this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Normally I'm all about "yes they should be paid" but in this case it's particularly ironic - modest ads used to be able to support newspapers. Now they need paywalls.
Title of article: internet is worse
QED.
"Modest ads" were never a thing: if you were on the internet 10-ish years ago, you'll remember that pop-up ads were everywhere.
Also, ads were never able to support newspapers, even if they used to be more lucrative. Newspapers were desperate to reach new audiences and they basically started to publish stuff at a loss. That's why media is in the situation they're in right now: underfunded and in perpetual search for new ways to monetize so they do not die altogether.
How much does it cost for any random person with a platform to say something?
A journalist is not a "random person". It's a profession like any other profession.
A journalist doesn't just "say something". A journalist works, like any other worker does.
So, to answer your question, I'd say it costs at least minimum wage.
Well clearly expecting to be paid for doing shit that anyone anywhere does for free is the problem. What's the point of the journalist?
Wait, what do you think journalists do? Do you think that they wake up, get to their workplace and start typing away about whatever crosses their mind? In that case, I can understand your confusion.
On the other hand, if you know what journalists actually do, I don't understand what you're saying. Or perhaps you think that reasearching information on a topic, interviewing people, going to your town hall to see what politicians are up to, go to warzones and report about what's happening, are tasks that "anyone anywhere does for free"?
Can you imagine what it would be like if the only people doing journalism were those paid by publishers? The real journalists are everyone with a phone who are where the story is happening.
Bullshit. Those can be sources, but they are not journalists. I beg you to look up what a journalist does, because you clearly do not know it and you're making a fool of yourself. Doing journalism is not as simple as saying "This thing happened".
A person with a smartphone does not do research, does not interview people, does not spend all day working on a story, does not have the support of other people whose job is to know stuff, does not try to understand what the implications of something are, does not have a code of ethics, etc etc. Journalists spend 100% of their day working on a story and that makes all the difference in the world. It's a job with specific duties. " Citizen journalism" is not journalism. YouTube personalities are not influencers. People researching stuff in their free time are not journalists.
Recording something with your smartphone and posting it on Instagram does not make you a journalist, just as me cooking pasta for lunch does not make me a chef.
And that's because - again - doing something for fun or by accident is very different than doing it as a job. I guess your skepticism may come from not yet having encountered good journalism, and I'm sorry if that's the case. My advice is just to keep looking for it, because finding a news org that you can trust makes all the difference in how you can understand the world.
People interview themselves. We have phones and want to be heard! We don't need your leading questions. We don't need your input. We don't want it and we won't pay you for it!
I don't know if you just want to be edgy, if you're just thick, or if a journalist fucked your mom, but I have the impression that you're not gonna care anyways, no matter the amount of level-headed arguments.
Good journalism is dying, you're being played like a fiddle, and I hope you're gonna soon realize how wrong you are and how much we need journalism.
For me, this conversation ends here. Peace