News is such a confused industry. In order for it to be successful, it needs the majority of people to find value in the news that it produces. Most people are not old, wealthy, straight, white, men, but most news stories are framed from that perspective, even when the framing is false and easily debunkable.
Most news rooms don't look anything close to the people that they need to buy their papers to have a sustainable business.
Social media doesn't want people getting their news from social media. Honestly they don't.
But the news industry continues to fail young people. Even when the news industry does get an influx of young readers, as with the bin Laden manifesto, they don't know what to do with it. They miss their own blessings.🤷🏿♂️
The talent level of data scientists and data visualisation working at newspapers is exactly as high as those working at the biggest tech companies. Seriously. Anyone that doubts this, doesn't know what some of the data scientists at Big Tech did before they got to Big Tech. Talk to your coworkers more.
Great journalism wants to come out! Journalism that works for a 2024 world. I see flashes of it. Small teams doing long-form journalism, combining data, reporting, writing, and sharp editing.
Teen Vogue is the only major publication that I know of in past 20 years, that made a real concerted effort to better align with modern news and magazine readers. Circulation went up, readership went up!
If I were the CEO of any major newspaper in the US, I could increase revenue, increase circulation, increase pay, benefits, and job security for journalists, increase diversity in the newsroom, increase diversity of the readership while driving it younger, increase the quality of news produced, and increase the value to society that the newspaper provides.
@mekkaokereke Would you increase the perceived fortunes of the Sulzberger family though? I think that’s the only metric that matters to the NYT, when all is said and done.
If I took over the NYT, the changes I would put in place in year 1 would lose about 10% of the fascist readership, and would increase readership amongst young women, predominantly Black and brown.
This would result in increased net circulation, increased subscription revenue, and increased advertiser revenue. Sure, we'd lose some advertisers. Probably fewer full page MyPillow ads, for example. But net, we'd be way up.
@mekkaokereke
L.A. Times is a good bad example. In the 80s, they had localish editions (even if they were only a couple of pages), and the food section was large and had stories as well as ads.
Then they closed the local editions down, and started running stuff like only the people within 3 miles of Mulholland read it, ignoring the other several million residents.
I don't need a Pulitzer prize to tell you that none of the things listed above are going to work.
Provocative thought:
18 million people watched Caitlin Clark play basketball. Those people were disproportionately young, and disproportionately women and girls. I promise you that they don't want to get their news from TikTok.
They want to get it from real news sources that they can trust! And they're even willing to pay for it!
But today your product is too insulting and repulsive to them.
For people that think I'm a hypocrite because I so often shout out journalists and independent newspapers ♥️, and talk frequently about how all newspapers should make more money...
You must be new here.
I also like college athletes. I criticize the current US college sports system, and work to change it. Treating athletes better, is making colleges and the NCAA more money.🙂🙃
If you can understand the difference between an athlete, a small HBCU, and the NCAA, you'll get my takes on news.
@mekkaokereke yes! I think about this everytime I hear some kind of "stocks are up" bs repeated as if that's good news. No! That means wealth inequality is up and relative wages are down! That's bad for most people!
I remember an NPR story where they were like "energy companies in the Northeast reported lower than expected earnings this quarter as mild temperatures reduced energy consumption" as if that wasn't great news. People saved money and reduced their contributions to global warming!
@mekkaokereke you've accidentally described the Democratic Party's political platform. they can't seem to understand that their "future" are the <35 years-old crowd who also happen to be a majority BIPoC.
Provide whatever good faith definition of value that you find fit, and see that US journalism doesn't meet that for the majority of people.🤷🏿♂️
And no, I don't view the "opposing viewpoints" argument used to launder fascist and misogynist viewpoints into editorial columns as valuable. That's just more "Gotta let the nazis talk!" And more "How can I slip my political agenda into my paper, when that agenda doesn't come close to passing the standards of journalistic integrity?"
My point is that to the owners & investors of some news providers, "value" may not even need to include immediate monetary profitability. Those will not fail, as they're operating under a different set of conditions.
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