story repeats with licenses for radio/tv/satellite spectrum. Today its just Ads or control of the content factory (see who owns all the loss making news orgs in the land - Corporations). Ad supported just means who ever can bid most for the ad. And the Elites can outbid the plebs every day of the week.
I think both goals can sometimes find harmony and the revenue can support the journalistic endeavour. But that feels less and less true. A lot of for-profit media is optimizing heavily towards clicks, often at the very clear expense of the story. Such as not linking citations because thou shalt not guide eyeballs away from the website.
I feel that journalism has immense social value (I’d call it an absolute necessity) and ideally it is funded publicly and uses the academic tenure style approach.
And the history of state run media is not particularly aligned with the idea that “the truth” was the goal.