Ok I see this take a LOT and I think we all need to reckon with how "the Internet" might not have "decimated local journalism" without readers...deciding not to read it when there were more alternatives? https://twitter.com/MuseZack/status/962560673744998400 …
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Replying to @xenocryptsite
That is your laziest take. The evisceration was through business models that local papers could not compete with
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Replying to @xenocryptsite
The crisis in local journalism stems from a precipitous drop in revenue. This happened not because people stopped reading, but because the readership moved online, where all of the ad revenue is effectively captured by Google and Facebook.
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Replying to @Pinboard @xenocryptsite
I don't think there was ever an avid readership for coverage of zoning meetings, but local papers saw it as part of their mission to cover this stuff. Say what you will about local journalism, at least it's an ethos.
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Replying to @Pinboard @xenocryptsite
Moving online meant surrendering complete control of advertising to the ad racket, heavily subsidized by speculators. Those same ads, and the huge amount of cruft they add to pages, also make reading local papers unappealing. So people read it on Facebook, revenue drops more
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Replying to @Pinboard @xenocryptsite
Eventually you have a local paper trying to carve staff down to where print ads and subscription revenue can still fund it. And there are bottom-feeding press conglomerates that then buy out these papers and eviscerate them further
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Replying to @Pinboard @xenocryptsite
At no point is the problem "readership is dropping because people would rather read something else."
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One example: Verizon or T-Mobile earns more revenue from a page load of the Boston Globe (due to data fees and the enormous bloat due to video ads) than the publisher of the Boston Globe does
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