'But there is also a less convenient and perhaps more existential side to tech’s divestiture of news. It’s not just the platforms: Readers are breaking up with traditional news, too.
'Last week, the Pew Research Center published a new study showing that fewer adults on average said they regularly followed the news in 2021 or 2022 than in any other year surveyed.
'In 2022, Axios compiled data from different web-traffic-monitoring companies that showed news consumption took a “nosedive” after 2020 and, despite January 6, the war in Ukraine, and other major events, engagement across all news media—news sites, news apps, cable news, and social media—was in decline.
'Some of this is self-inflicted, the result of news organizations getting stories wrong and the fact that these mistakes are more visible, and therefore subject to both legitimate and bad-faith criticism, than ever before.
'The frictionless access and prodigious distribution of social media should have been a perfect partner for news, the very type of relationship that might bolster trust in institutions and cultivate a durable shared reality. None of that came to pass. Social media brought out the worst in the news business, and news, in turn, brought out the worst in a lot of social media'.
https://archive.md/UKJ0F
@ravirockks
I expect paywalls must needs to be factored into those stats or it's a #FAIL
@ravirockks
Your stats are telling you that I'm just reading the stats with information considered.
@ClaraListensprechen4 Of course (we remember that famous Republic poll done via landline phones), but I was broadening your point re the decline of news consumption because of more news going behind paywalls.
@ravirockks
Ah, I see now. This is the ongoing snag: news needs to be paid for and an informed voter needs the information to base a vote on. Paywalls prevent circulation of information beyond people with money and poor people vote too.
Additionally, no news org can claim to be an influencer of the public based on wide circulation when its paywalls curtail such circulation. No other business has Constitutional protection but that one does because it's essential for the people. A paywall is not in keeping with the purpose of why we have a First Amendment regarding the press.
@ClaraListensprechen4 Well-said.
To add, news companies aren't trusts established for the benefit of the public. They're companies that need to make money.
If only they'd stop with the self-righteous chest-beating about defending democracy and were clearer about the corporate governance drivers of their behaviour.
@ClaraListensprechen4 Are you telling me folks who are under the pump with inflation and interest rates will not be happy to pay for news?
WHAT!?