It feels like a significant amount of quality news outlets are behind paywalls while absolutely none of the inflammatory right-wing ones are and in an age of overwhelming misinformation combined with increasingly poor media literacy I just have… no idea what we’re supposed to do about that.
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Often it can be as simple as loading the page without JS after turning it off with an extension like this. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/toggle-javascript/cidlcjdalomndpeagkjpnefhljffbnlo?hl=en
But we need good journalism, and good journalists need to be paid somehow.
If ads don't cut it anymore, what else can we do to support that beyond paying directly for the content?
Maybe microtransactions, ppv-style.
I am a poverty level self-employed masonry contractor with zero money to spend on the info I so crave.
I understand everyone has bills though, and I find what I need.
In the meantime. Drop the link in here.
https://archive.ph
Also beware Twitter and Fakebook.
It's gotten so much harder to get real news anymore even the local channels have become untrustworthy.
All I want is a few good news site that should be free with all the ads they have on them but there not and I'm tired of paying to all those ads
also OWNS am radio.
truly Fucked
we are.
Maybe subscribers could be given a way to share a link to X(100, or 1000 or whatever) number of views, that would encourage subscription, curation/vitality.
Do you seriously ‘tell’ people what they can and cannot consume?
Why do you feel you know better than your friend in terms of what they should watch or read?
That’s exactly the kind of influence you’re objecting to in the media outlet themselves.
Genuine question - why not let people decide what they want to watch/read?
What if they absolutely loved Fox and told you not to watch CNN (or whatever you like).
That's how civilised society works.
Start with Aaron Parnas and work your way up to Paul Warburg, then keep going...
Indeed.
Maybe support legacy media instead.
We swapped paying for the news with being fed opinionated propaganda and lies through social media.
@bylinetimes.bsky.social
Does it really work? Will people see an article is paywalled, and buy a subscription to that publication?
Every time I try to read an article and it's paywalled, I seek another source or just simply don't read about that topic.
We have a dependable income we can use to plan our budget and hold the powerful to account.
I can spend three months working on a story because our readers fund it - and we are very grateful.
Our model is:
- 5 free articles a month
- 5 more if they have an account
- after that we expect them to pay
- we have a hard paywall for the stuff that costs us most to gather (court, and investigations).
Existing subscribers allow people to access our website for free
Every article the Economist talks about on its podcast is free to read from the podcast description.
There are many examples of such experiments - but we could definitely be doing more.
We also do subscriber events like town halls or special-guest nights, to make it feel like a community.
But web analytics help us constantly evolve and I think it’ll change for the better in coming years.
My proposal for a solution is that we need a new 21st Century Fairness Doctrine that outlaws inflammatory media.
The Guardian
NPR
PBS
Local PBS
Slimestream Media is owned by the Oligarchs
#Resist
People like yourself appreciate the worth of the job we reporters do, but not enough to support it.
It’s interesting that people wouldn’t steal groceries or question buying them, but do so with news.
Why is ignorant and hateful speech FREE, abundant and widely available, while intelligent commentary is primarily behind a Subscription. We are not going to get to where we need to be to save our democracy by monetizing this information.
Millions of live TV subscribers subsidize them monthly and don’t even watch those channels.
I’m here to build a service that doesn’t offer impersonating journalism.
Join me
But he's at least launching his new podcast without a paywall! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfVTeHbvxI
Yes support local and small journalism but sometimes you gotta take a peak beyond the wall to make sure that article is worth the expense.
The absence of such outlets seems to demonstrate the absence of moral billionaires.
If they had morals they would start doing things for the less fortunate before they got to their 10th billion.
Or first.
Immorality is required.
Insane how corrupt it all is.
I don't see how that could go wrong!
https://edoc.coe.int/en/media/7495-information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-research-and-policy-making.html
The only way to solve this problem is to bring back things like the fairness doctrine
Of the six you mentioned, only two are paywalled. And they - unlike the others - are not broadcasters.
The broadcasters are doing just fine (look at their NFL revenues).
Paywalls exist to protect the jobs of journalists who need resources to do their work.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8jh9bvg/
You found a hack which will most definitely lead to the death of quality journalism.
Well done 👏
Do shoplifting next!
When I'm on my Windows laptop if I come across a site with a paywall I just press the 'Esc' button and click on the link, release Esc as soon as the page begins loading.
Sometimes it takes a few tries but it pretty much works for most sites.
"But I don't see it!"
Then you're not paying attention. Wander around any major city and you will.
There is nothing I would love more than to outlaw theft by AI, but right now we are losing the battle.
The one where everyone comes after, the other one is complete trash.
There’s obviously ethical and moral concerns, but imo its worth exploring like any tech
There actually isn't any upside to burning down a forest to pretend a computer can think, or to steal an art style.
Chatbots and other tools dont need to generate to be useful.
Just because it's overwhelmingly used for the first option doesn't mean automation is inherently bad.
This is some dumb shit.
the left doesn’t need “more propaganda”, most leftist ideas are popular and most people don’t need convincing they’re common sense. flooding achieves nothing.
Or do you have so much contempt for the many simple minds whose votes you want to steer away from the populist right to the populist left?
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/meidastouch/
We're no longer prepared to pay for proper journalism, I don't think we really get to complain.
It's one of the few things I think our younger generations have made worse through unwillingness to spend.
Your first one - capitalism is like that. We all have to chose how to spend our limited budgets. This is not a shock to anyone.
Your second one - if you believe your sweeping statement of an outlet ‘twisting the truth’ - pick another.
Don't complain about a news outlet behind a paywall that you don't trust enough to read anyway.
That's a solved problem.
Don't trust it, don't read it.
Cancel Netflix and pay for a news outlet you trust.
Older generations bought newspapers and pay for cable news, younger generations won't pay.
The reasons behind that shift are a whole other conversation.
If you're paying for those and not for news you are 100% choosing entertainment over news.
No paying for someone's work and then complaining about the quality of that work the height of entitlement.
And even then in a small city where we still probably had a choice of about 5 or 6 daily publications you had to pick one and just go with it.
Quality journalism costs money
We have a policy of five free articles a month. Then five more once you sign up and from then on we expect people to pay.
I mean if you’re using our website 15 days a month then it’s reasonable for us to ask for you to fund our work.
PBS
BBC
AP
New Zealand World
You'll make a friend or two along the way. 💙
As for what to do about it... Is there a Nega-Russia we could get to fund pro-info sites?
This is very serious problem, and I don't see a solution anywhere in sight.
You don’t feel a right to walk into the store and take it for free.
Why should journalism be different?
The reason the most important stuff is paywalled is because it takes us reporters a lot of time to get. We need to be paid.
Since then, people stopped reading physical newspapers so that revenue stream died, along with print advertising.
And Google and Facebook took our web advertising.
So now all we have is subscriptions.
Print revenue are a decimal point of what they were 20 years ago.
Tech firms have taken most of our ad revenue.
That leaves subscribers.
Use it or lose it, folks.
We could take down all the paywalls and they’d still only believe what they want to (or what orange kool aid man and his apartheid henchman tells them to)
I don’t think it’s worth my while to reengineer websites just to read RWNJ NewsCorpse crap
I do use PressReader with a library card but it's not the same, especially when wanting to share articles.
That's because right wing billionaires pay for that crud to be spewed for free and yeah we need to step up and pay for real journalism to be broadcast
Problem solved
‘I wish there were more quality journalism and the problem is it’s not properly funded so here is how you can steal it.’
That’ll help.
My issue is that it’s seen as ‘cool’ to steal news. Like the cool boys smoking behind the bike sheds.
Then one day we go bankrupt and there’s nobody to hold the powerful to account.
I know exactly how much time myself and my colleagues spend on doing things properly and how little our paywall-free rivals do.
It is a tricky subject to tackle, I agree.
My counterpoint to that would be that, the less financial support we get, the more we go out of business and don’t exist anymore…paving the way for ‘free’ (often divisive) alternatives.
Your approach is overly negative and defeatist.
We can maybe talk about if if you become a little more constructive….or what’s the point?
Investigative reporters do an incredible job around the world, risking their lives in war zones, exposing scandals, holding the powerful to account.
You motherfuckers always expect people to fund this and donate to that when 90% of you are extremely privileged and the rest of us struggle in a way you'll never truly experience
If you can’t afford to donate there is no paywall for PBS or NPR. All I said was if you can afford it consider donating. If this triggers your use of the C word to someone you don’t even know you must be overcompensating for inadequate anatomy