[brianjoseff]

Who is making strides in fixing the underlying business model problems that are driving the increasing virulence and frequency of these moral panics, and undermining the integrity and function of journalism? Or at least providing alternatives that are equally profitable yet less pernicious.

Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives, it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but then we get into messiness of regulating free speech.

There was Beacon Reader, the crowdfunding journalism platform, but they shut down. [1]

Then there's Google's "Fact Check", but its reach is limited [2]

[1] https://www.poynter.org/news/beacon-reader-journalism-crowdf... [2] https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-avail...

[KKKKkkkk1]

There is no business-model problem. Mass hysteria has existed long before Western-style free press. In late 19th century Russia, the government would spread rumors that Jews drink the blood of Christian babies and instigate pogroms. In medieval Europe, people used to burn witches. In modern Egypt, people think 9/11 was a US-government conspiracy. All of these phenomena have taken place without a capitalist free press.

To me, these examples indicate that the profit motive in journalism is actually good. It creates an incentive for publishing the truth and a disincentive to spreading lies that does not exist in other models of journalism.

[brianjoseff]

Interesting point. So capitalist free press is actually a net positive here given the transparency it presumably enables (and promotes to the degree that consumers desire truthful/etc journalism)

I think part of what makes our modern situation different is that mass hysteria has a denser network on which to propagate (yes also means remedial measures also propagate faster) and is propelled via a more ruthlessly efficient propellant (expression of consumer preference in a frictionless, free-market, internet-enabled system)

But I'd argue that, generally, whenever feedback loops are tightened, systems tend to lose stability, increasing risk of very bad events.

So my point still stands, something should be done about this... I just don't know what. regulation feels kludgy, building a competing product/model that somehow encourages more pro-social outcomes, per my business model fixation in parent comment, feels nice--but likely is too naively optimistic.

So what else is there? Some old-time religion? "Don't lie and don't hate each other...". Also doesn't feel like a good route, for reasons too many to enumerate.

So what is there?

[freshhawk]

If journalism has to be market driven in a capitalist system then all there is is a culture that values education, intellectualism, distrusts all large institutions and values journalism itself.

Which, of course, is harmful to literally everyone in power and most of the people with the power to steer culture. Any system remotely like we have now is systemically opposed to good journalism.

[Analemma_]

> Who is making strides in fixing the underlying business model problems that are driving the increasing virulence and frequency of these moral panics, and undermining the integrity and function of journalism?

Nobody, because the "underlying business model problem" is that, contra their stated preference, people don't want real journalism, or at least don't want it enough to pay for it. They want easily digestible fluff that validates the opinions they already have, and if they don't get that, they'll leave an angry pseudo-profound comment about "bias" and then go somewhere else where they can get more acceptable opinions. The internet is not lacking for such places.

Facebook and Google are not blameless here, but while they are accelerating these trends by making the market more frictionless, at the end of the day they can't be blamed for the fact that people's revealed preference is for opinionated clickbait and not fact-checked serious journalism.

[brianjoseff]

Generally agreed with comments here. It isn't really a business model problem, it's just that in the US, our laissez-faire, internet-enabled capitalist system is just uniquely optimized to enable this stuff at scale and at faster cycle time. (radio in 30s germany could be parallel..don't know enough)

So, we're in a tricky situation.

Given that:

1. fundamentally we are just a rabid pack of stimuli seeking animals on a ravenous, desperate hunt for our next emotionally titillating hit

and

2. we've decided that in our (U.S.) implementation of liberal democracy, for the most part, freedom of speech is super protected and businesses are free to peddle pretty much whatever titillation they want (as long as no harm to others, per JS Mill On Liberty, etc..) unfettered by governance

how do we ensure that the public sphere doesn't devolve into a savage, mindless flurry of pure vitriol, slander, and falsehood

in the past we've leaned on a few structures to overcome these tendencies: an aristocratic taste-maker class steeped in classical tradition; authoritarian dictate; religious institutions that appealed to moral orders beyond earthly sin

obviously these structures had deep, DEEP issues, and we've rightly moved towards casting them aside

so what's next?

how to we bake reason into our societal architecture without relying on the problematic structures of yore?

Or should we just have faith that, despite these trying times, the better instincts of humanity shall prevail and we'll lift ourselves out of the morass--perhaps brought to our senses by some charismatic, enlightened leader utilizing moral-suasion and a made-for-tv personality....or some other mechanism of mass-englightenment

[dogruck]

I've thought about this too. I agree with you.

Another angle is that "real journalism" is fiction. Stronger than "people don't want it" is that it doesn't even exist.

Suppose Zuck, Musk, Gates, Bezos, and Bloomberg pooled their cash, with matching funds from Uncle Sam, into a blind trust to fund "real journalism." What then?

[Iv]

> Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives, it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but then we get into messiness of regulating free speech.

OK. I'm on break, I'll make it a big longer to translate and sum up what I think has been the most underrated video of the 2016 french presidential election discussing how to «fix» political press. (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GspZxQGRAXw ). Be warned, the proposal is pretty radical, but compare them to the radicalism of people who first proposed to separate the three branches of power. Here we are trying to make the media into a 4th one, independent as the others are.

The speaker is the director of a famous left-wing newspaper, "Le Monde Diplomatique" (not related to Le Monde). His goal is to substract the media from 2 influences: political influences exerted through public aids and funding, and market influences exerted through shareholders and advertisers.

He first proposes to separate media into two categories: entertainment and information (well information, general interests and political debates). He wants to avoid having a government agency arbitrarily sort between them so instead, he proposes 3 (radical) objective criterion to identify information media:

- non-profit. They are forbidden to give dividends to shareholders.

- non-concentration. One economic agent can not own more than one media in the "information" category (I did not know that until 1984, this was the rule in France)

- no advertisement.

Not fulfilling these criterion would lead to be classified as entertainment. 100% legal but makes one unsuitable for public aid.

Then he proposes to replace public aids by a pooling of means, financed by the state, that would provide services that all these media need: printing, distribution, office space, servers, storage, distribution, accounting services, juridic services, commercial services, subscription databases, correction, etc...

He mentions that, in France at least, most media already outsource their subscription database, to a few big private operators. Also that semi-public pooling of distribution networks is already in place to allow small publications to exist.

How does this make it independent from the state if the state is the payer? Well he propose to organize that as a «régie publique» which could be translated as "autonomous public authority" and reminds that the French healthcare is managed that way and oversees masses of money more important that the State's budget.

The key there is twofold:

- Money does not come from a tax but from a "cotisation" (contribution). It is often seen as the same by payers, but it follows a very different circuit: taxes go feed the state's budget that is then debated to fund the various public efforts. A contribution goes directly into the authority's budget and it does not need the state's approval for spending it one way or the other. It only needs state's approval to be in deficit.

- The authority is managed by representatives elected from its employees and service users as well as some representative from the newspapers' readers.

This is a very radical proposal, but so far that is the only one I saw that takes seriously the claim that the media is a branch of a similar importance than justice and that it needs to be as independent as possible from market and political influences and proposes realistic means to prevent market and politics influence as well as respecting the freedom of speech.

[TeMPOraL]

I love this. Not because I understand it fully - I suspect someone is going to shoot plenty of holes through this proposal - but because it's the first one I saw that actually treats the problem seriously, and seems to preserve the reason we need press while eliminating the bad incentive structures.

[Iv]

For the context, this proposal was made by this journal director to JL Mélenchon, the far-left candidate in the election (who got 19% of votes, i.e. not a marginal) hoping it would be included in his political program.

It is a well-thought proposal by someone who knows the press industry well. It of course has leftist bias but I suspect that while there can be political criticism, it is probably pretty solid.

I don't know how applicable it is in the US though.

[groby_b]

For context on "far-left" - it's nothing like the far left in the US. France has an extremely well-developed set of leftists. It's the only country I ever visited where people had deep discussions about the difference between Trotskyism and Leninism when debating actual political events.

The US far left would maybe, possibly, pass as moderate left in France. Obama would be considered... center right? OK, centrist.

These ideas will not easily translate into a US political context :)

For those curious, his movement, FI, proposes also a rewriting of the constitution, Frexit, withdrawal from TTIP, sustainability as law. It's... interesting. It's a very uniquely French party.

[eeZah7Ux]

Obama is not close to the center according to https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012

Clinton and trump are on https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

I find the site reasonably unbiased.

[rmc]

I think that site is tweaked for US politics, so yes according to US politics, Obama is not centre-right. The questions include things that are political issue in the USA, but are settled (one way or another) in other countries, like "should there be public broadcasting?".

[Iv]

Yes that's true :-)

There are a lot of interesting intellectual discussion on the far-left here. A good amount of crackpots and conspiracy theorists too, but historically France has always been a crucible for leftist ideologies. On the other hand, there is a certain anti-technologism, a brand of eco-conservatism that seem to be less common in the US.

I use "far-left" to describe FI concisely but I am of the opinion that this is a misnomer. For me, far-left means communist and means collectivization of the means of productions. Only Force Ouvrière and the NPA propose that in France (and together they make 3%) Mélenchon is a more classic left-wing, just a bit more radical than Hollande but maybe less than Mitterand.

Yes, Obama would be considered centrist or right-wing moderate but French politics, like US politics, did shift right in the last decade. Many people compare Macron to Obama. People like me, who are pretty on the left, consider both to be center or right-center but many media put Macron on the left here.

It is muddied by the fact that he (like Obama actually) was vague enough on his campaign promises to not know who he will side with on issues that oppose employees and employers.

> These ideas will not easily translate into a US political context :)

It would be interesting to try though. Here the speaker talks to someone who does not mind leftist ideas but it would be doable to say the same things using a more libertarian mindset. After all, people like Alex Jones would probably be empowered by these too. If you have a leftist audience, focus on the independence from shareholders, if you have a right-wing audience, focus on the independence from government. If you have a conspiracy alt-right audience, wink implying that you get independence from the jews/reptilians/globalists that control the big media companies.

Semantic-field translation is a very useful exercise that the left must master :-)

[rmc]

I remember reading about Uber opening in France. Obviously the french taxi drivers weren't happy with it, and Uber were putting out press releases about how they "want to work together and blah blah corporate waffle".

But you can't just ignore the law like that like you can in USA, the French taxi drivers started attacking and burning Uber cars.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/french-anti-uber-protest-t...

[Iv]

To be fair this was a clusterfuck. Taxi here are almost universally hated: they are rude, rare, dishonest, expensive and disorganized. Also, their scarcity in Paris was purposefully organized.

Most people also see that Uber violates important labor laws so most people did not take sided there.

The reason why taxi drivers could get away with so many violence is because the owners of the main taxi companies are VERY well connected to the political world.

[TeMPOraL]

Judging by the media coverage I've seen over the years, burning cars seems to simply be the standard way of protesting in France...

[notahacker]

It's possible this is covered in the talk (as I don't speak French), but how exactly is "information" defined other than being non-commercial?

I mean, on the one hand it's certain that there are people who will happily spend their days writing conspiracy theories or lies about certain minority groups without any financial incentive to do so, and I'd rather this didn't get money from my taxes and a government stamp of approval that such garbage is actually "information". On the other hand, I don't really want a situation where it's really easy for "independent" journalists to get distribution and an income stream, but only if they write stuff the government approves of.

[Iv]

A guy like Alex Jones would still qualify as journalist (assuming he really is independent, I am not sure about that) and yes, crazy conspiracy theorist would get the "information" label too.

This is the double-edged sword of plurality. But consider that: if you were pro-transgender rights in the 60s there were no way to sort you from the crazies: you would have been advocating as a choice what was officially a mental disease. They still existed and in 2017 their voices seem much more acceptable.

Finding the voice of 2040's progressives comes at the cost of letting the conspiracy theorist and the lizxardmen spotters have a say too.

[notahacker]

I'm quite happy for conspiracy theorists to be allowed to "have a say". I'm considerably less happy with the idea that people's taxes should pay to promote their work as "information" inherently more trustworthy Le Monde

And frankly, I'm far less worried about people promoting unfashionable views (who, whether trans activists or "911 truthers" tend to be pretty self-motivated anyway) and far more worried about the amount of people that want to spend their life writing generic rants about whatever has annoyed them most recently who could really use a thin veneer of credibility and government-subsidised libel lawyer...

[morgante]

It's not clear to me what good this does.

Say a narrow set of "information" sources follow this model and produce quality journalism. Meanwhile the vast majority of traffic continues to go to "entertainment" journalism and shoddy reports spread widely.

[Iv]

It is not a proposal to kill entertainment media, it is a proposal to make it easier to make informative journalism. The theory being that a plurality of information sources leads to a better informed population and that if newspapers have less to worry about satisfying shareholders or advertisers, they will do a better job.

I think that the most important point for the US situation is the non-concentration condition, preventing one person or company from owning several information media posing as different entities, masking the lack of plurality. It would prevent this kind of things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc

Arguably this is more a solution to the situation we have in France. In the US it looks like you have people like the Koch brothers who would not mind running newspapers at a cost to promote propaganda. It would still make it more expensive as it would have to compete against people who would have little costs and privileged access to primary sources.

It does not solve all the problems of society and information though. IMO, the fact that so many Americans confuse information and entertainment is an education problem, not a media one.

[TeMPOraL]

> IMO, the fact that so many Americans confuse information and entertainment is an education problem, not a media one.

Then there's the Tesla vs. Top Gear case. Top Gear spewed bullshit about Tesla's car, got sued, and won, with the court saying that Top Gear is an entertainment show and has no obligation to be factually accurate. And yet, it's widely known that people treat this show as an information source, not a comedy.

And then there's British Tabloids vs. EU case. A British tabloid will write some utter and complete bullshit about some EU regulation, and then it gets picked up by countries on the continent and reprinted in the quality news sources as facts. So what's understood as entertainment by the Brits gets presented as facts elsewhere.

I think this is not an American problem, and not people problem. It's a media problem too.

[Iv]

The UK judges ruled that people are not supposed to base opinions on an entertainment shows.

> it's widely known that people treat this show as an information source, not a comedy.

It would have helped Tesla to be able to point out that Top Gear is not real journalism but entertainment and point at the actual reviews made by actual journalists.

> And then there's British Tabloids vs. EU case

I don't know how it happens in other countries but most of the time when a French news quote a UK tabloid it is mostly to point fingers at them and laugh.

> I think this is not an American problem, and not people problem.

Sure, it is a people problem. That US has and makes less efforts than other countries at solving. I mean, EU is not perfect, but there are not many countries where the biggest political party downright opposes teaching critical thinking skills in schools:

page 20 (12) of this document: http://archive.is/QbV60

[dogruck]

Sorry, but I have no faith in Google as a fact checking organization.

[icebraining]

Google isn't fact checking, it's only tagging articles (written by others) as being of 'fact checking' kind.

[matt4077]

If you stick to quality journalism (NYT/WSJ/The New Yorker/The Economist/Bloomberg), the world of journalism is really not worse than it was in whatever golden age of the press people seem to imagine.

The idea that all media gravitate towards low-brow outrage clickbait because it sells better is quite obviously wrong. Just as there is fast food as well as organic granola, or porn as well as independent conceptual arthouse cinema, there are publications of all levels of quality. And that didn't actually change dramatically, because tabloid journalism wasn't just invented. If people were attracted only to the yellow press, it would have taken over the market long ago. Instead, journalism has been, just like history, bending towards quality (/justice).

What changed is that the barriers to entry have fallen. It used to require capital to publish, and those capable of reaching the masses had to have seen success in other walks of life, or convinced the establishment of their credentials.

Now, the internet allows the Breitbarts of the world to reach an audience as deranged as them, and that is putting some pressure on parts of the market. But that affects not so much the top end of the spectrum, but local papers and publications like the National Enquirer.

[adrianratnapala]

While I agree with your general point: the original post is mostly attacking lazy cut-and-paste journalism at the "quality" publishers. Channel 4 is not really junk outfit, and nor is The Independent which (according to the original post) repeated the claims, as did the New York Times.

[hueving]

>If you stick to quality journalism (NYT/WSJ/The New Yorker/The Economist/Bloomberg), the world of journalism is really not worse than it was in whatever golden age of the press people seem to imagine.

Only if you agree with the political stances those sources are biased towards. Perhaps it has always been that way, but something like the NYT is hardly unbiased and it bleeds through on everything from article selection to point of view, etc if you're not an American Liberal.

[soundwave106]

I personally think it is impossible to eliminate bias. Even news services that try to inject as little opinion as possible (eg wire services like AP News) have to make some choice on what they carry and how they phrase it.

All five of those sources are biased, but in different ways. It is helpful to "look outside your natural bias" sometimes, so assuming the NYT maintains its quality standard it probably is worthwhile for an American conservative to peek in that direction every now and then. (This goes vice versa, eg it is helpful for American liberals looking at more sober quality news sources with a more American-business-conservative bias like the WSJ.)

The important key here though is accuracy and sober analysis. So the fact that the NYT is "American liberal" is not a problem. The issue described in the linked article, that they did a poor job of fact-checking on a relatively sensationalist article, is a problem. The BBC also has its own bias too, but at least they showed a little big more skepticism compared to the other outlets. So props to the BBC here.

IMHO if the New York Times values its current "quality journalism" rep, they need to watch this more carefully. There are plenty of clickbait sensationalism-driven "news" outlets, and only a relative few with decent reporting reputation. "Quality journalism" is more expensive, but I feel it is also something some people actually would pay subscription money for. Few people are going to want to pay money these days for sensationalist clickbait they can get on the Internet for free.