Comment by lumb63
2 years ago
This is a great concept! Thanks for sharing. I do have to wonder, though, if this is a Band-Aid over the problem of sensationalist reporting. Assuming there is a market for “boring” news (I think there is; I’d like to read it!), wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay journalists to write less exaggerative pieces in the first place?
In an ideal world yes, but the incentives are not there. For example, many governments benefit from media being sensationalist, within and outside borders. They don't want less sensationalism. I think this "attention to negativity" is something inherent to humans, and now that we have opened the door, I doubt it's gonna close by everyone paying more to journalists.
I would posit the minority of people are drawn to more "boringly" presented news, and as such, it wouldn't make much sense to have it be the primary artifact. (for better or worse)
I think counteracting the market forces that drive exaggerated journalism would be far more expensive and difficult than simply developing some software to filter the exaggerations locally. Also, we can work on the first more effectively with the second in hand.
Try ft.com. Most of their revenue comes from subscriptions, not ads, so they are not striving to generate clickbait like most papers.
There are boring news orgs, but how many are you subscribed to? How likely are others to find them?
If there is a x million dollar market for boring news, there's an x+a million dollar market for the same news that's less boring