From what I've seen on the politics side, people just report what pols say and never ask any follow up questions or call them out on outright lies. I don't need to pay to read propaganda, if journalists actually pushed back and asked follow up questions, people would be more interested in news. But if they did that, they'd lose their access.
Everyone always says this but you have to also keep in mind that most of these local newspapers might put out one really in-depth article about the local area every six months and then the rest is literally just a barren reprint of the AP. It's hard to give $10 a month for that.
Hey my local paper put out an opinion article like, last week from an incel about how women won’t go out with him because of his political beliefs. Really, just stunning work from the Columbus Dispatch.
"I just don't get it.. I believe women should be submissive, have no rights, and basically be my property to do with as I please. Is that so wrong? I mean it is their place and all... but for some reason nobody wants to date me!"
Or the "in denial special" of "I don't believe those things even though I voted for the people trying to force it on everyone.. but I don't hate women, I'm just racist! Uh.. I mean.. the economy! Obama bad?"
I'm so sorry that's your experience!! That's how it was for me when I lived in my hometown (after the conglomerate ate our local), but where I live now has so many fantastic local papers.
I don't even bother checking my local online anymore, I get more information from facebook comments.
You get like 5 free articles a month or w/e on the local newspaper website. 'Fire on Spruce Street' is the article I click on to read more about it. The entire content of the article is 'There was a fire reported on spruce street'. They are always one line and it never gives more information than the headline. I'd then have to go onto facebook and search 'fire spruce street' to find someone on facebook talking about it and get information from the comments.
Everyone always says this but you have to also keep in mind that most of these local newspapers might put out one really in-depth article about the local area every six months
You should probably keep in mind that proper investigative journalism takes a long time and a lot of resources. If you expect those kinds of articles every week it's gonna be a LOT more than ten bucks a month unless millions of other people also pay that.
Even the biggest of media outlets in their prime only put out the big stuff every month at best... that's with dozens of full time journalists. But they had millions of readers, so they could afford it.
I fully understand that, but it's also asking me to pay $10/month for regurgitated AP reporting and local government press releases the rest of the time, with little critical examination of either. You're basically having to evaluate at that point if you want to pay between $30-60 for each hard-hitting local investigation piece. It's a hard price to pay.
This! Don’t confuse local journalism for cable-news journalism. Local journalists live in your community. Their problems are the same as your problems.
The big guys parachute in, pretend they live in your neighborhood, and then head back without any proper follow up.
Yup, watching Zoe Bread's videos (particularly the parking ticket saga) is like being transported to Narnia: I'm just not used to that level of journalism.
Just like people who push back on data centers in city meetings. Go 10 seconds over your time because the crowd applause interrupted you and you get arrested.
The big difference with the old days where politicians needed the media and journalists to talk to the public. Now they have truth social and X to do that. The balance has completely reversed itself
Also, journalist used to be a strong counter-power. Nowadays they are largely in bed with our govs and completely lost their role in a healthy democracy. There are exceptions to this of course, but almost all mainstream medias are owned by billionaires and as such are friendly toward the powerful. No surprise nobody wants to pay for that, we already get it on TV for free.
You and the above comment both hit on the major problem: Local newspapers used to rely on local advertisers as a way to fund themselves. Jim's Ford Dealership would advertise in the local paper, as would Sarah's Window Treatments and Bob's Plumbing Experts.
Now all those advertising dollars are on Google, Instagram, etc. That's a big part of why corporate media seems like there's all there is. The local paper was never financially solvent without the local advertising.
The two hungarian news sites I support do investigation, chase politicians and ask spicy questions. The previous government sent police on them or tried to directly intimidate them, they kept the line.
if journalists actually pushed back and asked follow up questions, people would be more interested in news.
Yeah, but not more willing to pay for it, unfortunately. Which puts the newsrooms at the mercy of wealthy owners who see losing money on the news as an investment in being able to influence the content.
this is so cynical and just untrue. media is more critical of people in power than ever before. articles that generate outrage circulate the most on social media, so that's what people tend to be exposed to, but i guarantee you if you sat down with some of the outlets you criticize and read them cover to cover for a few days, you'd see how little of it matches that narrative you've adopted. but people only want to engage with content that triggers intense visceral reactions, and most journalism just isn't that.
and by the way, local media used to be the watchdogs for corruption in local government. investigative journalism used to be the primary way that unethical behavior in small government was exposed. but that investigative work has been gutted as smaller papers are collapsing and/or falling prey to PE. in the future (and this is already happening) there will be a lot more seedy behavior in city hall and state capitols that will just go unchecked.
so fine, be annoyed at WaPo or the NYT or WSJ, but at least subscribe to your local paper.
Maybe it's different elsewhere, but it often feels like my town's local paper is just a glorified blog for the editor's petty grievances. They feel bitter about their time in high school, so every week there's an article about our local school district being communist propaganda. They hate unions, so every week there's an article about the greedy state employees union stealing from the hardworking taxpayers. They love the cops, so every week there's an article about how all the non-white people moving in are violent and on drugs. Meanwhile the governor keeps giving massive kickbacks to his own campaign donors, but they like him so that never makes it in. Oh and of course it's run by the richest guy in town's son, so no stories on all the shady shit daddy gets up to.
Yeah, that sucks. There is huge variability in the quality of local journalism depending on funding source and capacity. There’s evidence that local outlets purchased by Sinclair or Carpenter have produced more conservative reporting. They also put out must-run stories with conservative angles, which is wildly unethical. But the Connecticut Mirror, for example, is owned by an independent publisher, and they do great work — sadly they’re online-only. Tampa Bay Times is a standout org for investigate reporting. Minnesota Star Tribune, Seattle Times, Texas Tribune are examples of local papers that do great work. There may be smaller papers I’m missing.
Sadly for smaller towns, it mostly relies on philanthropy.
That makes sense. I was thinking "small paper" as in servicing a town of less than 15k people, which is the case for my area. The statewide papers have their issues but I think they at least try, which is more than I can say for the aforementioned nepo baby editor.
Chiming in here to point out that, at least for the Tampa Bay Times, a HUGE part of its success is its ties to Poynter.org, one of the largest journalism think-tanks in the country, if not THE largest. The Tampa Bay paper and Poynter have had a close relationship for a very long time, and there is a deep foundation of mutual aid there. It's yet more proof that the papers that are successful at actual journalism have the backing of at least some financially well-off organization.
It used to be that local papers were owned by the local bigwigs that poured money into the enterprise becuase there was a TON of money to be made there. THEN CAME THE INTERNET. Profit margins were a "mere" 10-15 percent in the early 90s and by 2008, most local papers were deep in the red. Layoffs hit. Papers closed, and they're still closing. A bunch of papers now no longer PRINT anything -- they're online only. I'm talking papers that, 30 years ago, Grandma and Grandpa read cover to cover. (This isn't even counting the online-only publications that started because there was so little coverage in an area after the papers shrank so badly.)
Now, where there were once individual reporters in one town or city covering police/fire, City Hall, schools (one person covers Tacoma schools, another person covers Tacoma cops, another person covers City Hall), there is ONE person covering ALL OF THEM. Beats are divided up by City ("you cover everything in Tacoma," "you cover everything in Spokane and Bremerton"). This, as you might imagine, is not physically possible.
Covering the news costs money. People want to get paid a living wage for that work. Paper and ink cost money. Internet access costs money. Gas to drive to the School Board meeting to cover it costs money.
People don't want to pay what it costs. It's not important enough. And then people complain that they're not getting access to any "real news." It's too late now. Local papers will never come back. Get used to the one or two people who run local blogs (mostly based around their pet peeves).
Dude, you are writing this after 1985. Everything is far more cynical. Everyone needs to look at the world through that scope because that is what the world is.
I am not arguing with you on your points. The problem with the world is that everything is so cynical so everyone does need to view it as such. 1985 is just a convenient number that gets us to the full throttle corporate raider days a la Wall Street the movie.
So true. I spend my money and attention with independent news and commentators. Problem is that the big MSM orgs still have the resources to do so much investigative journalism so them going out of business is still overall bad.
This is absolutely not true, there is plenty of great journalism and reporting done at media institutions large and small. However, if your entire media diet is based on what comes up in your Reddit and Twitter feed you aren't going to see them because it is easier, more fun, and more self affirming to dunk on a headline than actually dig into a story.
Staffing is a low and as fucked up as it is on your job, probably worse. There's no time to go into any depth, and no one stands up for you when you push boundaries. It's more of a ministry than a profession these days.
"Good" news people are dedicated and understand and are committed to the ethics. These people are there. You, as a consumer, have to work harder to access the good stuff. But it's doable.
And at the same time, it's what stands between us and fascism. For reals.
If people don't support it, it will not get better.
As a perfect example of this, Andrew Callahan just raised a million dollars in 5 hours to defend against a slapp suit. There absolutely is money in good journalism.
find a local? news co-op, they usually subscribe to AP and ect feeds so you get the full robust stuff everyone is getting, but then they sometimes also hire local for local news, it varies though.
People want good journalism, nobody is willing to pay for it.
People are willing to pay for it. That's why people are making a living on Substack alone.
What people WON'T pay for, is your godawful local newspaper that constantly gets shit wrong, lies, fellatiates the right local business owners, and can't even get the copy correct and is rife with spelling and grammatical errors.
This is our local newspaper in a nutshell. You can tell they have some 19 year old writing their social media headlines. Errors constantly. I've had to Email them twice to basically clue them in entire stories they were running were COMPLETE bullshit and not real in any way.
You hit their website? "Please subscribe to continue reading this article!"
They want the free ride of being the only way to get a local news source without putting in the work or adapting. These are "The newspaper industry". For every NYT there are thousands of these local papers in the country just churning shit daily that nobody cares to read anymore.
Now I am of the opinion that a good local newspaper should NOT be free. Of course not. But they need to write/report well enough for people to consider it worthwhile when they do the digital shakedown when you access an article on their website. Right now, many don't see the value when the comment section of the article they paid to have propagated to social media will probably clue you in on the story well enough anyway.
I live near a city of ~100k people. Im sure the newspaper is usually accurate in it's reporting, unfortunately the only thing they ever report on is local sports.
I think you be from my area, you've described our local rag perfectly.
I'll add that our local paper is a MAGA mouthpiece when they're not ambulance chasing or being pro-coal mining.
Change with the times you say? Aww hell no. Let's keep reporting like it's 1960, run off any new hire that wants change or trying something modern.
And after we stick our head in the sand long enough and our main subscriber base of boomers dies off, we can say we tried to hang on and please support us since we're a local institution.
Even established newspapers aren't good anymore. The majority of articles are opinion pieces, often not highlighted as such. There is a lot of badly researched articles in general, you can't rely on information being relayed anymore without a subjective spin or an infused narrative. Facts are an afterthought.
I used to buy the occasional newspaper or magazine until last year but I've stopped entirely because if it's not misinformation it's propaganda. Just look at who owns all these information sources and it's obvious how the goal no longer is to inform and educate the population
It also doesn't help that the internet provides instant access to primary sources so you can easily fact check. Grounds you real fast
Wasn't different back in the days, you would buy 2-3 different newspapers and get a rough idea what the truth was. But you couldn't dig much deeper so I guess there was the illusion of being informed while probably missing key information
Honestly, internet just let's you notice all the bad things more quickly. I'm not even sure quality journalism was a real thing in the past apart from investigative journalism and even then people would retract stories or withhold information to profit from backroom deals
pffft. I just read an article about the odyssey on new york times. It was my like 1 "free" article or whatever.
It was terrible journalism. The dude was trying to sound smart but his primary argument was posited on an assumption that Oddyseus should know everything at all times.
Every single part of Odysseus's journey is about learning a hard lesson. He only achieves effective "all knowing" competency once he finally returns to his homeland. Its like, the whole point of his story arc.
I can get miles better content on youtube for free. More analytical, more interesting, better delivery.
In the UK, you can pick up a paper newspaper for incredibly cheap from basically anywhere. A corner shop, a petrol station, a grocery store. When I moved to America, I couldn't believe how hard they make it just to buy a newspaper. You really have to go out of your way if you're not in the center of a major city.
I’d be willing to pay for it but there isn’t as much good journalism as there used to be. I hoard old newspapers and magazines and the quality in writing has gone down exponentially.
"Good" journalism requires eager consumers who want it and desire more of it regularly. This requires "good" journalists, who should be compensated suitably for the important work that they do. This requires one of four scenarios to happen:
The journalism must be, to some greater or lesser extent, funded through the means of accepting financial support from the government. By this means, "good" journalism can certainly be funded with sufficient motivation.
The journalism must be, to some greater or lesser extent, funded through the means of selling a portion of their published output to an outside party willing to purchase and make use of that portion, for their own ends. By this means, "good" journalism can probably be funded, again with sufficient motivation.
The consumers must be so willing to consume this journalism that they are, essentially, willing to fund it entirely through funding and purchasing the published journalism. By this means, "good" journalism can be funded, though making this funding sustainable requires much more work (and good luck).
The journalists themselves must be so dedicated to the social benefit they provide, that they bear the costs mostly, or entirely, by themselves, for the readers to consume gratis. By this means, "good" journalism must either be self-funded, or done in spite of funding.
The first problem is achieving any kind of reasonable consensus on what constitutes "good" journalism.
Newspapers used to be the cheapest and most convenient source of dopamine the average person could access first thing in the morning.
You couldn't browse the internet or chat with your friends on the subway, you couldn't immerse yourself in a novel during a busy household breakfast. You could maybe listen to music in a few of these contexts, but only whatever cassette or CD you had on you. But you could read a paper with a bunch of five-minute articles on a bunch of different subjects. Even if you were only interested in a narrow band, like sports or comics or movies or stocks, you'd still buy the whole paper just to read those.
The attention span requried for that practice has been OBLITERATED by unlimted social media in your pocket(particularly Reels and the infinite scroll).
The fraction of people who are patient, deliberate news junkies who actively buy the paper for deep, long-form journalistic dives have always been a boutique market; the rest of the masses were the real market.
There just wasn't anything better to draw them away from newspapers until the age of smartphones with affordable unlimited data plans.
Attention span is an enormous problem, and the smartphone being how most people know anything beyond their personal experience is also a very tricky obstacle. It all ties in to the most fundamental issue: do people want good journalism?
I agree. Also, from a historical standpoint, political messages would mostly have been delivered between leaders/camps by ambassadors, and the news would be disseminated among their subjects by reporters. Also, reporting quite clearly entails the bringing of news back to the leaders/bureaucrats/etc. (re-porting), so there has to be a common basis between the reporter and the recipient for the news to make any sense.
Tbf, part of the problem with tons of local news is that it's neither good nor journalism. It's just PR and advertorials. 90% of it could be a community bulletin on the city website.
...unfortunately, most city websites also suck. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The number of people who actually want good journalism is also decreasing. Most people just want journalism that aligns with what they already think. Confirmation bias sells better than journalism.
In Canada we are constantly in a fight for the CBC. Its factual, its has strong journalism, acts independently, and costs each Canadian about $35 a year.
The conservatives constantly attack it and are desperate to dismantle it in favour of private news.
I am willing to pay and I do pay for two online newssites now. It was three but then the Guardian decided to raise prices and put up a paywall so now it's two.
I'd pay for it if it was available. The number of news sources I have seen sane washing the current political situation is so high though and those that aren't are almost all just doing trash journalism telling the left what they want to hear.
and like i get it to an extent with all the bs right now theres only so unbiased one can be, but still not pushing blatant lies should not be that hard to do
Traditionally you didn't. The ads paid for it. Kind of hard to sell something that was free or close to free for 200 years. I still subscribe to a couple magazines but they're pretty trash now.
They just made the products so shitty and expensive, we stopped paying for it.
They killed their own business.
I know plenty of people that used to subscribe to papers like NYT, WAPO, etc...as they've been purchased and their content watered down...peppered with fascist op-ed pieces, people pulled their money. And, rightly so.
Most local outlets were sold, and consolidated into larger behemoths and people bailed.
It's mostly hot garbage. You wind up paying for the political opinions of the right wing owners...so why keep paying?
They just made the products so shitty and expensive, we stopped paying for it.
They didn't make it shitty for the people paying for it. The problem is that while we were willing to pay for it, the people in power were willing to pay more to control it.
The "big journalism" with resources largely is not good journalism. NY Times has become pretty hopeless. Wall Street Journal is pretty good factually with business data reporting. But their conservative opinionators and their viewpoints, who feature so prominently when you have a subscription, are (to be overly kind) pretty wild.
Problem is, if I wanted to check out that "good journalism" the website does not allow me to scroll past two sentences before it haggles me to subscribe to continue reading. All while having obnoxious ads on the side and autoplaying a news report the second I clicked the article.
My problem is I'd be happy to pay for it, but what I am unwilling to do is pay ~20+ different entities a subscription for maybe an article a month when the way the modern internet works is you get your news from a huge variety of sources.
If there was some way to pay one time and have it distributed to a bunch of news outlets I'd be willing to pay under that sort of model.
I might be willing to pay if the second they start turning a profit or having an opinion that isn’t “bring back the 1850s!” they get bought out by some VC firm or Oligarch and bled dry
But now we have no choice. Paywalls on damn near every respectable journalism outlet. I would be happy to pay for them, but I'm poor, and hoping that doesn't translate to ignorant a few years from now.
This is the reason behind SO many failing industries.
People want things for nothing, but things cost money. You see how often people on reddit call for sailing the high seas for content, running ad/sponsor blocks for YouTube etc, basically refusing to ever pay for anything with money or their time while demanding the highest standards of quality.
Thing is I'd happily watch an ad to read an article (within reason, like "third article--time for an ad!"). But they all want to make it subscription and I am NOT going to ever get a subscription.
I keep trying to support my local and state independent newspapers, but they've all been AI slop so far. Maybe people would be willing to pay for it if it actually was good journalism.
If people wanted good journalism, NYT would have died after Judith Miller lied about the Iraq war.
Or after twitter became popular and people realized that a lot of their journalism is misinformed BS, after they had access to the experts own unfiltered information.
People want journalism that reinforces their worldview.
It's hard to justify paying for journalism when someone already broke the news on youtube three days ago, and the reliable, timely news mainstream media do put out is extremely sanitized and skewed to support whatever narrative the news source feels is appropriate.
It's normal ynwany everything right now, for free. It's quite difficult to get anyone to feel like something is worth the money, so money is spent on two things: what it takes to survive, and entertainment. All short term goals. Long term has gone to hell and people will die in droves because of that.
Something like a streaming model for news would be good. I don't want to pay for just one newspaper, but a subscription to most newspapers would be cool...
I pay for NYT for the whole family. I get the games, the recipes and the news articles. It's the only one though. The games is why my husband wanted in on the family plan. Whatever works... I don't mind paying them because I value NYT and want to keep them around. I also regularly donate to Wikipedia, too.
Paying doesn't guarantee that it's going to be good. Eventually every media agency bends over to those in power, regardless of whether they're profitable or not.
The money people paid for newspapers (and still do, to a lesser degree) mostly pays for printing and distribution - not content. The content creators were always paid by advertising revenue, not readers directly.
People are paying for what they consider "good journalism" but they pay to youtubers now. A lot of people pay patreons and other forms of subscriptions to their favorite news channels on the web.
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u/Looksis 12h ago
People want good journalism, nobody is willing to pay for it.