Is journalism dying?

It seems like Facebook is causing many people who didn't read news before to be forced now to read the shittest news sources ever - and they vote

https://fashionista.com/.amp/2017/08/magazine-interview-format-trend

On Thursday, Harper's Bazaar released the cover story for its September issue, featuring an interview with cover star The Weeknd that was conducted entirely via email. It was a move Rihanna also pulled in The Fader for their May/June issue, with the added stipulation that only five questions could be sent to her. And earlier this year, Paris Jackson was the cover star for not one, but two publications (Teen Vogue and Vogue Australia) where the accompanying interview happened over text. Like, on a phone.

So what exactly is going on here? Is this about magazines being too short-staffed and tight-budgeted to send a writer to the mansions or yachts on which their cover stars are dallying? Is it about celebrities attempting to keep more of their private lives private without missing out on press opportunities? Are publicists and managers wanting to keep a tighter control on what their star clients say to the media and how it's construed?

There's evidence supporting all of the above. It hardly takes sleuthing at this point to uncover the fact that print media is bleeding money. And The Weeknd's interview gave clues about the reasoning behind his email-only mandate: He cited annoying questions about his hair, his desire to maintain a sense of mystery and the claim that "the only thing the world demands of me is music."

on the flip side, this would lead to an end of a) the writer describing what the celebrity ordered for lunch at the upscale hotel where they're conducting the interview (RIP truffle fry-gate) and b) male writers describing how hot their female interviewees are (RIP Neil Strauss-on-Jewel).

Or just make the latter worse.

"I had regularly felt a stirring during my obsessive review of her selfies, and I admit when I was typing out the email questions, I only used one hand."

At our student newspaper we don't allow email interviews with administrators unless the editor in chief okays it, for obvious reasons, I think. I sympathize with The Weeknd's attitude if he means it. But he and the reporter can discuss the scope of the interview before it happens and come to an understanding (i.e. no questions about truffle fries, hair, etc).

you interview in person partly to catch their lies. but usually, who cares if celebrities lie?

i think you answered your own question, maura - seems like this is the natural endpoint of publicists' powers to demand concessions increasing as print media's influence wanes

i'd imagine too that celebs are now so used to communicating with their audiences directly through social media that a significant proportion of them view interviews as anachronistic - in that case why not stick to communicating with journalists using text or email if that's what you're comfortable doing, and your publicist can swing it?

oh that was cut and pasted from the link, sorry. but yeah, i think that's a big part of it

"access" is a trap

risk vs reward of an interview with harper's bazaar vs self managed instagram account not looking so hot these days

Would rather read an essay about The Weeknd (especially if it was called "Why The Weeknd Sucks") than an interview with his boring ass anyway. I mean, that's the other thing - the three people cited in the above blog entry (Ironclad Journalism Rule: Three Is A Trend) have always seemed like paralyzingly boring human beings whose opinions should mean basically nothing to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

I thought we'd already decided all the interviews should be of Noel Gallagher.

imagine writing this story. how you'd feel about yourself.

http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/839264/bbc-weather-bbc-breakfast-weather-report-Carol-Kirkwood-rain-shocks

a recap of a weather report followed by some cut-and-pasted twitter comments

what the actual fuck

I look forward to spending my twilight years clicking through contentless links in a hypnagogic state

by that measure i'm already in my twilight years tbh

I can't stand Carol Kirkwood, I hate how she says Englind, Scotlind. There's a news story for you.

This was on the sidebar and same sorta things except there is no cut and paste of Rachel doing letters or numbers.

http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/833313/Rachel-Riley-Countdown-wardrobe-malfunction-dress-fruit-pastille-lolly-Twitter-fans-Channe

they literally publish one of those Carol Kirkwood stories every few days, see also "Carol Kirkwood wraps sensational curves in gorgeous green jacket for forecast" from 8th August, "Carol Kirkwood showcases ample bust in figure-hugging purple frock" from 7th August, "Carol Kirkwood thrills as she teases cleavage in low-cut navy frock" from 24th July, "Carol Kirkwood distracts viewers as she squeezes into plunging red dress" from 21st July, "Carol Kirkwood flashes PLENTY of cleavage in plunging jumpsuit as she takes to the skies" from 17th July, etc

it seems like the task of writing them is divided between several journalists rather than having one dedicated Carol-Kirkwood-perving correspondent, probably better for morale: imagine writing this story. how you'd feel about yourself.

https://digiday.com/media/facebooks-ad-breaks-are-not-bringing-in-a-lot-of-money-for-publishers/

Five publishers participating in Facebook’s mid-roll ads test, which began in March, said the product isn’t generating much money. One publisher said its Facebook-monetized videos had an average CPM of 15 cents. A second publisher, which calculated ad rates based on video views that lasted long enough to reach the ad break, said the average CPM for its mid-rolls is 75 cents. (Facebook’s mid-roll ads don’t show up inside videos in the first 20 seconds, which means many three-second video views aren’t “monetized views.”)

A third publisher made roughly $500 from more than 20 million total video views on that page in September.* (This publisher had not calculated its CPM, as its total video view count includes videos that were not monetized by Facebook mid-rolls.) A fourth publisher confirmed revenue was low without giving specifics. (A fifth publisher, when asked about its Facebook mid-roll CPMs, responded by texting lyrics to Flo Rida’s “Low.”)

am i the only person who's loath to click on any links anymore because the prospect of having my music drowned out by some annoying ad is too high

the secondmost obvious question is "what does facebook have to do with journalism?"

everything tbh

then we have a definitive answer to the question in the thread's title: no, it isn't dying. it would have to be alive to be dying.

aimless are you asking that question sincerely or being snide? because facebook and google (and to a lesser extent twitter and other platforms) have completely transformed the way news is disseminated and by extension the priorities of publishers

Like 3/4 of the world's population, I am not on fb and therefore never look at fb. Personally, I have no interest in ever changing this state of affairs. Consequently, fb has not transformed how news reaches me, unless it is solely responsible for the slow strangulation of the channels I still rely upon.

ftr, unlike fb, the Reagan administration's deregulation of broadcast media did completely transform the way news was disseminated to me; I stopped watching television news broadcasts. fb is slightly different, in that I never started looking at it to begin with.

Is journalism dying (for ILX poster Aimless, specifically)

is twitter dying?

okay well even though you're above fb, the rise of platforms has changed things for you on the supply sid

side

Like 3/4 of the world's population, I am not on fb

we call these ppl the 'movers + shakers'

I have no idea if I am above fb, but I am certainly outside it.

xp the way priorities have shifted in newsrooms is undeniable and it reverberates throughout publications. i don't think it's a good thing at all - it's extremely short sighted in the way it's practiced now especially - but it's happening.

anyway,

In Google’s case, trolls from 4Chan, a notoriously toxic online message board with a vocal far-right contingent, had spent the night scheming about how to pin the shooting on liberals. One of their discussion threads, in which they wrongly identified the gunman, was picked up by Google’s “top stories” module, and spent hours at the top of the site’s search results for that man’s name.

In Facebook’s case, an official “safety check” page for the Las Vegas shooting prominently displayed a post from a site called “Alt-Right News.” The post incorrectly identified the shooter and described him as a Trump-hating liberal. In addition, some users saw a story on a “trending topic” page on Facebook for the shooting that was published by Sputnik, a news agency controlled by the Russian government. The story’s headline claimed, incorrectly, that the F.B.I. had linked the shooter with the “Daesh terror group.”

Google and Facebook blamed algorithm errors for these.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/business/las-vegas-shooting-fake-news.html

okay well even though you're above fb, the rise of platforms has changed things for you on the supply side

― maura, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 1:49 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

we call these ppl the 'movers + shakers'

hate to break it to you, but being on fb does not give you superpowers, or enhanced powers, or any kind of power at all that a body could notice, except the power to update your timeline or whatever it is fb people do.

Old Man Condescends At Cloud Computing

It really worries me that no-one at Facebook has had a moment of realization that "hey, maybe we should hire people to sift through these headlines/links for accuracy again."

lol Aimless are u really this thick bro?

Like, are they really and truly saving that much money in the long run?

before i can answer your carefully crafted question, you need to clarify how thick is "this thick"?

Raymond they got spooked by the right-wing media machine and its propensity for calling facts that aren't in line with their nihilistic death-cult ideologies "biased."

Paging Jethro Tull to thread

Erm, hate to wade in here but:

1. Not being on FB yourself doesn't mean that it doesn't affect what type and quality of information you take in. Ditto for TV news.

For comparison, NYT and WaPo have shaped what information people get even if they've never sauntered out to find either of those particular publications on their doorstep.

I hear there are even people who don't spend very much time on the internet. And yet what information they get is still, strangely, shaped by online culture in some ways. Mind. Blown.

2. If old-skool media outlets can barely fact-check anymore (and they pretty much can't), how on earth can we expect social-media sites to do a better job (working with exponentially more throughput, and vastly fewer staff)?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was responding to the assertion that facebook had "everything" to do with how news is disseminated. The assertion under consideration was not that fb was a influence, but that its influence was "everything".

um:

the secondmost obvious question is "what does facebook have to do with journalism?"

― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, October 3, 2017 5:01 PM (one hour ago)

right. Maura's answer was: "everything tbh"

So your question was responding to the answer?

No, my question was a question. It was not obvious to me why this thread was chosen to post an excerpt from an article about "Facebook's mid-roll ads" and the poster's annoyance at having music interrupted by them. I can see now that my question was too inspecific, but it was based in genuine ignorance of facebook's interface and how users tend to use it, especially in that the article seemed to have little or nothing to do with journalism or its death.

The answer to my question was unenlightening, even though I am sure it seemed a beacon of truth to the person who offered it. Chalk it up to mutual incomprehension, based on living in somewhat different online cultures, but being called "thick" seems a bit much.

that was tracer's answer

lol