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Comment by adkatrit | Hacker News Reader

it would be great if the news organizations that are capitalizing on advertisements on boston bombing articles, would donate those proceeds to victims.

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I don't know if it's fair to say news organizations are using the bombing to gain financially. They are doing their jobs -- which is, providing a service to gather and disseminate news. In order to do that service, reporters and editors need to be paid.

You could look at another way: If the service didn't exist, many people would likely not know the news, or the extent of it -- and so might not be compelled to donate or otherwise help out.

I'm not implying that they are using the bombing for financial gain, however it is clear that horrific(and great, positive) events correlate with a certain spike in revenue in the news industry. What I am proposing is charity. Suppose event X creates Y dollars in ad revenue from it's initial spike in traffic. This would be a donated percentage of that money. Let's not forget that reputation is a key factor for creating loyal users.

If one had to choose between news service A vs news service B, knowing that choosing A has the implication of assisting those in need, people are going to choose A.

Call it pre-emptive humanitarian news campaigning.

Except that doing so might open up news organizations to claims of bias in their reporting on aid organizations and on how aid money is spent.

A week's on-scene coverage cost more to mount than the usual news from the studio. Beyond that, live coverage 'bumped' many commercial avails. This was an expensive week, not a profit center.

Reporting the news is their entire job.

Reporting on news like this may be the only way for journalism to stay in business ... I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

That sets a pretty crazy precedent for news organizations doesn't it?

That's crazy talk you socialist. </sarcasm>

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