• stealthnerd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    The fall of newspapers led us down the path of click bait, low quality, ad driven “news”. Very few newspapers survived the transition to digital because suddenly nobody wanted to pay for access to something they could get online for free. Those that did survive mostly exist in a much smaller form with low funding and reduced quality.

    Personally, I’m excited to see it becoming more common for people to subscribe to news services again. I just wish there was more diversity and competition available like there was in the past but I’m hopeful we’ll get there as more people seem to be opening back up to paying for high quality publications.

    High quality journalism can’t exist without paid subscribers but there are still ways to access it for those who can’t afford it, visiting a local library for example.

    • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I know “state-funded media” is an ominous word to Americans, but most European countries have their own government broadcaster and news organization, entirely funded through taxes.
      Those generally offer high-quality non-biased journalism (of course it’s always based on how authoritarian the government is). The British BBC, the Swedish SVT, the German DW etc. are all publicly owned broadcasting companies.

      • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        BBC is publicly funded but they collect the money themselves trough the TV license, they are not funded by the government trough taxes and they make a shit ton of money from commercial operations, like selling shows and formats to foreign networks. That’s probably the best way to keep an independent state network with minimal government meddling. Though we’ve seen that individuals with power at the network can bias the news reporting. Like BBC definitely favors the political right.

    • BurtReynoldsMustache@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Journalism should be accessible to everyone. Not many people can afford 30 different subscriptions for every individual news outlet because they’re all pay to read. Remember newspapers? Anyone could buy one on the cheap, now these fuckers have moved to a subscription service that’s even more expensive than the average newspaper used to be.

      • N-E-N@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Well there are 3 alternatives.

        Ads, which everyone on here would endorse blocking, so that’s out.

        All journalism becomes volunteer work, running off of optional donations, which seems unlikely :D

        Or all journalism becomes publicly funded via-taxes. This is probably the optimal option but I think most people would agree that ALL journalism being government funded has a ton of risks.

        • Smoogs@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          If I have to pay for it:

          • it cannot be sensationalized. It cannot even veer mildly from the found facts.
          • it cannot be filled with agenda bias
          • it cannot hold any false, non peer reviewed information
          • they have to pay their sources. And They have to pay their sources well. Especially the ones who are expected to uphold to peer reviews (science journalists, I’m looking at you)

          If there is a free one with ads:

          • ads cannot fabricate their facts either.

          Wanna regulate? Well. Then. Let’s regulate.