Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Republicans in disarray!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Books are my comfort food!

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

“But what about the lurkers?”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Couple of Notes on Media

A Couple of Notes on Media

by | 43 Comments

This post is in: 

I think WG and the group have put together a good list of media sources in the post below.

One note on the Guardian:  I link to it a lot because it doesn’t have a paywall.  When they sent me notices that my credit card had expired, I assumed I could just “quiet quit”, but they re-billed me the other day even though my card was supposedly expired.  I’m disputing that with customer support.  So I will be in the market for another news source without a paywall that I can use for “basic news”.  Perhaps the AP?  If anyone has suggestions, I’m open to hear them.  I use Yahoo News a fair amount because they’ll re-print stories that are otherwise paywalled.  I don’t want to use the archive links people use to get around paywalls.  If a media outlet has a paywall, well, they’re telling me that I need to like their stuff enough to subscribe.  If I don’t, I don’t want to go around it.  (This is a matter of taste or preference, I realize.)

I read through a few comments and saw at least one comment about Pakman saying that he was too sensationalistic.  Well, I’d say that about pretty much any YouTube creator (including Meidas Touch, fwiw).  The algorithms on that platform rewards sensational thumbnails.  (I don’t have big opinions on Pakman — I’ve seen some of his stuff and it strikes me as OK.  YouTube videos are not my preferred way to consume political news.  Again, a matter of taste, not a hill to die on.)

In general, every social media platform has a special exploitable weakness driven by the algorithms.  For YouTube, it’s sensational thumbnails.  For Instagram, it’s too goddam many ads and too many “influencers” who are hawking shit.  I use Instagram almost exclusively to follow people who travel and camp.  Almost every one of the creators I follow has commercial deals with some outdoor product company or other.  Plus the ads are endless.  It’s funny that Threads (which uses similar algorithms and ad placements) collapsed once BlueSky got up a good head of steam — the user experience was just so shitty that people couldn’t tolerate it.

This is not to say that YouTube doesn’t have an ad/influencer problem — it certainly does.  It’s just that the Instagram folks I follow don’t seem to get traction from sensational posts, unlike YouTube.  TikTok’s special problem is just the firehose of the god damned algorithm jamming content in your face without any apparent rhyme or reason.

(Note that I have a YouTube Premium Family subscription, which I still think is a good deal at $23/month for 5 family members, since it includes ad-free YouTube as well as YouTube music, which is basically Spotify without Joe Rogan and other exclusive podcasters.  So I don’t see the ads that others do on that platform.)

That all said, if we’re to have liberal / Democratic / Progressive creators on those platforms who gain traction, we’re going to have to cut them slack on the techniques they use to game the algorithms.  I mean, I still use Instagram, and I get some good content from it, despite all the shit it tries to throw at me.  I watch a lot of YouTube in the outdoor/camping and aviation space, and I find it useful.  And I try to navigate TikTok, with less success.  What’s clear to me is that these platforms require a massive investment in time and effort to become a heavily-followed creator.  We need those.  I respect the effort, and if I’m not in love with the result, I at least try to view it in the context of the labor involved.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    Yes, someone said on the other thread that the Guardian doesn’t have a paywall, but after I canceled my subscription I couldn’t read their articles any more. Maybe you get a few free ones, but it definitely has a paywall at some point.

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: That’s weird.

    I get a thing that says, your free articles are used up, subscribe in order to read the rest of the article, or something like that.

  9. 9.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @zhena gogolia:

    Like Baud, I’ve never had to deal with their paywall.

    Now, their paywall is pretty easy to bypass, unlike FTFNYT or the Wa(com)Post (and others) which, in their latest iterations, can’t be bypassed.  I read something where they consulted the people who had done them for various sports reporting sites because those were rock solid in terms of “THOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

  11. 11.

    wonkie

    I asked for subscriptions for Christmas. People got to make a living and the only way for good journalism to survive is for someone to pay for it.  So…I also find lots of content on bluesky.

  12. 12.

    Miss Bianca

    @KatKapCC: I tossed $5 their direction a little earlier this year, because I do read their articles, after all, and that stopped the blegging for a while.

  13. 13.

    Professor Bigfoot

    Bringing this up from the previous comatose thread… I’m looking at a Plain Dealer subscription for this precise reason— to get basic news news.

    Do any of my fellow Jackals have any bad things to day about them before I do it?

  15. 15.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I really liked Meidas Touch for their discussion of Trump’s legal cases, but yeah they are definitely overly-sensationalist and that always kind of bugged me.  I get it, that helps get views/$.  Now that voters decided they’d rather let Trump go free than elect Kamala, I probably won’t bother with Meidas any more.

  16. 16.

    Bupalos

    The primary algorithmic move that content creators on YouTube make isn’t making sensationalistic thumbnails. It’s saying and ultimately thinking whatever it is will grow and monetize their audience. There are very few creators that are aware of the corrupting influence that the medium has on them and their audience and fewer still that effectively resist that influence.

    One that I would recommend is Vlad Vexler, who interweaves an analysis of the medium he’s using as he’s using it. He’ll constantly refer to what the algorithm wants him to say, what it’s telling him you want to hear.

  17. 17.

    Doc Sardonic

    For the YouTube ad barrage prevention, I use Firefox to do all my YouTube watching. Firefox has a plugin that eliminates all YouTube ads, making for a less frustrating experience because I hate commercials with the heat of a thousand suns.

  18. 18.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Professor Bigfoot: Indispensable (which by no means indicates perfect) for local Cleveland and Northeast Ohio news. (It’s too bad that Cleveland Scene is a pale shadow of its former self.) If you care more about Statehouse coverage (ugh but we have to keep an eye on those criminals) Ohio Capitol Journal is what you want.

  21. 21.

    BretH

    Sorry I didn’t read the other thread but the WashPo had an article on NewsGuard – maybe that would be a useful addition as a news content rating company.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    AP is a huge aggregator and can be useful for seeing what the most mainstream of media is covering.  I occasionally scan their headlines on my phone, but I don’t usually read their political stories.  They still have a very (it seems to me) strong default that the GQP is the natural party of the federal government and the Democrats are too beholden to those dangerous, head-in-the-clouds lefties who don’t understand how the world actually works mindset.  Which shouldn’t be surprising, I guess.

    Reuters still seems fairly balanced to me.  They want a paid subscription on the web, but one can see a paragraph or so.  There doesn’t seem to be a demand for a subscription using their app on my phone.  I also check VOANews and RFERL for a less US centric take on the day’s news.

    My $0.02.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Steve LaBonne:

    It’s very hit and miss in my experience.  Much of the time, a link provided that I run thru archive comes up empty.

    Or, maybe 3 months later will turn up but by that time, I don’t typically care.

    I wish it worked consistently.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: archive.is (and other archive sites) is a site that lets one bypass paywalls pretty easily.  Just enter the URL in the bottom and it will serve-up a paywall-free version (if it exists – and it usually does in my experience).

    E.g. an up to the minute FT.com story.

    HTH a little.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @Bupalos:

    The primary algorithmic move that content creators on YouTube make isn’t making sensationalistic thumbnails. It’s saying and ultimately thinking whatever it is will grow and monetize their audience. There are very few creators that are aware of the corrupting influence that the medium has on them and their audience and fewer still that effectively resist that influence.

    This is true to a degree, but in my experience in the outdoors/aviation spaces, there’s some self-awareness and transparency on the part of the creators and their audiences.  I’ve seen frank discussions about overly-sensationalist thumbnails, and about content choices.  It’s kind of a strange dynamic, because people subscribe/view those creators’ content, but once they’re hooked, they don’t want the creator to do too much to satisfy the algorithm.

    Also, I didn’t mention in the OP that once YouTube cut down on paying creators, they started putting their own ads in the content, ads that are impervious to ad blockers.

  29. 29.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @Another Scott:  Agree on the AP — their DC coverage is very status quo.

    I liked the Guardian’s coverage because they seemed to have less DC media groupthink in their political coverage, probably because the reporters were young and/or edited by UK staff.

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @UncleEbeneezer: They have come to remind me of Rush Limbaugh in style. Do not want

    Not saying I won’t put them on the list because of that, but personally, I find that style unpleasant and they too often mix fact and “hot take” without distinguishing between the two.

  32. 32.

    KatKapCC

    @WaterGirl: They often let clickbait and sensationalism get in the way of basic fact-checking. After the election, they had a number of “Trump supporters FREAKING OUT” videos with clips of people being upset over things Trump might do even though they voted for him. Except they used at least a couple of clips from satire accounts that were mocking Maga, not actually being Maga themselves.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia:  I don’t think The Guardian has a paywall.  After a while, they will ask you to log in.  Although.  There’s an “I’ll do it later” button that lets you bypass that.  I hit that one constantly.

    The Guardian has good archives, too,

  36. 36.

    Marmot

    Hey, what do you know about Courier Newsroom? I recently heard about it from an activist I know. I’ve been meaning to check it out, and it seems to get a lot of traction on TikTok.

  37. 37.

    schrodingers_cat

    @kindness: You don’t have to read it. I am unhappy about it as well. My feed is highly curated and I block and mute liberally. But for the time being there is no other platform that has the breadth of people on there from all over the world.

    I am also on Bluesky and will ditch Twitter in a heartbeat if I find another comprehensive source for news related to India from actual political party spokespeople to independent reporters.

  39. 39.

    EZSmirkzz

    Ya’ll keep it up and you’ll be reduced to reading the outhouse walls.

    I use Firefox with noscript and privacy badger, send them $5 once in a while. Ilinked the Big Project up on Adam’s thread last year or the year before that.  A lot of newspapers to choose from.

    I don’t use my telephone; aka US government/ US media surveillance device, for this stuff so YMMV.

  40. 40.

    Tasha

    I mostly agree with not evading paywalls erected by news sites, but I make an exception for the WSJ. I cheat them when I can.

  41. 41.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Steve LaBonne: I was following them over on Xitter; def need to check out a subscription.

    I confess I’m only lately come aware of the just rampant corruption in the Ohio Statehouse… I finally looked up my own state House district a few months ago and man, you wanna talk about a gerrrymandered monstrosity, Ohio House 49 fits the bill perfectly.

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