
What if Quality Journalism Isn't? - wasd
http://www.baekdal.com/insights/what-if-quality-journalism-isnt/10C3F189EE6048BBB4D5CB448CE6F069DAC6C08B6F9E7F72EF24FC33EAC1F946
======
olefoo
Journalism is publishing the truth that someone does not want told; all else
is stenography and marketing.

We, the people formerly known as the audience recognize this. We can tell when
we are being lied to. We can tell when the truth is being shaded to benefit
the beneficiaries of the status quo.

If you hand us shit and call it ice cream we still aren't going to like it, on
facebook or anywhere else. We know that our vaunted 'free press' is a bought
and paid for lie. We know that much of what passes for journalism is a ham-
handed attempt to manufacture social proof for the acceptance of the current
order of things.

Burn it down. All the way down. We're going back to word of mouth, moderated
by cryptographically attested pseudonymous identities because that will work
so much better...

~~~
jevgeni
You aren't a day over 19, are you?

P.S. No, wait, I can't really tell, if you are being sarcastic or not, so
sorry if you are.

~~~
jevgeni
Wow, I got pummeled there.

Ok, so maybe someone would care to explain, how the belief, that encrypted,
anonymous and unaccountable news sources would be any better, than
journalistic outlets whose profits depend on their reputation; how that belief
is not infantile?

Why is it not possible, that groups opposed to transparency, like for example
certain governmental organizations, would be able to join in the fun and flood
the "encrypted, word of mouth, anonymous" space with their own opinions and
propaganda?

~~~
lmm
Even if you were right, that comment was unconstructive. If you think
someone's wrong, argue the other side, don't just call them names. And
equating youth with stupidity is as dumb as it is rude.

------
JonnieCache
The future of news is halfway between stratfor and private eye magazine. It
should be written from an "out-universe" perspective, unlike the "in-universe"
perspective of all current journalism, ie. it should treat the upper two or
three layers of PR and realpolitik that cover every aspect of modern life as
fictional, and skip straight to the real reasons for things: "control over
regional energy markets", "elections in 2 years," "these two celebrities are
both managed by the same agency and so they are having a fight to boost sales
of celebrity A's new book" and so on.

Also it would ignore the news cycle.

~~~
pjc50
But would people pay money to read this?

It seems that people don't _want_ a factual news source. Especially not for
celebrity coverage. It's the same reason that people flock to talk radio or
fringe conspiracy sites: the truth is boring and/or depressing. It's the humor
sites that come closest to the bone (the Onion, the Daily Mash etc).

~~~
GHFigs
_It seems that people don 't want a factual news source._

Ding ding ding! What we call news is mostly consumed for entertainment and
identity-reenforcement/social currency, so that's what the news business
serves up. It's made out of real-world events and facts, but the actual end
product is to reality as "frozen dairy product" is to ice cream.

------
ddebernardy
The future of journalism is, imho, oceans of random trash (think Business
Insider or the Daily Mail) on the one hand side, and rock star columnists and
investigators (think popular bloggers like John Gruber or The Macalope) on the
other.

To succeed as a syndication platform in this, methinks you either need to be
very good at satisfying yourself with a fickle audience looking for subpar
content while making numbers work in your favor, or syndicate the rock stars
in razor focused channels (The Magazine or Flipboard) that your quality
audience will value enough to stay around.

Whether traditional newspapers will survive this transition any more than
music publishers is anyone's guess. I'm not holding my breath for most of them
-- quality is simply too low.

~~~
notatoad
I think your placing of John Gruber and theMacalope among the side opposite
the "oceans of random trash" really says it all: the future of journalism is
not two sides, it's just oceans of trash.

the future of actual journalism is probably something like Pierre Omidyar's
new venture - Benevolent billionaires supporting actual investigative
journalism because it provides some public good, and not expecting it to be
profitable on a scale like big media houses such as the New York Times are
expected to work.

~~~
neumann
and yet the Guardian (in Australia) which is owned by a trust spends the
centre of its landing page real-estate on tacky opinion pieces to compete with
local tacky opinion pieces.

Article such as "Can you <insert phrase> and still call yourself a feminist
(immediate bingo if there reference is to sex/porn)" and "Twerking -
everything you need to know" have begun to appear[1]

I am not sure if a Trust, or philanthropic entity solves the problem while we
still refer to DailyMail or HuffPo as a 'news site'. 'Trash aggregator' would
be more appropriate.

[1] Made up titles.

------
InclinedPlane
For a very long time newspapers and local television stations had a near
monopoly on local media. That put them in a unique position to serve as a
conduit not just for news but also for things like business advertisements,
all of which was enormously lucrative. Many folks fell into the trap of
thinking that because local reporting was highly needed and very popular that
it was good. You see that in the way that newspapers and journalists are
portrayed through most of the 20th century.

And then along came the internet, the king of all disintermediators. First
local print news lost its readership and ad revenue, and many thought it was a
matter of media, printed matter vs digital matter. Then over many years a lot
of newspapers shut down, while others attempted to modernize and enter the
digital age. And now we're at a stage where the truth is harder to hide from.
The fact is that most journalism just isn't very good, and never has been. But
when it was the only thing available it was better than nothing so it was
consumed regardless.

Now the regurgitation of wire reports, simple duplicate coverage of a story,
and uncritical passing on of news releases from 3rd parties holds no value.
Those are things that rely on distribution, and in the internet age that is
trivial. This puts into sharper focus the kernel of original, serious
reporting that journalist do. And it turns out they have historically done
very, very little, and even less of it of any serious value.

The problem isn't that print journalism uses an outdated media, the problem is
that the vast majority of what used to pass for journalism is now largely
redundant. And most traditional news organizations still don't realize this or
understand that the news organizations which will be able to survive in the
21st century will be very, very different from those of the past, and not just
old organizations with a few modernizations bolted on. That's a tough pill to
swallow because it means both that most journalists have quite frankly not
been doing worthwhile work, it also means that there is no place for the vast
majority of traditional journalism jobs. People within the industry naturally
flinch away from such hard truths, but it won't stop them from being true.

------
Liesmith
This is an extremely poorly thought out article. The core idea, that you can't
be the best at something and still fail, is so naive that it ruins everything
else that the guy says.

~~~
Detrus
Yes, the important thing is getting good information to the right readers, for
whom it is relevant. Counting absolute page views is in the interests of SEO
wizards and social media specialists. They monetize through page views and
spam is a legitimate tactic.

It's hard to measure engagement on a news site when someone doesn't "like" and
"share" the story because they don't want to share it with their social
circles. If only there was a site that kept track of personal bookmarks.

------
A_COMPUTER
I don't care about the survival of newspapers from a financial or economic
perspective, I care about the survival of newspapers from a social good
perspective and it's not clear to me that targeted news can supply that since
it filters out everything you weren't inclined to already view but was still
important. If I bought a newspaper and it had a bunch of stuff in it I didn't
care about, I might still pick it up and read an article or two if I got bored
enough or was using the bathroom. With targeted news and a smartphone, I don't
ever have to do that again.

------
jejones3141
He rightly criticizes newspapers for all thinking their only problem is
getting their impeccable journalism to readers... but then talks only about
ways of letting readers organize and select what they want to read--how is
that different? If content is the problem, then ease of access is secondary.

~~~
krakensden
I can imagine getting scared off by trying to address the quality issue- the
Grey Lady is an institution, a lot of journalists aspire to work there, and
journalism has been done in the One True Way for so long it's hard to imagine
alternatives.

I remember reading a science article in Ars for the first time, and thinking
"wow, this doesn't suck. I thought all articles about science sucked." There
was even a link to the paper at the bottom! Ryan Paul wrote articles about
programming and open source, and they were nuanced, coherent, and made sense.
He could even program!

Still, this is all nerd shit, right? Real people don't care. Vox seems to be
addressing this in other fields- you read an article about a speech
([http://www.vox.com/2014/6/15/5812752/read-obama-s-full-
speec...](http://www.vox.com/2014/6/15/5812752/read-obama-s-full-speech-
ripping-into-climate-deniers) chosen by fair dice roll), the same article
every other two-bit news outlet hammered together in 45 minutes. Then you go
down to the bottom of the page, and you've got a bunch of explanations of
every related thing. What, why, more details, links to rebuttals.

Still, politics is just nerd shit for innumerate white people. _Real_ people
don't care, right? Grantland writes sports articles with heat maps, diagrams,
tactical explanations, as well as the usual platitudes about desire, and
perfunctory examinations of the politics of sport.

Quality is an issue, and it's certainly becoming more pressing. As to whether
or not people who are not insiders are interested in the opinions of subject
matter experts over professional summarizers, we'll see. Not everyone wants to
know more about everything, but everyone wants to know more about something
sometimes.

------
stkni
Journalism forms a cornerstone of our democracies. It's function is as
relevant today as it ever was (perhaps more so in the light of Snowden) so we
better think carefully before we write it off.

But this is where I think the article falls short. I think if someone is
interested in the wider world they will figure out how to get what they want
from the newspapers of today. Some news agencies will be bad at it, and some
will be good. That's just the nature of diversity.

But, to say that a small percentage of online news is relevant to me is only
true if I don't go looking for the parts that interest me. This was never
true, not even for the old dead-tree news.

Whilst I think things can be done to make digital news more engaging, I think
the real 'problem' is to be found elsewhere in the ever sub-dividing space of
our 'free' time.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Journalism _thinks_ it forms a cornerstone of our democracies. But then it
also seems to believe that we have democracy, which we plainly don't.

I like the article. It has weaknesses, but it makes some good points.

The bigger issue - to what extent should the media be about political
empowerment - is another question.

I'd suggest current branding/advertising strategies are entirely about
disempowerment, because they train consumers to think and act passively.

When you believe that politics is about voting for Product A vs Product B,
which is almost like a Facebook like only it lasts a little longer, then
you've already lost all your political power.

Traditional journalism was sometimes able to hold power to account. We're not
going to that from clickbait intent/interest marketing. Can anyone imagine
Buzzfeed breaking the next Pentagon Papers?

So who's going to hold power to account now? And how?

------
randallsquared
At the beginning of the article, the point seems, in line with the title, to
be that the core problem is the journalism. By the end of the article, he
seems to have come around to the conclusion that the problem really is the
marketing and/or delivery, with the supermarket analogy, and especially with
the example of ostensibly interesting things like the Takei video from the WP.

There were a lot of interesting points in this post, but they don't seem to
add up to a coherent argument.

------
Zigurd
Tim Cook hagiography != world's best journalism

Neither is war propaganda. Or kowtowing to the government on the Snowden
documents. The NYT is the shiniest outlet for establishment "news." At a time
when the establishment is so rotten, even the NYT can't make it smell nice.

------
pertinhower
"You can't be the world's best and fail at the same time." Oh yes you can. You
can be the best at providing something people don't want. You can even be the
best at providing something people _should_ want but don't. The NY Times is in
the same boat as so many smart, literate, thoughtful, and educated
communicators before them: either (1) dumb down the content, (2) fight the
vain battle of trying to snaz up clever content with whiz-bang visuals and
"Tweets" and whatnot, or (3) go out of business. Not a happy choice, but
sometimes, when you're surrounded by swine, your pearls have no place to go.

------
zwieback
Interesting read but I would disagree that prestige papers aren't like a
brand. I use aggregators, mostly, but when I see articles from certain sources
(e.g. NYT, Economist or CSMonitor) I'm more likely to click on those. That
tells me that quality papers still have some value but maybe only because they
have maanged to keep good journalists together.

I'm guessing the future will be individual journalists/columnists marketing
themselves directly via aggregators.

------
bitJericho
So you could amost say that they are winning at journalism and failing at
getting their journalism to readers.

The entire article is about how that's not true, but the conclusion was that's
true and the way to fix it is for NYT to make a Flipgboard clone. That's
actually a great idea, and maybe they already do that I don't know. I use HN
to aggregate my news.

------
praptak
Doesn't the second part contradict the first? First part: "It isn't about
delivering, your product sucks." Second part: "People have narrow interests,
they want to see relevant content and you send them everything mixed up". It
looks like the second part is about delivering after all - about better
filtering in particular.

------
ASneakyFox
The issue is simple. I know what the times is. But I don't know why I would
want to read the times. I use news aggregators because other readers seem to
be the only ones to know how to deliver what I want to read . Reading the
times directly feels like rolling the dice on finding interesting or important
news.

------
pron
_But let me ask you this. If The NYT is 'winning at journalism', why is its
readership falling significantly? If their daily report is smart and engaging,
why are they failing to get its journalism to its readers? If its product is
'the world's best journalism', why does it have a problem growing its
audience? You can't be the world's best and fail at the same time._

Of course you can. In fact, that's the normal order of things, because people
don't want the best -- they want mid-lowbrow. Ask every starving genius
writer/artist. If this logic were correct then crack is the "best" product in
the world. Everyone who tries it wants more, so much so that it's physically
hard to stop.

The sad truth is that quality and popularity rarely intersect, especially when
it comes to intellectual "goods" or art. In fact, producing the best quality
in those fields is almost a certain assurance of failure. I would say, "you
can't be the world's best and succeed at the same time".

 _This is also why advertising is failing for newspapers. In a digital world
where intent is paramount for advertisers, it 's far more valuable to target
your advertisers for when people are looking for something specifically,
rather than the random 'I don't know what I'm going to get' that we see from
the newspapers._

Advertising is failing for newspapers because the revenue it generates is
lower than the cost of production, and the revenues are low because of
competition with sites that have low production costs.

 _On social channels, we define what we are interested in by following people
and brands that match what we care about._

Yes, and unfortunately quality newspapers and magazines are directed at people
with broad horizons and open minds that trust the editors' choices. At people
who think, "if the NY Times thinks it's newsworthy then I'd better read it".
That actually used to work once.

 _Following The New York Times on Twitter is just like paging through a print
newspaper. Each tweet is about something completely unrelated to the tweets
before it. And this is the opposite of why people usually follow people and
brands online._

Yes because people are crack addicts. That's what works in the market, but
that's not necessarily what's "good" for us.

 _Today, the newspapers ' editorial focus is to create random packages of
news._

Yes, well unfortunately that's what the world is. A random package of events.

 _They are all over the place, and as such there is nothing that we as viewers
can connect with. There is no momentum, passion, or reason for watching any of
these videos._

With that I actually agree. Of course, if they were to create the journalism
they really wish to, they'd fail even harder, but that's another matter.

~~~
cynicalkane
> because people don't want the best -- they want mid-lowbrow. Ask every
> starving genius writer/artist

I am glad to read an article like the original post, about how the incentives
of the world we live in distort the effects of the things we consume. I am
distressed to read top comments like yours, which lazily declare that the
world sucks because _you 're too smart_. Even if you were right, and you're
not, you wouldn't change anything.

For instance, your comment about '"intellectual goods" like art' is completely
off the mark. Having dabbled in both music and writing, I have found that
there's a huge difference in attitude between your stereotypical "starving
artists" and people who produced art and music that the world actually liked,
if only a little bit beyond their circle of friends.

Generally, the people who ranted the most about popular art were people who
least understood how to craft music or writing that people wanted to read.
This sort can often be found roaming university halls and earning degrees
making art nobody actually wants. On the other hand, the guys who played at
bars, or published stories in small magazines, almost universally had respect
for the extraordinary amounts of talent in even the "lowest" books and music,
even if they strongly disagreed with the value of the art. They also had very
sharp analytical and critical minds when it came to the art in question.

~~~
pron
The world doesn't suck or not. The world is. For _me_ the world often sucks,
and I realize that there is little I can do about it. I would if I could, and
I try my best in my own small corner of it.

Because I was, for four years, a regular long form writer, and later a bi-
weekly columnist, in the most prestigious weekly magazine supplement in my own
small country, I can actually provide some first hand perspective. The
newspaper the magazine belonged to was the NYT of my country, and "enjoyed" a
readership of just a little over 100,000. That isn't enough to keep the paper
going (it's still around, but it's uncertain for how long).

Obviously everything is on a spectrum. While I expressed myself in black and
white terms in my first comment, my point is that there is little correlation
between quality and success, and I stand behind it. The fact that some quality
writers and musicians achieve some level of success -- some of them enjoy
quite a great deal of it -- is not enough to change the overall picture. A
newspaper isn't an individual writer or artists. It's a big business with very
high costs. Modest success enjoyed by a writer is total failure for a
newspaper, because a newspaper needs some specific measure of financial
success in order to break even. For a newspaper, the outcome is often binary:
live or die. It can't generate a side income like an artist could.

As to the last paragraph of your comment: I agree, but that has little bearing
on the matter at hand. I love popular art, and I enjoy popular news outlets
(like Gawker) immensely. But I wasn't saying that the people creating popular
art aren't smart or talented. I was merely questioning whether highbrow art or
journalism is economically viable. As far as art goes, we know the answer: it
isn't. Pretty much every art museum in the world and every opera troupe is
state supported. This may or may not be the case for journalism as the NYT
practices it.

As a matter of fact, I'm not even lamenting the state of affairs. I was simply
reeling against the assumption that popularity is any sign of quality; that's
all.

To add a little more information about the paper business -- to those
interested -- I'll explain that a newspaper survives by cross-subsidizing
reporters. You maintain a bureau in France and one in Iraq. When there's
something interesting going on in Iraq, people buy the paper to read about
that. When something happens in Europe, people buy it for that. But the cost
of the paper stays the same, and it's not a price anyone would pay for a
single article. Once you unbundle the package and allow people to read (and
generate revenue) for a single article, the entire business model becomes
unsustainable. You simply can't pay for the guy in France with the little
money generated by the guy in Baghdad. Saying something like "you should
produce more interesting content" misses the whole point of how a newspaper
works. You can produce all the interesting "content" in the world, but you
still won't know what's going on in Europe or Iraq. You can't have "unbundled"
beat reporting (although you can have unbundled, occasional, long-form
magazine assignments), because maintaining eyes and ears somewhere requires a
constant cost whether or not there are good stories there at the moment.

------
IvarTJ
Here in Norway newspapers more or less survive, although perhaps not with the
younger generations. They are generally the best source if you want to follow
up on local events.

How do Americans follow local news?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Newspapers that rely solely on local readership are doing okay. NYT is not one
of those newspapers. They need national readership to sustain their size.

------
pistle
He should rewrite the title. I suggest...

10 Ways Journalism Has Changed You Won't Believe

~~~
ZenPro
...and you will be amazed at what happens next!

------
adamconroy
Quality Journalism = oxymoron

