
Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/google-facebook-fake-news-journalism.html
======
dman
I do pay for news, however one request I have for news providers is a greater
emphasis on presenting news from all sides. Over the last 4-5 years most news
providers have picked a political side (to a much greater extent than I recall
in the past). This is true in both countries for which I follow news (India
and the US). Given an event I can predict the coverage that venues will give
it. This is troubling to me, and I have to visit multiple news providers (And
at times augment that by reading comments on relevant subreddits). I would
really like some reputed news organizations to try to pitch a "big tent" and
try to get a diverse set of opinions on the news of the day.

While we are at it - please ignore data that long form journalism is dead, the
current race to the bottom leads to nowhere. The people who value
understanding the world enough to want to pay for it also value understanding
the nuance and the multiple perspectives - these are hard to capture in a
single paragraph. Do not design your product for the lowest common
denominator.

Lastly - please drop the clickbait ads on your websites that you run to
augment your income. These ads often contain fake news, and by association
they lessen the credibility of your organization in my eye.

In short - respect your audience, build a premium product that is worth
subscribing.

~~~
bryanlarsen
I would appreciate less emphasis on pretending to cover news from several
angles. By doing so they imply that both sides are equally valid even when
they're not. For instance I've seen them bring on a climate change denier to
give the "other side" on a climate change story; anti vaxxers, et cetera. It's
particularly bad when one side is willing to lie.

~~~
beaconstudios
that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position
A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to
imply that "all rational people choose position A". Like on the issue of
climate change - there's clearly some fraction of people who choose to deny it
completely, but the more meaningful debate at this point is around how much we
can do to prevent it, and what approaches might work (iron seeding, carbon
sequestration, artificial photosynthesis, planting/algae cultivation, etc).
Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a
conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world
order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced
presentation of the available angles.

~~~
0x445442
There are credible scientists who disagree with the climate change narrative.
Just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them "nut jobs" or
"deniers" or any other label you care to attach. Equating folks who don't
agree with a lot of climate change assertions with flat earthers is not
productive in any way.

And I agree with you're analysis; legacy media typically trot out straw men
only to signal how superior their view is.

~~~
beaconstudios
I wasn't specifically saying all climate change deniers are nut jobs, just
that the ones the media trots out often are. I'm not familiar enough with the
denial side to evaluate their position - but that's the modern problem isn't
it? We have to delegate to a third party to assess ideas for us because we
don't have the time or expertise to fully understand every political position.
But if that third party becomes biased, it all collapses.

~~~
repolfx
Why don't you go investigate the denial side? It will probably only take
thirty minutes and might be interesting.

I did this once. I had fully accepted the media's narrative that these people
were all kooks and idiots, so I was curious what could possibly cause them to
think these things. I went and read some of their websites for the same reason
I went and read some flat earther websites the other day, for amusement.

Unfortunately it turned out that (surprise) journalists had been wildly
misleading me about what these people really believe, probably because
journalists as a class of people accept intellectual authority without
question, _especially_ in the scientific realm. The problem of fraudulent
psychology results is one well known example of this.

Here's what a lot of "climate change denial" really boils down to:

 _\- CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas. We are indeed releasing lots of it._

I've yet to see anyone deny this, although I'm sure there are people out there
who do. However this is not mainstream "denial".

 _\- But we don 't really know what effect this is having, or if it's really
changing the climate_

This is where climate change "deniers" separate from journalistic mainstream.
They aren't so much in denial as much, much less certain about climate science
and its conclusions, to the extent that they often conclude nothing should be
done.

 _\- This is partly because the climate is too complex to model, and partly
because of scientific bias, fraud and malpractice._

A lot of climate change denial turns out to be a specific case of more general
criticisms of the scientific establishment. Their style of argument can easily
be ported to criticisms of social science or economics, with hardly any
tweaks.

Basically: proclaiming certain doom and that your field of study is the only
way to avoid it is a surefire way to get massive amounts of grant money, media
coverage and political power. In addition, the "deniers" tend to have lots of
evidence of actual serious problems with the science. One recent article I saw
pointed out that the thermometer dataset that has been used for over 20 years
to measure climate change is full of obvious errors, like temperatures that
would be physically impossible or which are clearly the result of bad
celsius/Farenheit conversions, or which are taken from thermometers that are
literally at the start of airport runways i.e. routinely blasted with jet
exhaust.

When errors that are obvious to laymen are discovered in critical datasets
that have been used for years to make very precise predictions about very
complex things, it is reasonable for some people to conclude the science is
less certain than journalists present it, and as a consequence that maybe the
costs of inaction are lower than has been presented.

~~~
kwxza
Thank you for this comment

------
8ytecoder
A few complaints I share with the other people in this thread:

\- It's not clear that even reputed newspapers like NYTimes/WaPo produce
quality content consistently. As someone in tech I can clearly see what they
get and what they don't. Extrapolating it - it's not at all clear they
understand economics or foreign policy or policy impact or environmental
concerns and how to address them ...etc.

\- Bias: every single one of them have bias. The burden is on me to spot bias
and think objectively. Why do I have to pay do that? At least present news as
it is? I'm not sure if even that would work - there could be bias in what gets
chosen for reporting.

\- The user experience is pretty bad. That I have to use an adblock after
paying for the already expensive subscription is ridiculous. Not to mention
the ridiculous amount of pixels and tracking embedded in their site.

\- Big picture: By design, news focuses on the now and misses the big picture
quite often and usually by a huge margin. E.g., the relentless focus on petty
issues in last election (both major party candidates) and not enough attention
at all on concrete policy measures. This extends to privacy issues (Facebook
and the like) until it's too late. Wars/conflicts, foreign policy, long term
economics.

For all these reasons, I have got rid of my NYT & WaPo subscription to FT now
and I can't be happier.

~~~
my_first_acct
> For all these reasons, I have got rid of my NYT & WaPo subscription to FT
> now and I can't be happier.

I think you have a typo. Are you saying that you switched to FT (Financial
Times), or that you got rid of the FT as well?

Anyway, if you are a US-based reader, one way to avoid some of the bias and
noise is to subscribe to a non-US paper. You don't have reporters and
columnists trying to sway voters, because that's not who the audience is. Plus
you might discover that interesting events do take place outside of the US.
(And uninteresting events. Brexit seems like it should be interesting, but all
the daily political ins and outs are, in my non-UK view, a bit tedious...)

~~~
BigJono
What non-US paper though? In my experience as an Australian all of our papers
are totally fucked. We don't have anything anywhere near as good as NYT or
WaPo.

~~~
femto
Crinkling News [1] was a surprisingly good Australian newspaper. It ceased
publication in January 2018, but I gather they would reopen if they could find
the money (Costs $200k/year to run?).

It was written for children, essentially the print equivalent of ABC's Behind
The News bulletin [2]. The writing level wasn't too far removed from the
"adult" papers (I gather broadsheets are written to a 12 year old reading
level and tabloids lower than that). Articles were a mix of mainstream news
and kid specific stuff. There were fewer articles than an adult paper, but was
basically all there with the extraneous stuff removed. It was completely
independent.

[1] [https://www.crinklingnews.com.au/](https://www.crinklingnews.com.au/)

[2] [http://www.abc.net.au/btn/](http://www.abc.net.au/btn/)

------
nemacol
I signed up for NYT and canceled the next day.

After becoming a paying customer they do not remove the ads from apps, pop ups
on the website, etc etc. I was annoyed so I decided to cancel. The
cancellation process was also quite annoying. Couldn't just do it through a
form, I had to chat or call. I was on hold in the chat room for 35 minutes
before someone got on and asked me what I wanted. At that point I was quite
annoyed.

The person in chat was perfectly friendly and handled the rest of the
cancellation process swiftly.

I am happy to pay for content but I'll be damned if I am going to pay and
still be subjected to popups and ads between every paragraph.

~~~
bovermyer
The problem is that newspapers still make the majority of their income from
advertising. This is why ads still appear after you're subscribed and logged
in to their websites.

Shifting to a subscription-only revenue model is not an easy proposition, and
requires a huge adjustment that most newspapers are not yet ready to make.

Source: I used to work for a major regional newspaper.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
This is what I had always heard, that the price of the paper just covered the
printing and shipping. It seems like all these papers already have advertiser
contacts and should have been able to easily transition into an online
advertiser only model.

and as far as paying for ads, I find it absurd that anyone pays for cable tv
anymore.

~~~
LocalPCGuy
I still pay for cable TV because

1) its my cheapest option to have local channels

2) of the DVR options (so I don't deal with those ads), it still has the best
experience (tried Hulu, DirecTVNow, YouTubeTV) - YouTubeTV was the closest,
but they inject ads you cannot skip in on demand programs and replace your
"recordings" with on demand programs as soon as the network makes them
available.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_1) its my cheapest option to have local channels_

cheaper than an antenna? Do you live somewhere with too much interference?

------
euske
I can't help but drawing a parallel between the news industry and software
industry here. People hate paying for software for a reason; an expensive
solution is not necessarily better, and there are tons of unscrupulous
business practices in the software industry. Furthermore, most people can't
discern quality software and bad software (especially when it comes to
invisible elements like reliability and security). The same goes for news
organizations. We (at least some of us) don't know what's quality journalism,
and even in a reputable news organization there's some shady part. We've lost
faith to them and thought that we deserve something better. I don't know. I'm
paying for NYT for now as well as paying for crappy software that I sometimes
use grudgingly. Maybe it's an age thing, but I can't go radical and dump
everything just yet. I feel that our new system (whatever it will be) isn't
going to be drastically better than the current ones.

------
jayalpha
"The impact on journalism has been clear. Just within the past week, we have
seen over 1,000 planned layoffs at Gannett, BuzzFeed and HuffPost"

I had never considered the click-bait outlet "HuffPost" as "quality
journalism".

"We can start with the fact that “free” isn’t a good business model for
quality journalism." Well, paid journalism is not a guarantee either:
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/claas-
relotius...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/claas-relotius-
reporter-forgery-scandal-a-1244755.html)

Stopped reading after this. Whining does not suit the NYT well. It is an
outstanding newspaper and has basically, also thanks to the internet, a world
wide audience. It is better prepared to the changing business model as most
other newspapers. Whining here about google and facebook is rent seeking.

~~~
aggronn
I'm just incredibly baffled by what you're proposing the solution is if its
not a cultural shift towards paying for content? In an exclusively
programmatic ad based market, the only long term winning strategy is to write
click-bait and fake news.

We should all be extremely concerned about what the writer is getting at. If
you're going to call it whining, and say they need to change their business
model, what should they change it to?

~~~
cotelletta
It's easy: better, and less, content.

The internet makes it that they don't need to fill pages and pages every day
just to be tossed into the trash bin. A year old article can still be
valuable, and it can be augmented with additional sides and updates. It just
takes diligence and work, not to mention setting up publishing and formatting
abilities way beyond the average cookie cutter CMS. Investing in their own
production processes and technology, in other words.

But nobody's doing that. They're just making the churn more efficient. At most
they'll link to some previous articles, forcing you to do the sifting
yourself, and only linking one way.

By the time a newsworthy event reaches mainstream level, it's already been
going for a while. That's the point at which I'd want to read a brief one
pager of backstory, before diving into current events, surrounded by more
context. Take the conflict in Syria: it might just be me not paying attention
and being too busy with other stuff, but I genuinely missed when that started.
When it did enter my radar, everyone was talking about it like we all knew how
it happened. Well, if you take a random person on the street, someone who was
upset at the (staged?) pictures of a dead kid... How many can tell you what
that conflict is about and get close to the truth? I bet it's incredibly low,
the only difference is I'm being honest about my ignorance instead of doing
the stupid primate thing of pretending to be in the know in fear of looking
foolish (and, I guess, western propaganda being just that when it comes to
these subjects).

There's your hole in the market. That's what people want to pay for: not being
the person who can't join in on interesting conversations. Well, are our
current journalists up to that task? I very much doubt it, cos most have no
ability beyond being a newsperson, jacks of no trade at all. Instead of
letting experts do the talking, we're letting self important pretenders do it,
and then, mostly to push an agenda.

The Quillette expose linked here about the geneticist bullied into suicide
should lead us all to ask: why are we letting these morons tell us anything?
They just want to enter industries and scenes they don't know, mine them for
brief moments of relevance, and leave behind a wreck of human dignity. All
over a ten minute talk they couldn't be bothered to understand, because
bullying a sperg was more useful to them.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I agree with this. The 24/7 news cycle ruined us in many ways, even print.

I’d rather have a journalist spend a week on a story (or more) and give more
context instead of basically rehashing what was said by both sides.

I like The Atlantic, as it is mostly long form, not breaking news, but the
impact of social media and 24/7 news has affected it as well.

Either way, I think the more you focus on the larger picture through long form
journalism instead of the daily machinations, the better informed we will be
and less spun up all the time.

------
RickSanchez2600
I paid for a newspaper and the only thing factual was the cartoons. Fake news
has been around longer than the Internet. Look at Supermarket tabloids. Look
at all of the journalists being fired now.

Fake news is paid for with advertising and collecting info on the readers.
Sometimes you have to pay for it as well.

Newspaper I paid for reported falsely that a friend of mine's parents had
neglected their spinal meningitis daughter and she died. They rushed her to
the hospital in their van knocking off the rack on top to get her help because
they couldn't wait for an ambulance. She died anyway, and they charged the
parents even if they did everything correctly to save her. From that day I
learned of fake news.

~~~
mr_toad
> Newspaper I paid for reported falsely

> they charged the parents

So the newspaper just reported the fact that they had been charged?

> From that day I learned of fake news.

You learned to label things you don’t agree with as fake news.

~~~
Something1234
I'm more than willing to bet that the newspaper vilified the parents. It seems
to be happening more and more frequently.

~~~
RickSanchez2600
Yes the paper vilified the parents who had done nothing wrong. Kick them when
they are down sort of thing to sell more papers.

------
jccalhoun
Want me to pay for real news? Be worth paying for. 90% of "news" (like
everything else) is crap that isn't worth supporting. I am not inclined to
subsidize the good things by paying for bad things.

That being said, I do wish google or some other search engine would get better
about favoring original sources rather than other sites that just take stories
and rewrite them. I hate seeing a headline to a story only to find out that it
is just re-reporting what some other site reported. Often it is a game of
telephone where site A rewrites a story from site B that rewrote a story from
site C.

If a search engine could find a way to return the original site first then it
would help highlight original reporting and make re-reporting less worthwhile.

~~~
culot
I think most commenters here are missing the point of this op-ed: it's not to
convince people to pay for news content, it is to promote legislation that
allows the author's News Media Alliance to form a cartel that is exempted from
anti-trust regulations, so they can try to force Facebook and Google to pay
them directly. His organization spends of a lot of time over these past couple
of years railing against Google and Facebook, and take note that the true
target of this article is not consumers of news, but Facebook and Google.

The author of the article, David Chavern, since he took over the reins of the
News Media Alliance, has argued that media cross-ownership rules are
antiquated, that greater consolidation of news firms would be beneficial to
citizens.

"A new op-ed from trade association News Media Alliance’s president and CEO
David Chavern dismisses the contributions of leading tech services and argues
publishers should form a cartel and extract rents by implementing
controversial new regulations. In reality, though, leading tech services have
taken great steps to empower publishers in the Internet Age, while the “cartel
solution” would do little to bolster innovation."

link: [https://springboardccia.com/2019/02/01/nmas-cartel-
solution-...](https://springboardccia.com/2019/02/01/nmas-cartel-solution-
little-bolster-innovation-news/)

------
lazzlazzlazz
I would love to pay for real news, but I can't find anyone making it
consistently. The New York Times at its best produces "mostly believable" if
slightly confused material, and at its worst outright propaganda.

~~~
akvadrako
I agree. One of the most consistently fact-based publications I've found it
Financial Times, though it's pretty dry.

~~~
doktrin
FT is probably the highest quality newspaper in the world. They do charge a
premium though.

------
phreack
Didn't the NYT have the dark pattern of being one-click subscribe, yet made
you fill forms and emails and physically call them to unsubscribe? (At least
up until a few months ago, last I heard)

Stuff like that is an absolute deal breaker and turns lots of users away from
subscriptions entirely, before even talking about article/content quality.

~~~
jammygit
Cancelling an Amazon account takes about an hour of redirects and customer
retention chats and emails. I decided not to subscribe to some papers for that
reason yesterday

~~~
Dylan16807
What do you mean by "cancelling an account"? The last time my prime
subscription expired they just let it happen, has that changed? Or do you mean
deleting an account, which is completely different from cancelling a
subscription?

------
bargl
I want a service where I can subscribe to journalists not news papers. I want
to know that they are getting a portion of my subscription and being
successful. I want 0 advertising in this news paper.

Where do I get it? Is this something we need to create? I'd love a fact check
o meter on each journalist as well, but I think that'd be very open to bias,
so I don't know how that'd happen.

Anyway, I don't subscribe to newspapers because I don't like their model, not
because I don't want to support the journalist. I have no clue if I'm missing
a massive part of how the newspapers actually front a lot of money to make
journalism better by paying expenses for journalists. I'm no expert on the ins
and outs of journalism. I just see a lot of crap reporting that doesn't hold
water and I'm tired of reading op-ed pieces falsely labeled as journalism.

~~~
marmadukester39
I tried building a version of this in 2015 called Uncoverage. Beacon did too.
Not enough people cared enough to support individual journalists. real stories
take too long to write, all journalists need editors, and the value prop feels
unfamiliar and seems thin for subscribers. Some are trying now on Patreon.

~~~
bargl
I think that's an important point that you'd have to support a small group
like, editor/journalist combo.

I imagine you could get a pay scale based on page views, and a model where if
you don't use the subscription you get ads.

It'd be interesting to see built.

I was also thinking it'd be nice to see recommendations separated from the
hosting. I guess there just aren't enough people interested in it.

------
davidw
I subscribe to:

* [https://www.bendbulletin.com/](https://www.bendbulletin.com/) \- the local paper. They're the only ones with a reporter sitting through sometimes excruciatingly long city council meetings full of stuff like 'modifications to the sign code' \- but also things like zoning reform that may make housing not so horribly expensive.

* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/) online - seems to be a decent national level newspaper. You can also get a deal on it via Amazon Prime.

* [https://www.economist.com/](https://www.economist.com/) \- good coverage of events around the world, and some more in depth analysis.

It's probably too much, but... I feel like these are critical times in terms
of being informed and involved.

~~~
justin66
This seems like a pretty good pattern, supporting journalism at the local,
national, and global level.

------
qp_nn
I do, broadly, agree with the sentiment. I pay for The Economist, The
Financial Times, and the Australian Financial Review. Plus I read BBC and
Thompson Routers regularly. If there's something particularly contentious I'll
have a look at what the Guardian is saying about it to try and get an
alternative perspective.

There's definitely a _huge_ bias in almost all news sources. The Economist
explicitly states their position on matters, The Financial Times and AFR are
much more implicit. The BBC does pretty well on sticking to facts, but now
they're appending their stories with opinion pieces from editors.

TR does do a very good job of simply fact reporting.

~~~
qp_nn
There's a really cool analysis/chart about the reliability of news sources
here: [http://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-
exac...](http://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-
we-
reading/?fbclid=IwAR35ogM0iy4AEpX_QGUYU5OEz54vkekJ_cPI1kXYUNVRXMbls7_qJl5I0Rw)

~~~
DuskStar
Why not link to the most recent version? It's currently at 4.0:

[https://www.adfontesmedia.com/](https://www.adfontesmedia.com/)

------
dawhizkid
Not sure about anyone else but every time I read an article about something
I'm actually an expert in or few times about myself or a company I've worked
for I see at least a handful of factual errors and/or exaggerations that
aren't real.

~~~
prepend
I think that’s called the Gell-Mann Effect [0].

I think these articles are pretty comical coming from the New York Times, a
for profit company, that has been cutting costs amidst really serious
editorial failures.

I would believe this much more if it was from an independent news source. It’s
like a car salesman telling you great buying a car is.

It’s reasonable that the Times would have such a biased, unfounded article.
But not so much that anyone pay attention to or make decisions based on it.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-
Mann_amnesia_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect)

~~~
untog
In what way is NYT not an independent news source? It's not owned by some
giant media conglomerate, it's family owned. And last I checked it was one of
few media companies reporting good financial results, not cutting costs.

~~~
gpm
The NYT isn't independent in the sense that they're literally saying "pay us".
This article is literally self promotion.

~~~
stopit788
it is an Op-Ed. Is someone in the newspapers/media business not allowed to
have an opinion about their business?

------
roylez
Paying does not stop people from lying to you,as long as there is interest in
it. The crowd has been manipulated throughout the history, and is destined to
be so, because there's interest in it. If you want not to be part of the
crowd,use your own discretion, which you cannot outsource,by paying.

~~~
tivert
> Paying does not stop people from lying to you, as long as there is interest
> in it.

But if you don't pay someone to go out into the world and do the _labor-
intensive work_ of investigating the truth, you'll certainly get lies written
from the comfort of someone's desk.

Lies and opinion are much cheaper to produce than accurate factual reporting,
since there's less overhead.

------
sleepysysadmin
Ironically posted on the NYTimes?

I think what's happening isn't that suddenly they are posting fake news, but
rather it has been fake news all along. Tons of celebrities have said how
they've been misquoted or otherwise smeared by news for a very long time.

What's different today is that everyone has a smartphone where they can verify
the facts of the story and discover that the news is fake.

The journalism crisis is self-created because they have been pushing a fake
narrative and are now getting caught. Worse yet, in the face of getting caught
they double down on going even further into their false narrative.

~~~
50656E6973
>Worse yet, in the face of getting caught they double down on going even
further into their false narrative.

This is the common predictable behavior of compulsive liars

------
smsm42
I've just been reading this: [https://quillette.com/2019/01/30/the-death-of-a-
dreamer/](https://quillette.com/2019/01/30/the-death-of-a-dreamer/)

Basically, a story of a person driven to suicide by biased, sensationalized
and unfair coverage. To say it doesn't make me sympathize with the members of
the outlets committing the deed is a large understatement. While I understand
that not everybody in the press is like that, such things are considered
totally acceptable, and people doing this would probably be then welcomed to
work in any other press outlet. Until the time that producing such baloney has
real consequences enforced by the people in the industry, I would have very
little sympathy for them complaining about declining respect - and declining
money that comes with it.

------
adamrezich
It's worth having ads unblocked on Twitter to get the weekly-or-so NYT ad in
the form of a sponsored tweet, click on it, and see that out of hundreds,
sometimes thousands of replies to the sponsored tweet, literally zero of them
have anything positive to say. Allowing all replies to sponsored tweets to be
visible seems like a poor marketing strategy but at least it provides ample
entertainment.

------
jccalhoun
Reading the comments here, I am surprised that so many comments are saying
that the New York Times and mainstream media in general are fake news. I'm no
fan of the NYTimes (I think it is too much filler and not enough substance)
but I'm curious as to what commenters think is real news or what makes the
NYTimes fake news.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
What an outlet chooses to report on (or not to report on) can be of much
greater significance than the details therein presented.

------
ademup
I subscribed to a year of Washington Post and received a ton of spam-ish
content, notifications, and pleas to renew during the entire period. Lesson
learned, cancelled with predjudice.

~~~
standardUser
I'm a WaPo subscriber (digital) for a few years now and have received
virtually no correspondence from them at all, payment-related or otherwise.

Did you not unsubscribe to their emails that you didn't wish to receive?

~~~
masonic
I get at least 3 emails a day from them. The "Post Most" alone comes multiple
times a week.

------
SubuSS
The news as a written medium is losing traction: youtube rules the next
generation (anecdotally from what I see with my daughter & friends).

I wouldn't mind paying youtube premium channel if I can get a truly centrist
opinion pieces, factual reporting and random excerpts into topics like
science/philosophy/comedy/culture.

Sadly afaic again, most of the 'online' content is way too left (or the worse
option: way too right). What I wouldn't give for a bbc like channel in the US
that runs 1-1.5 hrs every day of content. Any recommendations?

~~~
dexen
Tim Pool.

He's got both a news channel
([https://www.youtube.com/user/Timcasts/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/Timcasts/videos))
and an Op-Ed channel ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe02lGcO-
ahAURWuxAJnjdA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe02lGcO-ahAURWuxAJnjdA)).

~~~
normal_man
The guy who marches in all the Nazi rallies under the guise of being a
"journalist," cool.

------
Zaskoda
I have this idea I share over and over again because I'm not in a position to
pursue it. Usually it gets ignored and every once in a while someone says it's
brilliant so here's hoping.

Crowd source investigative reporting. Focus on supporting the reporter instead
of the news network. Build a system that creates a reputation for the reporter
and a mechanism to crowd source news that the general public is interested in.

I could go on, but then there would be more text for you to read. I guess I
could add that cryptocurrencies and blockchain would be useful technologies in
a tool like this. (reputation tracking and crowdsourcing)

------
IronWolve
I do pay, just to alt-media companies that I respect more than the NY Times.
MSM won't get my dime while they push political agendas instead and target the
opposition.

~~~
aphextron
Do these alt-media companies have accredited journalists, held to objective
professional and ethical standards laid out by journalist organizations? Do
they cite credible sources and facts with every article?

Because that's what we're losing. The idea that JoeBlowKnowsTheTruth.com holds
the same level of accountability, rigor, and seriousness as an actual news
organization is what's gotten us into this mess.

~~~
adamrezich
How did the other response to this comment get [dead] within _one minute_ of
being posted?

~~~
bayulxc5
The account is shadowbanned. (Heads up, loraa!)

~~~
michaelmrose
So incoming ban for you too?

~~~
bayulxc5
Yes, I get banned every day, creating new accounts is part of my routine. :P

~~~
webninja
Why would you go through all that effort just to have the door slammed in your
face? It’s like showing up to a random person’s house party uninvited, being
booted out, and returning each week. It’s not like you can’t create your own
house party or find another house party where you’re invited to.

------
nytLOL
[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opinion/saddam-s-bombs-
we...](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opinion/saddam-s-bombs-we-ll-find-
them.html)

~~~
tivert
> A version of this _op-ed_ appears in print on June 20, 2003, on Page A00023
> of the National edition

You know what an op-ed piece is, right? If you don't, here's a definition:

> An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page" or "opinion editorial", is
> a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which
> expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the
> publication's editorial board.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed)

~~~
nytLOL
I know what an op-ed is. I guess your point is that they don't fact check op-
ed's so it doesn't count?

The NYT itself felt it's reporting was bad enough it warranted an apology:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/the-
public-e...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/the-public-
editor-weapons-of-mass-destruction-or-mass-distraction.html)

~~~
jessaustin
TFA is a NYT opinion piece...

------
o10449366
The NYT has been on a crusade against FB for the past two years now. No other
major news publication has published as many articles on FB as they have.

I will never support NYT, not because I support FB, but because they disguise
their media campaign as one meant to protect the individual's privacy, when in
reality NYT has a very strong monetary incentive to go after FB. These
ulterior motives further decay the trust the general public has in news media
of all kinds and it's disappointing to see HN gobble up NYT article after NYT
article just because FB is unpopular here.

~~~
untog
Are the articles false? I don't really understand the reasoning here. Facebook
is one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world now, why should
NYT not report on them? One straightforward way for FB to stop this reporting
would be to stop doing shady things.

~~~
8ytecoder
It doesn't have to be false. What gets picked for reporting reveals a lot
about bias as well. The other thing is the magnitude. Being objective would be
to consider the truth, the relevancy and the magnitude of issues. If NYT
doesn't like FB, they can give front page coverage to every negative news
about FB irrespective of how big the issue is and how many people it affects.

It's like raising a sev-1 ticket against a team/project you hate or escalating
far and wide every single mistake a coworker makes - it tarnishes the
reputation even while being completely truthful with respect to the statement
made.

~~~
untog
But can the same not be said of every news organisation out there - that they
stand to lose at the hands of FB? So who is qualified to report on FB, no one?

You're not wrong that NYT would have a motivation to report negatively about
FB. But that doesn't automatically mean that _is_ the motive, though. All
their reporting I've seen has been notable, and not hysterical. There's been
additional good reporting by TechCrunch and ProPublica, I'm not sure how NYT's
coverage differs.

~~~
8ytecoder
I'm not arguing that. Just that it doesn't have to false to have a hidden
agenda or bias

------
rurcliped
I'd be happy to pay. I don't because I object to the NYT privacy policy: "we
gather ... a history of the pages you view ... We automatically combine this
collected log-information with other information we collect about you ... We
have a legitimate interest in disclosing or transferring your personal
information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale,
joint venture ...."

I'd pay double or triple their current price if they announced support for
anonymous access backed by frictionless anonymous payment.

------
jcroll
I pay for the NYT but only after getting a 1 year deal where it works out to
$8/mo, after that it jumps to $20/mo. If newspapers want to compete for paid
online subscriptions they should be more in line with Netflix and Spotify and
be a flat $10/mo

------
indigochill
Another thing that's sort of been a pebble in the shoe of both journalism and
education (I mean, at some level they -should- be doing similar things,
right?) is that they don't necessarily make it easy for readers to find
original sources.

A counterexample: if I want to know about the origins of our understanding of
geometry, Euclid's Elements is a pretty solid place to start. Or Newton's
Principia for physics.

Now let's look at a news topic like climate change. Give me data I can dig
through for myself. I'm sure it's available, but it's not something you'll
usually see journalists directing their readers to.

Of course, most readers aren't equipped to use the data if they did have it,
so on a practical level it makes some sense not to bother including it.

But this raises a deeper question: is your Average Joe Citizen (who is not an
engineer, but maybe a barista, salesman, banker, etc) equipped to have an
opinion about climate change at all? We take for granted incredible access to
information, but outside our professional specialty most people rely on other
people to tell them what to think, and those people may be accredited by other
people, with various biases, agendas, traditions, etc all the way up.

And even with the people who are working directly with data, there are
occasionally political pressures on them to arrive at certain conclusions
(diet research in particular is infamous for this).

All that said, I do believe in the value of journalism to educate. But I think
a journalism worth paying for will look more like educational material than
the journalism we have today.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
> But this raises a deeper question: is your Average Joe Citizen (who is not
> an engineer, but maybe a barista, salesman, banker, etc) equipped to have an
> opinion about climate change at all?

This comes off pretty condescending. What makes an (assuming computer)
engineer any more capable of reading & comprehending reports than a barista or
banker?

~~~
indigochill
You're right. I would edit my post since it's incorrect to imply an engineer
would be any more capable in the example I chose. But apparently I can't any
more.

------
janimo
Want to stop amateur-level, easily-debunked and low budget fake news? Pay for
the real thing coming from established sources /s

Seriously, fake news has not been invented in the past three years, it was
just 'democratised' with the help of twitter and facebook. The large majority
of publications, even reputable ones like the NYT, have contributed to the
spread of false information and knowingly mislead the public more than once.

------
raz32dust
I am not sure paying for news will make it reliable. A subscription-based
newspaper also has some of the same constraints as an ad-based one. Eventually
it will pander to its subscription base. I think it would only make it even
worse, if anything, since metadata about the reader would be even more easier
to know when you are logged in.

~~~
hopler
You need to buy a paper whose subscribers want to be pandered to with real
news.

------
jasonvorhe
Then give me a subscription model where I can access content from x, y and z
for a fixed fee. If I need multiple accounts and subscriptions, I couldn't
care less.

It's that simple.

------
baroffoos
I pay for news via tax and get usually high quality content from
[https://www.abc.net.au/](https://www.abc.net.au/)

~~~
GarrisonPrime
Lucky you. Seriously, enjoy your good fortune.

But paying for something via tax is a pretty weak way of ensuring
accountability, which is the entire point behind the concept of voting with
your wallet.

------
hd4
Yeah seems likely.

"Want me to stop lying? Pay me to tell the truth then."

------
mbostleman
I find it interesting how Fake News has two definitions depending on which of
the two culture bubbles it comes from. On one side it refers to all out
fabrication by a source that exists purely to spam social media feeds. The
other side refers to more of a lugenpresse - legitimate news organizations
that technically use facts, but cherry pick them in a way that presents a pre-
determined narrative. Ironically, to this side, the NYT is one of the top
poster children of their definition of Fake News.

~~~
dilap
Yeah, popularizing the term "fake news" was a an impressively epic own-goal by
traditional media.

And while I do agree that MSM fakeness mostly comes in the form of
"technically facts, mischaracterized and cherry-picked," there is also a lot
of just straight untruths as well, but laundered through anonymous sources.
The effect is the same, in that you come away believing untrue things.

E.g., this is fake.

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-
hel...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-
talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy?CMP=twt_gu&__twitter_impression=true)

And this:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-
responses-i...](https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-
iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html)

Another form of fakeness is "honest" mistakes (that always seem to
coincidentally play into some popular narrative) that are hyped in headlines,
but then only quietly corrected later, e.g., stuff like this:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/russi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-
vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.a67f2090d08b)

So the casual reader will be left believing lots of untrue things, as they
catch the headlines and miss the corrections.

~~~
malvosenior
Even after corrections the fake stories from mainstream media still "stick" if
they have the proper political value. There are people in this thread still
insisting that the Covington High School kids surrounded and intimidated a
native elder even though that story was retracted and the media that pushed it
is now being sued for libel.

------
Mikho
The problem is that journalists do not understand the basic concepts of
economics. The news is non-rival non-excludable public good like air or
sunshine. By its nature news itself can not have a price.

A journalist does not add any value when writes about some other people doing
something and this is being public knowledge. Previously this type of
information technically differentiated paper they sold. So, people paid for
the differentiated paper. Not for the news per se. Internet provided free
distribution and there is no more paper to sell. Hence, nothing to pay for.

Exactly the same happened to the music industry when it was selling plastic--
CDs--differentiated by music bits on it. When distribution digital become free
and people stopped buying CDs the industry collapsed and only Spotify revived
it with an innovative business model. And now people pay for easy access, for
service, not for the music.

So, for the press, it is only specialized information and analysis are worth
paying for. It's unique POV or data that adds value should really have a
price. Just news is a loss leader to attract an audience in this equation.
Exactly the same like Stratechery, for example, publishes free weekly posts
and podcast to get the audience to pay for daily analysis.

When the press, in general, understand basic economic forces, it will be able
to be sustainable. Readers do not need a gazillion of bloggers calling
themselves journalists that write basically exactly the same news about an
event or device that require effectively zero experience except typing. The
price for this is exactly zero. This is a marketing expense to attract users
for the real thing.

But there are not so many outlets that produce that real thing. Most produce
instant junk news that has zero value and think that this should make a
living.

------
kaolti
I understand no one likes change, especially businesses. But complaining and
trying blame and shame your audience because your business model is no longer
viable is laughable. It is on THEM to figure what is next for journalism.

That's not to say their point is not perfectly valid about fake news, it is.

It's that the attitude of telling us it's our fault and we should change our
ways is already a losing mindset.

------
wtmt
If paying for the real thing meant they were priced appropriately (there are
many facets to this) and didn't shove tons of ads and didn't track users, it
has a chance of working. Take Ars Technica as an example (I'm not a
subscriber). Its paid subscriptions neither show you ads nor have a single
tracker (it did take some time to get there though).

For people in a country like India, where print newspapers (that have ads) can
be bought for a whole month for about ₹150 or so (a little more than $2),
subscriptions to foreign sources are quite expensive. Absurdly, there are
newspapers in India that charge more for the digital edition (compared to
print), while still showing plenty of ads and having the benefit of adding
trackers! (Example: The Hindu)

Unless mainstream news outlets improve their business models and the user
experience, I for now have very less sympathy for them. The fact that Facebook
and Google are a lot more worse for everyone is why I even have sympathy for
these organizations in the first place.

~~~
jammygit
I'll look into them, thanks!

Edit: found this writeup that exicitly states no tracking for subs. Thanks
again for mentioning them!

[https://arstechnica.com/staff/2018/03/ars-pro-now-free-of-
tr...](https://arstechnica.com/staff/2018/03/ars-pro-now-free-of-trackers-for-
subscribers/)

------
mlthoughts2018
I don’t see how paying for news would have any effect on fake news, unless
people start to believe that only paid-for news can be accurate or trustworty.

That is a chilling and terrifying idea. Even if I pay for news, a lot of other
news and non-fiction content is still freely published.

As long as people believe _some_ free news is trustworthy, there will be an
incentive to create fake news.

------
davidhyde
I think we need to give professional journalists the benefit of the doubt and
assume they studied journalism at university and the fact that what they
learned is the correct way of doing journalism. Just like computer scientists
go to university and learn how to write software properly. What I think
happens in reality is that people with no journalism training call the shots
by setting the budget and direction in these news agencies. This introduces
the bias these journalists have training to actively avoid. Must be very
frustrating for them.

Of cource, just like software developers with no formal training, there are
plenty of news writers with no formal training either. And just like
developers, these journalists can self learn proper journalism themselves or
hack it and give a bad name to other journalists.

~~~
malvosenior
You can follow these journalists directly on Twitter and see that they have
amazing bias that they are not ashamed about promoting. After all, the NYT
hired someone who has hundreds of anti-white, anti-male tweets to be on their
editorial board and to act as their head technology editor.

Whatever they learned in school is taking back seat to pushing an agenda.

------
heyjudy
TRNN, Economic Update, Democracy Now, Pacifica Radio, Phily D, Chris Hedges,
Journeyman Pictures, Thom Hartmann, The Jimmy Dore Show, Paul Beckwith
(climate).

I watch either CBS or NBC about once a month to laugh and smh at corporate
BS/lack of journalistic integrity prostituting itself with somatic
entertainment, propaganda, a lack of understanding and a lack of well-
researched nuance. The only viable form of news is user-/no strings grant-
supported. Ad-supported inevitably loses its soul. There's no getting around
the reality that ad-supported is fundamentally journalistically unethical and
readership immoral.

------
drdeadringer
As a somewhat parallel to "fake news vs real news, pay for it", some folks
involved in the production [and likely the distribution] of pornography have
associated "ethical porn" with paying for porn. They derided the "tube sites"
for obvious reasons. Personally, I've heard of this stance more from certain
porn actors than production houses if that's of any consideration, but I'm not
blind.

And no, I have no idea what "fake porn" might be, if such a thing exists.

------
gdrulia
What I fail to understand so far is the pricing of the news. Do newspapers
really earn tens of dollars/pounds/euros per month per user? I want to pay for
the news, but any website I like charges a 2 digit numbers per month, and that
is when you subscribe for a year. The way I see it, I should be able to pay
them for ads I wont see, maybe some collateral, but current pricing in my mind
doesn't reflect reality. What am I missing in this picture? Please help me
understand.

~~~
Armisael16
You simply don’t understand how much it costs to run a decent newsroom. Online
ads have never been enough to cover costs.

------
jmcmichael
This implies that only people who have the means and desire to pay for
accurate news will get it. Given that accurate information about the world,
our society, and its politics is required for making accurate decisions about
how to vote and spend one's time and money, shouldn't we start treating
journalism as a public good and funding it independent of anyone's ability to
come up with a business model that will work?

~~~
mscasts
My country (Sweden) has a state-sponsonsored news outlet. It is one of the
most biased ones.

Several other countries in Europe has the same model and it just doesn't work.

~~~
jmcmichael
Yeah, state-sponsored news has its own problems. The state should probably be
the main focus of news organizations. Having the State, target of journalists'
investigations, hold the purse strings is perhaps an even bigger problem than
the market.

I think there might be a solution where state funds support a local-news
system, where the funds are institutionally separated from influence - maybe
similar to how the Fed is supported by the State yet remains politically
separate from it (ideally).

There are institutional structures beyond the state and market that can
produce public goods.

------
headsoup
In my likely naive view, this seems quite simple: create quality and unique
content and people will pay a price reflecting that.

Make the 'base' service free, but offer a better 'tier' (or whatever) as a
paid service (Q&A with journos, a free journal, ability to filter and tune
news feed, etc)

There are many ideas and almost all the better ones don't likely involve pay-
walling the site (either for all or after XX articles)...

------
subpixel
The local news angle here is particularly important - it's the weakest link in
our information chain and it decides elections.

I'm a broken record on this, but I think Craigslist should connect local
classified services to a new local journalism project. DNA Info is dead now,
but if there were 500 DNA Infos, with reporting funded handsomely from
Craigslist revenues, we could really fight against fake news from the bottom
up.

------
therealforsen
The issue with most news outlets is that they're either mainstream ones that
are liberal echo chambers, or conservative upstarts which reactively go just
as far in the other direction. Imagine a news organization where every level
of every department had to have a 50/50 split between registered Republicans
and Democrats. I think that would prevent bias from overrunning the outlets
like it has today.

------
nitwit005
I wish I could pay more fine grained subscriptions. If I get a local
newspaper, much of the content is national or international news, and sports.
I don't want any of that from them. I already have a New York Times
subscription and I'm not into sports.

The ideal service I see is something that bundles a local news source with a
national and international news source.

------
t0astbread
This is generally a good idea but what about the people who can't afford to
pay for news? Do they not deserve to know what's going on? I'm not aware of
what the general consensus on this is and how it's handled but I think
objective news (both local and international) are a basic right of citizens of
a country.

~~~
webninja
How will the newspaper companies pay their writers and website developers
then? If their English majors were paid any less, they’d be on food stamps
like most of Walmart’s employees.

------
everdev
What if we had a way to signify that an article or a publication meets a
certain set of journalistic standards (sourcing, fact checking, no opinions,
etc.), such that violating those standards would result in a fine.

Then it might be easier for a casual reader to differentiate between
journalism and opinion.

------
lwhi
We need a Spotify for journalism.

I don't want individual subscriptions, but I'd be happy to pay once.

~~~
gpvos
I'm not sure if Spotify is the right model, but maybe the newspapers can make
some reciprocal arrangements? I pay for a quality newspaper in my own
region/country, and with that subscription I would also like to be able to
view a number of articles on other newspapers' websites, more than not-logged-
in users, but less than full subscribers of those other newspapers (say, 30
articles per month), maybe not completely ad-free but at least without
obnoxious or tracking ads.

------
perfunctory
If anyone is interested in ad-free journalism consider thecorrespondent.com. I
am not an affiliate, just a customer. I believe it's crucial for journalism to
be independent of advertising revenue.

------
edpichler
In Brazil we have Nexo. They are doing a very good journalism:
[https://www.nexojornal.com.br/](https://www.nexojornal.com.br/)

PS: I also like The Guardian.

------
buboard
Want to hear what you want? Pay for the real thing. It s fake news that paid
news are better. Advertising allows publishers to not pander to specific
audiences.

~~~
jm4
Not exactly true that advertising allows publishers not to pander to a
specific audience. A couple times every year we see advertiser boycotts
demanding some host be fired because he or she said something a part of the
audience didn’t like.

Ad supported news is a real shit show. It’s what got us CNN and Fox. They’ve
effectively segmented the audience so people hear what they want to and
tightened up the demographic for ads. They have to keep people watching and
clicking so they can serve up another ad. How do you do that? Get them fired
up over some controversy on a regular basis and tell them what they want to
hear in between controversies.

------
egberts1
Nope. It’s all about the quality of journalism. If the Board Of Editors Of
MyPressNewsInc can’t keep bias down, then they shouldn’t deserve a business
model.

------
agumonkey
This says a thing or two about society.

\- economy aims at making money, not being good

\- what you pay for is people caring for other people (by integrating facts
into valuable knowledge)

------
mscasts
Why would I pay for a media that humiliates me, writes biased articles and
tells me that I am a bad person because my political views differ from theirs?

I am actually kind of glad that the media landscape is changing, because they
way it has been has been terrifying. I'm not american, so I can't speak for
new york times but the layoffs in the shit-media that was buzzfeed and others
like it is just good news.

I'd rather see a world without a news media than with them being the only
option. But I do pay, for alt-media.

~~~
bshoemaker
You do understand that the people laid off at Buzzfeed were not the people at
the Buzzfeed media side of the house, they were actual reporters on the
Buzzfeed news side?

~~~
mscasts
Yes I do understand that. I don't really see any real difference between the
two though.

~~~
webninja
It means more fun quizzes to find out which Disney princess your personality
is the closest to and less actual news reporting.

------
todarrenrowse27
Correct it should stop, fake news always wastes the public time, this is the
only publicity stunts for getting attention.

------
speeder
NYT hired a person that is openly racist and tried to turn long form story
about a Chinese woman in tech into family drama clickbait that risked making
that woman get killed by the government.

NYT can whine all they want, but until they stop producing fake news
themselves no reason to pay... If all papers produce such low quality biased
content, I prefer the free ones, at least there is more honesty there about
what I am getting for what I pay for.

~~~
speeder
For the downvoters: why? Miss Jeong explicitly writes racist stuff on Twitter,
and endangered the life of a Chinese person when she was working at Vice, it
is a story that is not hidden, or controversial, the facts are easy to verify,
so why the downvotes?

------
vasilipupkin
the problem with this whole line of reasoning is what is really "news".
Example: I am happy to just wait for results of Mueller investigation and I
have no desire to pay for play by play dribble of leaks that are technically
newsworthy but I just don't care about.

------
hnuser355
I read very little news except a print version of economist I’m subscribed to

------
sqldba
I recently started paying for The Australian / Wall Street Journal.

It's garbage. Utter, complete garbage. I've been reading it daily online for
the past week and it's 99% political opinion nonsense.

(I'm not referring to anti-Trump or anything, it's actually anti-opposition in
Australia; for America it just seems to attack "the left").

------
dirtylowprofile
Last year I subscribed to both NY Times and Wired. But when I tried to cancel,
I was taken into a chat with a NY Times representative. Why is not that easy
to unsubscribe with just a click of the button.

------
dangerface
News has always been funded with advertising the cost of the newspaper was
just a nice bonus. I pay for it by giving you my eye balls. Journalists just
got sloppy and started money grubbing is all.

~~~
veddox
Hm, I thought the claim that newspapers are funded by advertising was wrong,
but apparently you're right after all - at least historically:

\-
[https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2020-report/index.html](https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2020-report/index.html)

\-
[https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_eve...](https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_events/how-
will-journalism-survive-internet-age/varian.pdf)

However, in the last few years, a switch to a greater subscription income has
taken place (see first link above, also here:
[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2017/06/01/circulation-...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2017/06/01/circulation-and-revenue-fall-for-newspaper-industry/)).

------
edoo
I want to see a browser plugin or web service that uses natural language
processing to highlight both the claims of fact and opinion in different
colors on the article you are reading.

------
rurban
Says the most egregious fake news distributor on earth. Right today they
launched the ultimate "Venezuelans are starving, humanistic intervention
needed" attack on their oil:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/world/americas/venezuela-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/world/americas/venezuela-
voices-protests.html)

When you ask Venezuelans onsite they'll shake their heads in disbelief about
the third US-backed coup attempt in this decade, and the press lies. This time
also backed by the EU.

------
mahart
People are more willing to pay to have their own views and beliefs confirmed
to themselves over factual reporting.

------
growlist
I do pay - for The Spectator, which stands increasingly alone as a voice of
reason in a sea of insanity.

------
azangru
No thank you. I’d rather go to Hacker News for news.

~~~
gyvastis
How desperate must they be to write such a thing.

------
kakarot
The unfortunate reality is thus:

The internet has created a zero-cost distribution platform, and "news"
platforms which exploit irrational emotional responses in order to further an
agenda will always exist.

If quality news is gated by a paywall, there exists a cutoff with respect to
salary beneath which quality news is inaccessible. Even if some could afford
it and choose not to, there still exists an informational membrane between two
classes of people. This system inherently couples poverty with less education.
That is unacceptable! The playing field must be even for all, and the same
knowledge should be accessible by all citizens who wish to participate
politically.

There exists a concept in Game Theory called Perfect Information [0]. To quote
Wikipedia, _a sequential game has perfect information if each player, when
making any decision, is perfectly informed of all the events that have
previously occurred_.

If we don't maintain a system which facilitates perfect information, then most
people beneath this socioeconomic membrane will follow the path of least
resistance and end up subscribing to free platforms which exist to exploit
them. Remember, if the product is free...

And if we allow this to happen, then we create ideological chasms between
socioeconomic classes, which leads to distrust and prevents cohesive inter-
class political activity. This hurts the lower class the most, as they must
rely on human resources more than financial resources in order to exact
meaningful change within their lifetimes.

It may be that the only solution is a network of journalist cells and news
organizations which are paid for by public donations, university funding, tax
money, fundraising, and any and all ethical means of revenue collection which
still allow the product itself to be free.

As most browsers of Hacker News are surely Open Source enthusiasts, it would
be very beneficial to take the time to gain a deeper understanding of why you
appreciate Open Source software, the benefits it has both to empower the
individual and society as a whole, and what mechanisms must exist to ensure
such a system continues to exist.

If you can identify these root concepts, you can then generalize them and try
applying them to your understanding of the news distribution model and the
future of journalism, and perhaps you might uncover new insights.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information)

~~~
webninja
Make all required college textbooks free! /s

I like your post but free news at a high quality level isn’t sustainable. Even
charities need donors.

~~~
kakarot
My point is that it _has_ to be sustainable. We don't have another option. It
must be independently funded and have alternative revenue streams.

A lot of people used to say Open Source wasn't sustainable. Red Hat, one of
the most prominent and influential Open Source companies, has over 10k
employees (many of them engineers who take the salary of 2-3 journalists) just
got bought for $34 billion.

You're gonna have to back up your claim that free news at a high quality level
isn't sustainable.

------
wyqydsyq
Ironically I couldn't read this article about why I should pay for news
because their paywall blocked it.

The result is I didn't pay and didn't read the article.

Seems to be an effective measure if your goal is to reduce clicks and deter
readers

------
nhn_account
I read NYT with javascript=disabled. No ads, no paywall, great loading time.

------
KiDD
Surprised this article isn't behind the paywall also :P

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Zecar
Want to get people to pay for the real thing? Offer it instead of pushing
agendas and narratives and telling people what to think.

~~~
warp_factor
Exactly. What we need is:

\- Fact based journalism.

\- A clear list of sources that we can check ourselves.

\- No biases in the choices of titles in order to sell a predefined narrative.

\- No ads in order to keep outside interests of dictating narratives.

~~~
webninja
Without clearly defined ads, the articles themselves become the ads.
Advertorials.

I agree with your other points but be careful what you wish for because you
just might get something worse.

------
suff
The NY Times piece is advocating against itself:
[http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/10/18/presidential-...](http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/10/18/presidential-
forecast-updates/newsletter.html)

------
a-fried-egg
I don't have the money

------
gjsman-1000
NYT hasn't done quality journalism in a while. They exclude stories, twist
facts in very obvious ways, and have become obsessed with Trump-hatred to the
point that the Trump-haters need their own newspaper.

~~~
Dumblydorr
This is just incorrect,they have many fantastic stories. If you think they're
obsessed with trump hatred, you probably need to step back and think
historically. Whatever your thoughts on the man, there is no question he is a
historically unique and extremely polarizing figure, could you expect any left
of center outlet to not get triggered by his behaviors? Their readers crave
this content, it drives readership, it drives subscriptions, it's just logical
that they cover him negatively so often.

------
baking
During the 2016 election the NY Times was harping on Clinton's e-mails daily
yet completely neglecting the growing evidence of Trump's Russian collusion. I
think they are part of the problem.

------
warp_factor
I cannot think of a single mainstream provider that is worth paying for
nowadays. What I would like is some neutral fact based news. Without titles
implying that one side is better than the other. (If you want an example, open
CNN and read any headline about Trump).

Such a Fact based news organization doesn't exist anymore. Ever since the 2016
elections, each outlet had to dig deeper into their partisan trenches.

Since then I get my information from a mix of reading multiple news outlets,
together with some independent long form podcasts that don't have as much an
agenda as mainstream newspapers.

~~~
normal_man
I mean, you can be non-partisan and objective and STILL write "negative"
headlines about Trump, because so much of what he does is hateful, baffling or
otherwise negative.

~~~
warp_factor
That's where I disagree. taking a negative stance on Trump IS taking a side.

What I would like is for the journalist to report the fact and let us reader
chose if it is negative or positive.

The facts can include the views of external people giving their views on it
(as long as it is clearly documented in the sources that it is the views of
someone external). But if the journalist himself takes a side, then all bets
are lost.

~~~
normal_man
Here are the Trump-related headlines on CNN right now:

Trump says he's on same page as intel chiefs after insulting them

Erin Burnett: Tapes don't lie, but Trump ...

Even some Republicans balk as Trump targets US spy chiefs

None of those would violate your criteria, but any reasonable person would say
they are negative. At some point you just have to accept reality and stop
expecting news outlets to bend over backwards trying to make it seem like both
sides are the same.

~~~
warp_factor
Those headlines are very biased in my opinion, in a subtle way to influence
the reader to start each article with a bad view of Trump.

>> Trump says he's on same page as intel chiefs after insulting them

after "insulting them"? The choices of words here makes us already take a
stance even before opening the article.

>> Erin Burnett: Tapes don't lie, but Trump ...

Seriously? The title already takes a stance on the view that Trump is lying
all around.

>> Even some Republicans balk as Trump targets US spy chiefs

The choice of the word "Even" to make it look like it is absolutely extreme.

Those are the headlines on Fox News:

Trump Jr. calls out Schiff after report shows mystery calls weren't to dad

Trump dismisses border wall negotiations as 'waste of time'

Those are the same type of headlines with bias on the other side.

~~~
normal_man
He did insult them. That is a fact of the story. What word would you prefer?

It attributes the stance to Erin Burnett, which you said is fine.

Saying "Even" is perfectly justified here. Parties, especially the Republican
party, tend to march in lockstep with their president. The fact that GOP
members are opposing Trump on this IS the story

------
notatoad
I currently have a paid subscription to both NYTimes and WaPo. I barely use
either. Going to a newspaper website and clicking on headlines that sound
interesting is simply not an experience that i'm interested in. I'd much
rather read articles that have been filtered through some sort of social
aggregator, whether that's facebook, twitter, reddit, or HN. And given how
news spreads on those sites, i'm probably not alone here.

But as long as "fake news" is all free, and "serious journalism" is hidden
behind a paywall it's hard for it to compete with the viral effect of free
stories on any aggregators. If the NYTimes wants people to read their content,
they need to make it discoverable, not lock it away.

------
josteink
> Want to Stop Fake News? Pay for the Real Thing

Obviously NY Times has a stake in this, so no need to go further into that
angle.

The problem "regular" media is facing today is increased scrutiny w.r.t.
neutrality. They're simply not reporting neutrally.

I'm by no means a Trump-supporter (not even American), but when I consistently
see traditional media re-reporting internet rumours as truth every time they
have the possibility to add a "Look at how bad Trump and his supporters
are"-angle... And then often later shown to be _wrong_ , even traditional
media is portrayed as spreading fake news. Because they are!

Need an example? How about this very recent incident with MAGA teens and the
intervening Indian? This was worldwide reported by "traditional" media as an
anti-Trump story. _No checks. No verification._

And it was all fake.

So tell me again. Why should I trust them more than, for instance Info wars?
Both sides are clearly partisan.

------
cgag
I don't find the real thing any more valuable than the fake.

~~~
ardy42
> I don't find the real thing any more valuable than the fake.

That's a pretty damning statement to make about yourself.

------
pessimizer
There is no feature of paying for news that makes it more real. The NYT and
WaPo should stop mixing news and editorial and relying on "anonymous
administration officials" and intelligence agencies; that would set an example
to other outlets.

~~~
standardUser
Using anonymous sources is a tried and true practice that has been around
since the dawn of journalism.

Would you rather news media only report things so inconsequential that
everyone involved is happy to be publicly outed?

~~~
yellowapple
We need some mechanism to actually authenticate anonymous sources if we expect
them to continue to be taken seriously. It's exhausting to be bombarded by
article after article that makes all sorts of claims where the evidence
consists primarily or entirely of testimony by unnamed sources who may or may
not actually exist. It's a "tried" practice, yes, but I have my doubts about
how "true" it is in this day and age.

I don't pretend to have an actual answer to how we'd build such a mechanism or
what it'd look like, but there's a need for it nonetheless. Maybe some
trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party that can say "Yes, this
unnamed source is legitimate"?

~~~
ardy42
> It's exhausting to be bombarded by article after article that makes all
> sorts of claims where the evidence consists primarily or entirely of
> testimony by unnamed sources who may or may not actually exist.

Are you suggesting that reputable newspapers are making up unnamed sources or
are too careless to privately confirm that they're real?

> I don't pretend to have an actual answer to how we'd build such a mechanism
> or what it'd look like, but there's a need for it nonetheless. Maybe some
> trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party that can say "Yes, this
> unnamed source is legitimate"?

It's been invented, and it's called journalism. That trusted-to-be-accurate-
and-confidential third party is the newspaper itself.

~~~
yellowapple
"Are you suggesting that reputable newspapers are making up unnamed sources or
are too careless to privately confirm that they're real?"

It's a possibility, yes. Are you denying that possibility?

"That trusted-to-be-accurate-and-confidential third party is the newspaper
itself."

That's not a "third party", by the very definition of "third party". Unless
you're suggesting a newspaper (or other publication) that's entirely
disconnected from its journalists and editors?

------
Amygaz
I stopped paying for news because they are biased (one sided like others
mentioned in this post), they are shallow, narrow, and lazy. Most news outlets
now simply spin a news report from the same single source. So I don’t see why
I should pay someone who is not really doing anything, and whatever it is
doing, it isn’t good.

------
fromthestart
I don't think paying for news is going to change the fact that all journalism
has basically turned into activist journalism. By definition that comes with a
slant.

The worst part though is that in it's ubiquity, I don't think anyone realizes
that it's happened. There just isn't much objectivity left in journalism from
any source.

It's hard to expect unbiased news when journalists inject their opinion into
everything because they think they're fighting the good fight.

------
blablabla123
Fake news is nothing that emerged with Facebook, it's much older, oftentimes
the yellow press has been accused of doing it. Sometimes even established
media outlets involuntarily produce fake news by not doing enough research.

So eventually I started reading a lot of non-mainstream media (that was not
alt-right ;)) and I found it to be very well researched and it happened to be
for free. For specific topics there are also good blogs and websites of
political advocacy and research organizations.

Sorry NYT, but your content is not that life important and awesome. I might be
biased because I'm not from the U.S.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Seeing how many people struggle to pay for every day things and live paycheck
to paycheck, I doubt the majority will ever pay for news. News is interesting,
but not enough to pay for it. Most of the time the cover is skewed one way or
another - too negative, biased. Personally, I can live my whole life not
knowing what happens outside my personal circles, who blew up what and what
apple did today to google.

------
ddingus
Frankly, NYT is spot on.

Media in the US has consolidated to a handful of players, who have many
conflicts of interest. These result in a big business bias in media today.

It's rare to get news and commentary written from the labor point of view, and
that's needed a lot more than financial expansion of entities like the NYT.

Progressive minded people should simply start to fund labor centric media and
compete with the big money majors. I'll bet that competition goes pretty well,
and some of that can be seen in TYT today, largest online news and opinion
entity there is, by views. TYT owns under 35-40, operates on a mix of AD
revenue and membership income to avoid having those same conflicts of
interest, and that allows it to differentiate nicely from the usual players.

------
nindalf
Only one publication passes the Gell-Mann test for me, and I pay for it.
Nothing else comes close. Definitely not NYT. Just yesterday I came across an
article in NYT that was hilariously wrong. I've spent all my working hours in
the past year and a half on it, whereas the journalist spent maybe a couple of
hours on it. They drew the most outlandish conclusions from the snippet of
data they looked at. Very disappointing because it erodes the trust I have in
that publication. If they could be so wrong about something I know about,
what's the guarantee they're right about anything else?

------
sirwanqutbi
The irony is NY Times have probably paid Hacker News to promote this article
here.

Besides that, what makes you think news is more accurate if its paid for ?

~~~
webninja
You must be new here. Contrary to your ill-informed belief, Hacker News does
not directly generate money for yCombinator.

