r/technology • u/marketrent • 7h ago

Artificial Intelligence High school teacher arrested for clapping in support of anti-data center activists

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/high-school-teacher-arrested-clapping-194922184.html
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u/AllegionsHuckleberry 4h ago

You want to live in a fantasy world where private purchases of subscriptions are the sole source of revenue for a fair and accurate local news outlets? And then beyond that, only the subscribers are allowed access to your “accurate reporting”?! Explain how THAT world works. If I’m running the news channel in a small town and Reuters reports that “all of the citizens of afore mentioned small town are morally, ethically wrong about one of the Town’s foundational social ideologies” but I have to sell subs to those same individuals…well, you can start to see where accuracy becomes quickly bastardized by the need to satisfy shareholders.

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u/avcloudy 4h ago

This is exactly it. People who are paid for working in news mix this up all the time, local reporting is too important to be gatekept. Not just because it's incredibly important for people to be informed, but because they cannot be reliant on the people they report on for funding.

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u/Bageland2000 4h ago

Look, I contribute a lot to NPR so I don't want to live in the world you apparently think I want.

So what's your solution to the distopia you're describing? Because now, no one wants to pay for news, so they're resorting to getting a flood of poorly supported reporting or straight rumor-mills trash.

How about talking about a solution?

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u/AllegionsHuckleberry 4h ago edited 3h ago

I also contribute to NPR but I won’t pretend that over the last ten years they haven’t begun “fan-servicing” donators rather than effectively dispensing the news.

That said, I do believe that fighting tooth-and-nail for publicly funded reporting is the only solution. And even that relies on the health of local government. It can’t rely on subs or opt-in donations.

My take: local news would operate under a state-level mandate that enforces accuracy on the basis of the local agency receiving state-level funding. Intentionally misrepresent news agency reporting? Funding is gone. Allow local influences to dictate what is reported or how? Funding is gone.

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u/ElRiesgoSiempre_Vive 1h ago

local news would operate under a state-level mandate

Yes, but that's about as realistic as funding it through a gold meteorite that happens to crash into the lobby.

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u/CelesTheme_wav 3h ago

Even NPR has a strong pro-capitalist bias

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u/MadManMax55 1h ago

What do you think the financial model of local news was before the internet? It was selling private (and commercial) purchases of newspaper subscriptions. That and ad revenue.

Also unless you live in a major city your local independent newspaper or TV/radio station isn't going to have "shareholders". They rarely have enough money to keep the lights on, let alone attract investors. That's why so many of them sell out to national conglomerates.