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Explaining the Lack of Quality Journalism In the Internet Age (gawker.com)
schnell writes: While many lament the seeming lack of quality, in-depth journalism today, a Gawker article argues that the inescapable problem is that you need a paying (in some form) audience (of a large enough size) to do it. There are plenty of free "news" sources to be found online, especially blogs simply regurgitating and putting a spin on wire news reports. But as the article notes, "The audience for quality prestige content is small. Even smaller than the actual output of quality prestige content, which itself is smaller than most media outlets like to imagine." Even highly respected news sources like the New York Times are resorting to wine clubs, and the Washington Post is giving free subscriptions to Amazon Prime members to drive more corporate synergy and revenue. Rich parent companies are giving up on boutique, high-quality, niche journalism projects like ESPN's Grantland and Al Jazeera America because there simply aren't enough TV viewers/online ad clickers to pay the bills. So how do we reconcile our collectively-stated desire for high quality journalism with our (seeming) collective unwillingness to pay for it?
This recent book (The Internet is Not the Answer) by Andrew Keen covers this area -- call it "the death of journalism" -- pretty well. A very good, but very sad, read.
Archive link for those who prefer not to support the reprehensible Gawker: https://archive.is/PP7q2
IMHO Gawker is an absolutely vile clickbait machine that portrays itself as a progressive voice while selling outrage.
It undermines what I consider valid, socially responsible goals by trivialising most of them, generating needless conflict by labelling "bad" people and maintaining a ludicrous left-wing good, right-wing evil narrative. It produces propaganda and hatred for cash.
Nick Denton - the CEO of Gawker - has admitted that the company has a severe empathy problem and tried to relaunch it:
http://www.thewrap.com/nick-de...
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/2...
The problem with journalism is not that one needs an audience, the problem with journalism is that factual reporting is no longer the main goal. Truth is secondary to page-views. Nolan suggests that people are the problem because they won't pay for factual material, http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ demonstrates that one can successfully run a publication that focuses on the pursuit and publication of truth (with a healthy injection of humour).
TFA is an attempt to blame absolutely shitty "journalism" on the audience, what in fact is happening is that those of us who do care about quality journalism recognise Gawker for what it is and don't give it ad-revenue or page-impressions.
You're an idiot. :)
While many lament the seeming lack of quality, in-depth journalism today, a Gawker article
Ok, stopped reading here.
In defense of Gawker: TFA doesn't say what the summary says it says. TFA explains why journalism is mostly garbage. It does NOT say, as the summary claims, that the problem is getting worse, and journalism was once better than it is today. Journalism has always been 90% crap (Sturgeon's Law). In decades past, journalists almost missed Watergate, and the Monica Lewinski scanal was first reported by tabloids. The mainstream media was too busy reporting on the millions of abused and murdered children by Satanic Ritual Abuse. Only years later, after many lives were ruined by false accusations, did it become clear that the actual number of SRA victims was zero. Crappy journalism is nothing new.
Seriously this has to be a joke.
Gawker of all places.
Gawker who got scolded by the FTC for not even bothering to separate paid advertising from actual articles.
Gawker who doxed all gun owners in new york.
Gawker whose editor once proclaimed that "Nerds should be bullied into submission". (Sam Bidle)
Gawker who was penalized and mentioned by name by Google when explained their new "fact based algorithm" and its benefits.
Gawker who knowingly stole photographs from an amateur and explained to her that she should be happy that her photos were deemed worthy of Gawker.
Gawker who is currently being sued by Hulk Hogan for the leak of his sex tape, by their interns for refusing to pay them anything yet working them like regular employees.(You can read more about the unpaid interns with the hashtag #Fairpay I am told, unfortunately I am not familiar with twitter)
Gawker who is set up using multiple shell companies in New-York, Hungary and the Caymans to avoid all and any taxes.
Gawker who criticized "Charlie Hebdo" immediately after 10 of the employees there were murdered by terrorists with an article titled "How much did we need this blasphemy?"
And of course tons of "Quality" article such as "If you dont want to watch a fish suck a dick, here is a description", "Is the new york post edited by a Bigoted Drunk who fucks pigs?" and lastly "Born this way: Sympathy and Science for those who want to have sex with children".
That is probably only the tip of the iceberg.
Gawker should not be read, linked to or even mentioned in any way or form.
From what I've saw of them this may be true of some people flying the GamerGate flag but there are people who are vociferously ethics only who don't like all of the identity politics crosstalk.
This is perhaps informative (unless one believes that the majority of the respondents are being disingenuous) http://gamepolitics.com/2015/0...
"I asked my first question, “What is GamerGate?” because that will be asked at the upcoming SPJ AirPlay discussion on August 15 and I wanted to compare answers."
"Their top-voted response explained, “GamerGate is a movement dedicated to fighting for ethics in (gaming) journalism and against censorship and the politicization of (gaming) media and games. It arose after several corruption scandals in the gaming media, attacks on the gamer identity and attempts by the gaming media and ‘cultural critics’ to force a political ideology down the throats of gamers.”"
I guess that there is a chance that a much larger group of people (including international Gamergaters?) that agree with your analysis missed Brad Glasgow's questions but assuming this isn't the case the group consensus seems to be focused on ethics.
Ultimately I accept that people are drawn to the group for different reasons but I think it's reasonable, if one is going to generalise, to look at the majority opinion and use it as a basis of describing the group.
In france, there is a successful new (well, created in 2008) completely independent news source called mediapart. It only has a website and does *not* have a printed version and runs absolutely no ads.
How do they do it? Well, they somehow managed to get 112,000 paying subscribers on board so far who pay 9 Euros per month.
It really shows that they are independent in the sense that they have unearthed several scoops in the last few years that have shaken the French establishment.
Amongst others for example, they have nailed France's Minister for the Budget, Jerome Cahuzac, in a fiscal fraud case. You got to laugh at the irony...
You are incorrect and thanks for providing a sterling example of what jaded SJWs who rushed to the defense of their corrupt gaming journalist idols sounds like ^
Now here's the truth: "Gamer Gate" began as a spat between lovers in the gaming industry which turned into domino effect where corruption in Journalism was exposed by the spurned lover causing a tidal wave of previously unaware fans to turn on the industry while the industry turned back on them while trying to cover it up. The aftermath later led to sites having to offer more if not full disclosure about their agendas, more independent and credible youtube reviewer, the public humiliation of corrupt journalists, and finally the unfortunate corruption/censorship of once previously respected social media such as Reddit/Imgur/Twitter.
She wasn't accused of leaving her boyfriend for some other guy. She was outed for sleeping around in the industry for promotions/favorable reviews for her work. That snowballed when other corrupt industry figures came to her rescue like the white knights they are, not to mention her own underhanded tactics to silence critics. It completely blew up in their faces and set SJWs gamers back to the stone age. The joke about her and 5 guys burgers (thanks to the 5 guys she slept with for favorable reviews) is priceless.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/quinnspiracy
The most disgusting thing of all tho, is the SJW media is turning it into a movie to try and cast Quinn in a favorable light despite being a disgusting corrupt figure. This doesn't surprise me when it comes to Hollywood and their liberal agenda.
Funny, how this bullshit is still being parroted around a year and a half later. Also funny how nobody has heard of it, but the media just can't seem to stop talking about it too. A week doesn't go by where the media isn't either inserting gamergate into something, or saying that they're dead again this week. Funny how one of the main hubs(KiA) is one of the 100 busiest subreddits by size> . Or that when subs like /r/news /r/worldnews and so on start banning people, or censoring stories, the first place people go is KiA to boot.
One can't forget either that every time a minority or women said, no we're not sockpupets. The first thing you do is start screaming about how they're actually a guy, or that when proven wrong your only answer is "internalized misogyny, racism, sexism", or some other-ism, because it doesn't fit your view of the world. Or start screaming that minorities are "house-niggers, uncle toms, or native informants."
Om, nomnomnom...