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Slashdot Asks: The Washington Post Says It Publishes Something Every Minute -- How Much Is Too Much? (washingtonian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the we-want-to-know dept.

Media outlets are increasingly vying for your attention. But they are also feeding Google's algorithm. Some of them churn hundreds of news articles every day, hoping to offer a diverse range of articles to their readers, and also increase their "search space." The Washington Post is currently running a promotional offer -- letting people get a six-month digital subscription for $10 (pretty good if you ask me). But the Washington Post also mentions that is now publishes a new piece of content every minute. That's like 1,440 articles, videos and other forms of content in one single day. This raises a question: how much content is too much content? How many stories can a person possibly find time to read in a day? Do you feel that perhaps outlets should cut down on the number of things they publish? Or are you happy with the way things are?

6 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by viperidaenz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't read the drivel that passes for news these days and you'll only have a couple of articles to read a day at most.

  2. as far as I am concerned by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anything that traditional media corporations publish is "too much" as far as I'm concerned: they are money-making enterprises that will say whatever it takes to maximize their profit and power, and that usually involves a combination of: (1) trolling the public and causing discord, (2) spreading FUD, (3) kowtowing to politicians and the government. What these media corporations don't do is care about your well being or give your reliable and unbiased information.

    1. Re:as far as I am concerned by PMuse · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Newspapers are also extensive, experienced intelligence gathering organizations. They look for news. They do a better job than most of identifying stuff that matters. And then, they tell people about it. Some of the bad actors out there are quite good at hiding; it takes time and skill to sift the nuggets of information from the muck.

      Yes, yes, publications also produce churn, listicles, FUD, etc. That's a minor annoyance compared to the value of having dedicated investigators on the job.

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
  3. They've found that it's easier and quicker... by Nova+Express · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...just to republish the talking points directly from the Clinton campaign, without all that wasteful middleman editing and rewriting. Saves everyone time and money...

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

  4. Like the CNN model by krelvin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Everything is BREAKING NEWS even if it happened yesterday or the day before. Reporting on incidents before there are any real known facts, having EXPERTS come on and speculate on what MIGHT have happened or not without anything to really base an opinion on yet.

    Not really news... entertainment for many, boring and shut off for me.

  5. Re:Every minute is too much by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except that people have different interests. If you have 30 categories of news then 1440 / 30 = a news story every half hour if you are only interested in say "Sports" or "Business". If you're interested in Linux and Programming I bet that only represents probably a story every couple hours at best.

    Saying a story every 10 minutes is too much is like saying Netflix has too much content because nobody could ever watch 100,000 hours of television. It's true, but it ignores the fact that there isn't a perfect venn diagram of interest.

    The WaPost has 740 staff writers. So that's only a story every 4 hours/writer. If they gave each writer 5 minutes to write a story I would worry about quality but 4 hours is plenty to make some calls and interview people.