"It needs to be funded by the readers. But the readers are reluctant to pay for this (as TFA says). It's a conundrum, but we need to sort it out soon."
Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.)
But, yes, the best path to producing news that a community needs in the form of investigative journalism and not being driven by entertainment factors is if the news is paid for by readers.
Of course the other problem here is "L" in the article: Subscription fatigue. I do value quality news, I do subscribe to several publications local, national, and global in scope. But every now and again I look over my credit card statement and think "holy shit, that's a lot of little charges".
As a side note, I love this article and I wish I knew the author to go out for beers and discuss/argue about media.
> Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.)
I think that just means "readers" is a group of many people with different habits and opinions.
Not to mention the addicts' problem of genuinely wanting to quit but not being able to.
I think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many).
> think what you're actually pointing to is a failure mode of the market itself, as in it doesn't produce what's good, it produces what sells now (which is not the same, despite the confusion of many).
Yeah, this is one of those situations where markets don't provide the optimum outcome.
News used to be an industry with a few dozen providers, and journalistic integrity was a known thing - you did not read "News of the World" for actual factual news, and everyone understood that. Likewise if The Times stated something, it was probably true (same for The Guardian, only misspelled). They certainly put their slant on things, appealing to a particular demographic, but kept the facts pretty straight.
Now the news organisations are not required to tell the truth, and can pick a niche and tailor their copy to that niche with no integrity at all. Because there's so much competition and the market is huge, readers are able to pick and choose, finding news outlets that will tell them exactly what they want to hear, reinforcing existing beliefs. And, of course, driving everyone apart, making us all more extreme by reducing the set of common facts that we have.
I don't think the answer is the culling of "misinformation" because that leads to the Orwellian situation of the government being able to shape the official truth to their needs.
I think the answer is finding some way of funding journalists to go do their thing with no interference, and let them police each other for integrity and truth.
Readers often say they want one type of coverage but actually consume others, too. (e.g., people complain mightily about "clickbait" headlines and so forth -- but write an in-depth article with everything people say they want and often it gets a fraction of the traffic.)
But, yes, the best path to producing news that a community needs in the form of investigative journalism and not being driven by entertainment factors is if the news is paid for by readers.
Of course the other problem here is "L" in the article: Subscription fatigue. I do value quality news, I do subscribe to several publications local, national, and global in scope. But every now and again I look over my credit card statement and think "holy shit, that's a lot of little charges".
As a side note, I love this article and I wish I knew the author to go out for beers and discuss/argue about media.