The ineluctable fact is, if you want the most eyeballs, the most clicks, the most "happy users," good journalism is a *terrible strategy*. Truth is expensive to obtain, slow to reveal itself, complicated, nuanced, often orthogonal to neat ideological conclusions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/business/media/the-washington-post-new-mission.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/business/media/the-washington-post-new-mission.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Comments
With a decline in journalism we don’t just lose today, future us loses the historical record.
The Wall Street Journal was long known (not lately) to have a wingnut editorial page but high standards of reporting b/c people who have money at stake need some truth.
It's the confirmation bias issue. We're all susceptible to it. That's all we've had, and all we'll have.
There's no clever way around this dilemma.
https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/
No one gives a shit about that.
What the people really want is reaction inducing rage bait.
"I mostly wanted to make something that everyone liked, and that didn't upset anyone"
"It was really important that the major value judgments be made by a random-answer computer, with low paid gig workers for the stuff that requires thumbs"
If you want to make everyone happy, you really make no one happy.
We love what you are doing. It's the right thing. Keep doing it.
By analogy... Bernie Madoff may be making more money than you this month. But it won't end well for him.
All the best,
-- Peter
Remember when it was slipped under hotel room doors.