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

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?

Comments

Every minute is too much

[Anonymous Coward]

That's too much.

Re:Every minute is too much

[xamax]

Agreed!! We can hardly keep up with this site.

Re:Every minute is too much

[im_thatoneguy]

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.

Re: Every minute is too much

[im_thatoneguy]

Only every 4 hours ? Lol. What's the point of reading that kind of crap.

There were several news stories posted within an hour of the train crash this morning. 4 hours is plenty to write out the who-what-when-where. Not enough time to write a Rolling Stone expose but plenty of time to cover "news".

"A train crashed today into a crowded station. "It was awful," said Bob. At this time it's not believed to be a terrorist attack but investigators have only just begun piecing through the evidence. About 100 people were injured and as of writing there are no reports of fatalities although there were numerous seriously injured."

There, that's a reasonably insightful breaking news summary that took about 3 minutes to write. Give someone 80x as long and a couple hours to ask questions at a press conference and you've got a thorough reporting of the day's big news event.

Re: Every minute is too much

[justthinkit]

What are you talking about? That is just a single story every 267,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Planck seconds. Clearly we could be publishing a quarter million, million, million, million, million, million, million, million times more often. Some people have no sense of perspective. Frustrating!

Re:Every minute is too much

[Blaskowicz]

The bad thing with that is even if you try to do the "right thing" by reading an internet newspaper, you end up in a filtering bubble by only looking up a couple categories you're interested in.

This makes an actual newspaper vastly superior. Even if you skim over or ignore swathes of it, all of the content is there and instantly available. Once in a while you might read something in the "useless" culural sections or among some content you usually don't give a damn about.

A newspaper is a collection of a few dozen reflective, zero power 4K displays that you can bend and fold at will, and where you don't even have to scroll. Scrolling is so 500 B.C.!

The shame is newspapers have shrunk and lowered in quality and merely echo propaganda like TV, radio and internet news sites do. Corporate power and advertisement make them trivially susceptible to pressure. I'm not sure that in my country there is any good daily newspaper left. E.g. war stories are the cartoon-like version where our authorities call for us to be outraged about the bombings of civilians by Russia and Syria, but starving people hit by artillery don't officially exist if they're not in the right areas. It's only a war crime when Syrians defend themselves, not when the West or Israel or Al Qaida does it.
Also, everyone is unemployed, underemployed or underpaid, and tobacco increased 2x in price, food increases despite the zero inflation. So they arbitrate between a newspaper and bread or a newspaper and smokes, and decline to buy the newspaper.
Internet news sites are the shit end of the stick, like video games replaced going outside and free or pirated movies replaced the theater.

Re:Every minute is too much

[BoRegardless]

I need an AI app to filter out the crud and look for significant items; very few items per day.

Cookieless browsing is free

[Anonymous Coward]

From the synopsis: "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)."

Browsing the Washington Post in your browser's "privacy" mode is free.

Re:Cookieless browsing is free

[rtb61]

From the article âoenew piece of digital content every minute.â, so that careful wording means bloody ads are including, as well as the cycling of ads. If fact if you are willing to waste sufficient time, you can see how they have skipped around that detail whilst trying to create the impression they are just talking about news articles et al.

Simple

[viperidaenz]

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.

Re:Simple

[somenickname]

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.

What kind of un-American insanity is this? You *need* to be bombarded with poorly researched, misinterpreted, patently false information on a daily basis. Usually it's better to ingest this information in the form of "experts" yelling at each other but, if you've already seen all of todays yelling matches, you might as well turn to the authority that is churning out 1440 news articles a day. I mean, otherwise, how do you know who to fear/hate/love? HOW?!

Re:Simple

[viperidaenz]

The good kind, I'm not American.

Re:Simple

[AmiMoJo]

Usually it's better to ingest this information in the form of "experts" yelling at each other

Careful, this is what leads to post-factual politics and disasters like Brexit. Once people decide that all experts are just partisan agenda pushers, unreliable and untrustworthy, all they have left is their own gut feeling. They make decisions based on what they see in their immediate surroundings and what politicians tell them.

The last thing you want is people thinking that their feelings are more important that reality.

Netfilx....

[bobbied]

Netflix is TOO much....

as far as I am concerned

[ooloorie]

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.

Re:as far as I am concerned

[PMuse]

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.

Re:as far as I am concerned

[houghi]

Years ago I was watching a lot of TV at night. Asa there was only drivel, out of sheer boredom I watched TV news from Germany from 30 years ago. I speak German and live in Europe.
What I was amazed about was that it was almost identical as the current news. Not so much the presentation, but the stories.
The only thing that had changed where the names and locations. Since then I have not followed any news channel. And I must say that I am less stressed.

Re:as far as I am concerned

[agentblack01]

Relevant comic: https://biblioklept.files.word...

Re:as far as I am concerned

[ooloorie]

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.

What matters first of all is their motivations. The more powerful an intelligence organization is at gathering information, the more effective it is at screwing people over. The STASI and the Gestapo were actually quite good at intelligence gathering, and as a consequence were very effective at screwing people over.

So, in a sense, you are right: newspapers gather "intelligence" on people, a lot of it simply embarrassing and irrelevant dirt, and publish it, largely to further their own political and commercial agenda. What they mostly don't do is provide insight into, and educate people about, science, technology, statistics, or economics; that's because newspapers are staffed by people who are great at uncovering dirt on people but are ignorant about almost everything else. Science coverage in the news consists largely of hype and quoting multiple people with impressive academic titles.

Re:as far as I am concerned

[ooloorie]

The distinction between serious content and amusement is the wrong distinction. Newspapers publish self-serving corporate crap even when they are trying to be serious. For example, on some science or technology issue, they may write a perfectly reasonable sounding article, but their selection of experts and quotes may be biased, often probably unconsciously. Books aren't burned or banned, publishers simply don't even publish them. Etc. Furthermore, there isn't some nefarious master plan to "control" the population; management, journalists, and editors simply act in their own self-interest, like everybody else; the problem is that the self-interest of these people isn't to give readers good information, it is to sell more newspapers, sell more ads, advance their own careers, win prizes, etc.

I still think Postman's ideas are well worth reflecting upon, but I think he often combines a good cultural insight with a flawed analysis and flawed implications for how to address the problem.

It's junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Most "news" today is high on hype, opinion, and A or B style reporting. Give me an old fashioned investigation in search of truth rather than opinion A vs opinion B and I'll hand over cash for it. Too many mockingbirds and editorial shills in mainstream news for my taste.

going by google news feed

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of them are editorials.

Quantity over Quality...

[dejitaru]

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Slashdot Asks

[ChoGGi]

If we have an Ask Slashdot category, do we also get one for these posts?

They've found that it's easier and quicker...

[Nova Express]

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

Re:They've found that it's easier and quicker...

[Anonymous Coward]

Washington Post and CNN have both gone full retard this election season. You expect it from places like USAToday, MSNBC, and NPR but the Post used to be a good newspaper.

Not our job.

[Gravis Zero]

When you start losing readers because there is too much content, it's too much. However, it's not our responsibility to tell you how to do your job. I'm certain there are people that specialize in studying these type of things that you could contract. #FuckYouPayMe

That depends...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I know that "That depends" is the second most frustrating answer(after "yes and no"); but it is true here.

Across what geographic area, set of topics, etc. are these minutely articles distributed?

If you consider a global scale, and a fairly wide variety of interests(not necessarily serious niche stuff; but all the sections that a major Sunday print newspaper traditionally had); one article a minute is downright patchy coverage.

If you are talking a local news outlet; or a "just the foreign events large enough to be relevant" offering; it strongly suggests that they are really, really playing hard with the 'minimum publishable unit' concept.

If the once-a-minute number is across a whole stable of publications catering to different interests; then it might be the case that once you remove the celebrity gossip they actually only publish every ten minutes; Given how few genuinely just-a-local-paper operations exist these days, the quoted publication rate is probably across a media empire that isn't expected to appeal to any single individual: it'll probably have local news for more places than any one person could live/work; cultural tidbits across more fields any one person cares about; politics from around the world, and so on.

I'd argue that there are really two better questions: Ignore the stated total output; and ask "How much are they publishing that I find worth reading?" and "Is their focus on speed killing their ability to focus?" The first question is obvious: you don't enjoy news by the pound or by the word; you enjoy news by how much you actually feel like reading. The second is slightly trickier: Mere 'data' are pretty easy to come by. The sorts of news reports that you get when you give an experienced reporter plenty of time and room to dig into a matter he is experienced with are much less so. If an outfit's metrics-driven chase after viral listicles has caused them to cancel all reporting that can't be reworded from AP feeds by interns within 20 minutes; they've hollowed themselves out and it barely matters how fast they churn out "content" because none of it will add up to anything. If they just generate a lot of material because they have a lot of people reporting; that's a different matter.

Like the CNN model

[krelvin]

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.

too much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reduce it to statistics.

Click farm

[somenickname]

So, basically, the Washington Post is proudly declaring that it's just a click farm. Churning out nonsense to get page impressions.

Re:Click farm

[thegarbz]

You just described every piece of media ever used, ever. I wrote a book just to get people to buy it and read it. Warner Brothers made that movie just to get people to go and watch it. Someone writes a blog in the hope to get page impressions.

Just seeing a big number and using the word "farm" doesn't make your comment insightful and doesn't make The Washington Posts' any different to what it has always been.

increasing clickbait isn't journalism

[mschuyler]

And they want you to pay for online access. But increasing their rate does not ensure nor imply quality. Woodstein is not writing these articles. A tremendous number of them are short--about a paragraph long--and completely inconsequential. Look how many of then are "lists," for example. You may as well read what's on the back of cereal boxes. You might get more content. Another problem is all these sites repeating each other. I get a lot of the same news on Drudge and Above Top Secret (ATS: a cranky conspiracy site) as I do on Slashdot. Everyone is now a "news aggregator" so they just copy each other. It's especially bad on sites such as ATS and Slashdot because both rely on "user-provided content." There really isn't that much more hard news available; it's just that there are more places to click on the same lame stories.

Not all 1,440 pieces of content would interest you

[Flytrap]

1,440 articles, videos and other pieces of content would be too much for any one person to try to read or watch in a single day.

It is also highly unlikely that any one person could be interested in all the articles, videos and other pieces of content, in all the categories and sub-categories offered by the Washington Post. So the real number of articles, videos and other pieces of content published that one would want to read would probably be mush much smaller

"a new piece of content every minute."

[Cornwallis]

And 99.9 percent of it is absolute crap that isn't worth paying for. The Graham's must be rolling over in their graves to see how hard the WaPo has fallen.
Back in the 70s they were the standard bearor - the Nixon stuff and all but now... they're no better that Yahoo or the NYPost or the Enquirer.

Ideal Ratio

[Marquis231]

Quality over quantity, please! It's already enough work separating the wheat from the chaff without publishers working to multiply their daily output in a bid to spoof search algorithms.

1440 pieces of content in one day is ridiculous, nobody has time to read even 1% of that unless you exclusively read the Washington Post.

"Entertainment News"

[CloudDrakken]

Sadly almost all news outlets have become "entertainment news" outlets and it's basically brainwashing and directing conversations to such ephemeral and mundane things that by the looks of it we're going to run out of water and clean air if we don't change our priorities quickly. Quality over quantity

WaPo's PublishPoop

[MSTCrow5429]

I spend most of my time reading a high-quality news-heavy newspaper, and then assorted stories from various online sources. And not by visiting a media frontpage. I don't have time for clickbait, and serious well-researched stories can't be pumped out once a minute. And you're not going to understand much if all you read is news articles.

Infinite Weasels

[PMuse]

It is irrelevant whether an infinite number of monkeys posting everything they saw to the net would eventually produce every important news item that professional media organizations now produce.

1. We would never manage to find the important stories amidst the infinite amount of crap they would post.
2. We don't actually have an infinite number of monkeys.

Accordingly, it is necessary to employ a few professional, eagle-eyed reporters to keep the weasels of the world under control.

Is 1,440 a lot?

[YrWrstNtmr]

1 per minute = 1,440 per day.
Pre internet, how many individual articles, editorials, comics, ads were in a typical daily print edition of the New York Times? I would venture that 1,000+ would not be out of the question.

First the radio went ...

[jodokast98]

because there was just too much Nickleback and other crap repeated ad nauseam. Then the TV went ... because there was just too much "Reality TV" and other crap repeated ad nauseam. And now we have the internet, where there is just too much clickbait and other crap repeated ad nauseam. There are no more bastions with which I can't be inundated with mindless drivel. It's no wonder we're becoming less intelligent over the years. Who flopped a steamer in the gene pool?

It is not the amount

[Archfeld]

The amount doesn't really matter, it is the relevancy and quality of said content. Obviously they have to post a certain amount of content to stay relevant, and profitable, and support the framework of the weight of the ads they are supporting, but just measuring by the word like a freshman essay is not valid.

News Outlets == News Aggregator

[uh.band.duhn]

I prefer aggregation myself. But pay for profit if you'd like.

When No Candidate Ever RTFA

[retroworks]

When every candidate and everyone on every talking head program sounds like a /. Frist Poster. Some Editors gotta wake up and downvote some articles.

Bull poopie

[holophrastic]

I'm sure they miss more minutes than they hit. I'm sure they mean to average one per minute -- 1'440 per day. That's very different.

Really so much?

[kenh]

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?

You don't have to read everything they post, and they don't expect you to.

I wonder how many "items" (aka articles, columns, editorials, etc.) the New York Times publishes in a given day? How many items are in the daily edition? The Sunday edition? I suspect few people read every item in the NYT - daily or Sunday edition.

What do they count?

[Shirley Marquez]

What is the bar for what they consider new content? Things like near-real-time updates of sports box scores could inflate the count without much routine work once the scripts are in place to make them happen.

Washington Compost

[ebvwfbw]

Now with an even worse case of the shits, right from the White House.
No middle man.