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by Machado117 1952 days ago
I disagree that the job of news is to inform people. I think that it’s just a possible side effect that they champion in order to keep you engaged.
2 comments

This feels like an incredibly cynical viewpoint. Nevertheless, would you say this also applies to non-profit news organizations like Propublica or forms of public media?
This may not apply to non-profit oriented media, and I also believe that in larger outfits you can find individuals that have a genuine goal of informing people but their views happen to be divorced from the true goals of the organisation. However even if they aren't looking for profits they will still have to compete for eyeballs, which might skew their behaviour. It's hard to find media that doesn't resort to clickbait.
Okay, fine, then the job of news is to get people to watch so they can sell advertisements. An enormous number of people want to watch news about sports. The logic doesn't change.