
Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism - jbegley
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-journalism-news-publishers-local.html
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throwaway36472
Huh. This doesn't hit home for me at all. The New York Times has a long
history of bold investigative journalism and, compared to a lot of other news
outlets, caution and strong adherence to verifiable facts. If they're
succeeding these days, that only makes me more hopeful for the future.

I'd love to see more news outlets do as well as the times does at reporting
honestly and courageously. But BuzzFeed? Gawker? What are the great
contributions these entities make, such that we should worry about their
having staff poached away, or getting bought entirely?

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NikolaeVarius
On their podcast a bit back, they had a somewhat surprising retrospective on
their role as a news agency during issues such as the Clinton email incident,
Trumps rise to power, and other events where they make the statement they
might have to be more careful in the future about what they say and how they
say it.

Though I'm still somewhat skeptical this is done from an entirely
neutral/altruistic perspective

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throwaway36472
Skeptical that what is done from an entirely neutral/altruistic perspective?

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NikolaeVarius
Internal policy changes regarding how they report the news. I somehow doubt
they would care enough to report how they are changing internally if anyone
but Trump had won the election.

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mc32
If they had sincere regrets they'd have had their bulb light up after the
build-up to Iraq.

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theklr
“The Times so dominates the news business that it has absorbed many of the
people who once threatened it: The former top editors of Gawker, Recode, and
Quartz are all at The Times, as are many of the reporters who first made
Politico a must-read in Washington.”

It’s the double-edge sword of our new world. As our world is moving faster
than laws, there’s this tangential excuse that all these companies use as
competitors for why their once markets, are completely evaporating. Sure Ben’s
argument isn’t the greatest (listicles had to happen to pay for the News
division). I’m just disheartening that for the time being it just seems the
nature of the game. The room is either niche or a oversized conglomerate of
algorithm-based decision making...and not always the good kind.

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sunstone
Every democracy needs a state funded but independent news organization. Just
as it needs a state funded but independent judiciary and statistics
organization. It's not the NYT's fault that the US does not have such an news
organization.

