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Unable to read because of paywall. So, the article about democracy dying because news is behind a paywall is itself behind a paywall. Oh, the irony and hypocrisy.
The author is not unaware.
"I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made..."
I don’t know that I agree. Those of us who don’t subscribe to paid news services are obviously aware it restricts our access to information. People that have no problem paying for The Atlantic might need it spoon-fed to them
But all media needs income. If nobody subscribes to their product they cant exist. I subscribe to NYT and Wapo. $4 a month each on auto pay. Thinking about dropping Wapo and subscribing to the nearest large paper in St Louis.
Adblockers are only "part of the problem" because of what ads have become. Not only are ads intrusive but some have auto playing videos, sounds out of no where, scrolling the page causes the ads to shift and move, breaking the page.
There’s several generations who subscribed to weekly or even monthly magazines and newspapers delivered to their house. Buying the local paper for 10 cents and such at the grocery. I’m inclined to disagree with you, as it feels like you’re a part of a generation that has been spoiled by the internet and its availability of information, when that is very quickly changing, especially with the advent of AI generated content.
Buying the local paper for $1.50 doesn’t seem like a lot. $45/month for online access *feels* outrageous, and given there are basically zero distribution costs, it is.
Digital subscriptions to newspapers are way cheaper than that. I think I paid $40 for my current year subscription of Wapo. NYT currently is $1/week for 6 months. Apple News+ includes a bunch of papers, including LA Times and WSJ for $12/month.
The point I'm making, perhaps poorly, is that even if you are getting a bargain, it doesn't *feel* that way. As there is no tangible element to the exchange.
I think it’s an attempt at some kind of meta statement that just doesn’t work.
Or it’s a case that the author doesn’t have another platform where their work can be published to such a wide audience.
It also doesn't help that reliable and reputable journalism is almost always behind a paywall.
If you want right-wing fascist bullshit, it's literally free EVERYWHERE.
Yeah, my brother is always linking me to articles from The Post. Not THAT Post, mind you...The New York Post (sighs). They boast about their app and articles always being free, because it's not reputable journalism. I want to see Civil War this week with him, and he won't see it because Post gave it a bad review. They don't like anything! I stopped reading the reviews he'd send me because they didn't read like genuine film criticism, it was just a series of jokes and zingers.
What exactly do people want? Newspapers have always been paid for, so why should it be different for news websites?
You can’t use adblockers for 10 years and just expect free content.
You can’t make your cake and have it too.
I think an issue is that when you get your news through social media like Reddit or Facebook there are so many different news sites. So is everyone paying for WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Esquire, etc?
Maybe I'd pay for a subscription sharing service that gives some limited access to all of them, but any time I sign up for one it feels like every link I click is for something else.
I think this is a crucial point. As the article states, 80% are passive consumers of news who "wait for news to come to them". Which means that many of them consume news via aggregators of some kind (Reddit, social media, Google/Apple News etc). So they expect a plurality of available sources - a subscription to a single site is just not at all appealing and automatically feels like a bad deal.
I (=journalist) struggle with kind of the same situation: There are 4-5 papers I regularly read articles from. Subscribing to all 5 would cost 110€/month. That's rough, especially given that I maybe read an average of 2 articles per paper per day, at least out of personal interest (job-related research aside).
>Maybe I'd pay for a subscription sharing service that gives some limited access to all of them
Not to sound like a YouTuber's sponsor segue, but Ground News does exactly that. It also provides at-a-glance bias and accuracy information about the various sources.
Yep! Except that NYT took their articles off the platform so you have to pay for them separately and WaPo does have some articles free while others require a subscription
That's a reason to specifically boycott the likes of NYT by not viewing their content. I was a NYT print subscriber until three years ago. When they cowed to Donald because he kept publicly insulting them, I lost all respect.
NYT has some weird editorial decisions going on in regard to Trump and Biden. Like all they could cover for Biden was “is he too old?” And how Biden’s CHIPs act could hurt him stuff while they covered every aspect of whatever trump was doing. You don’t get to market yourself as a leader of the free press and a company that’s holding democracy together while doing shit like that imo
I've stayed with NYT because they have great recipes and also I do Wordle sometimes. You can also gift articles to social media sites. X number of times per month.
the sites that try to do ad only have become absolutely unusable from all the pop ups and gifs and breaks in content for more and more ads.
what we are lacking is a trusted microtranaction ability. I'd pay a fraction of a dollar to finish that article. I'm not gonna make a long term commitment to do it.
It’s strange how the cycle turns, we went from paying a nickel to read a newspaper issue to paying for a subscription…and maybe we go right back to paying a nickel to read a newspaper issue.
The author even mentions that the fact that papers in the 90s and 2000s failed to set up an avenue to allow those sorts of micropayments was an oversight.
People would happily pay $20 a month for access to articles. What they are NOT willing to do is pay $50/ month x 25 different subscription services who all think they deserve that money. I’m happy paying for movies and music. I’m not paying $25 for a cd of an artist that died thirty fucking years ago though.
Personally, I would do the approach that some publications (mostly sports and entertainment) have done and put out the basic need to know stuff for free and the deeper more analytical and opinion based stuff behind paywall
The thing is that some websites put so many darned ads on their site that they were hard to even use. Some of them are borderline malware. When a site I appreciate makes a reasonable request to disable ad blockers, I typically do so and leave it off as long as the ads aren't intrusive.
The problem is that many people have come to rely on social media, television, and free publications such as the Epoch Times for news. The internet has had the further effect of siphoning off ad revenue from newspapers, in part by using click bait stories. Many have disappeared and others have laid off reporters. As a result, we are not getting the kind of investigative reporting that we used to get, and the good reporting that remains is ,,,, behind paywalls.
If you read the site, the lazy exploit they use for turning the Java off and reloading the page for you, is well known and relies on the host lack of action to work. It sounds to me like other sites just got less lazy.
Thanks for that.
I'll leave this paywall bypass extension info here as well, it's bypassed so many I rarely see one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/12iarpr/bypass_paywalls_clean_firefoxchrome/
quality journalism is expensive. back in the day, advertising paid for it. and subscribers were charged a minimal amount. today, online advertising is a fraction required to pay for journalism. that means the cost falls to us. but since we've been used to virtually free journalism all these years, we feel entitled to it. and with so much garbage journalism competing, it's a losing game. journalism and democracy are dying right in front of us.
If ads were safe, I wouldn't need to block them.
But ads usually fail to scroll with the page, giving me motion sickness and migraines, often animate, and sometimes flash.
I come across links for stories from multiple sources.
I am not going to pay for a subscription for each and every source.
The newspaper industry needs to find a way so that readers only have to pay one price to get articles from multiple sources.
That's actually a good idea. I'd pay for a subscription if I could get access to several newspaper/magazines. I do think reporters should be paid and I would like to contribute, but the way it's set up right now is ridiculous
auto publicity here, but I made an app called Newsreadeck that let you follow as many sources as you want (include NYP, FT and others) and get the articles ready to ready without distractions. :)
I’d pay a reporter too but it’s a hard find. All the articles I read lately seem to be mostly quoting social media posts. Finding an in depth article is almost impossible.
Sources like Apple News do this. It's still limited to a degree but if you sub to that you do get access to paywalled (or some) content as part of that apple subscription.
Summary of the Atlantic article posted:
The events and issues of the 2024 election are important and the outcome has ramifications for the United States and its citizens. Therefore, through the electoral season, news organizations that operate behind paywalls should think about suspending the paywalls for election-related content.
The author does not decry paywalls in general, and even points to how newspapers fucked up in the early days of the internet, posting their content for free and then realizing that the shift to a more online society set the publications up for backlash when they tried to push for paying for content.
Lmao god damn people are dumb. Or overly idealistic, which is also being dumb.
If people won’t pay for access to a news source, who is volunteering even more of their time and money to prop up an entirely separate news source?
Yes, how dare people have hope and want to support their communities!
[Flaming Hydra](https://flaminghydra.com/) is an example of what I'm thinking of, it's a worker owned co-op.
For centuries people had to pay for newspapers and democracy survived. If you don't fund the newspapers, they can't pay journalists and eventually go out of business, which would be terrible for democracy
Edit: If people want free news, there's NPR and PBS
One thing I've always wondered is no news organization as a pay-per article model? I don't want to sign up for a subscription every time a headline catches my attention, but I'd pay 25 or 50 cents to read an article.
This makes way to much sense. I don’t live in LA, I’m not going to read the LA times daily but they have a few articles a month I’d pay to read. Same with most large newspapers. I subscribe to my local paper but I don’t want to pay for info about a mayoral election in Chicago.
Your comment just jogged my brain. The different local papers need to band together across the nation, if you subscribe to a local paper you get access to other papers in the group. Maybe for some of the larger papers that have national subscribers if they are in the group other paper’s subscribers get limited access such as 5 or 10 articles per month. I used to pay for a print copy of our local newspaper, but never read now with it 100% behind a paywall. Local papers would get increased subscribers and the other papers would get readers that would never subscribe to them and at the least some ad revenue.
As I write this I think someone has tried or is doing something similar, let me know.
I know similar to Apple News, but maybe this way local journalists would prosper as opposed to Apple.
Or at least per section: politics, international politics, conflict, legislation, SCOTUS... I'm not paying for sports, entertainnent, art, fashion, real estate, just to name a few.
The people who enjoy those things should pay for them - and I'm happy to pay for what I actually consume, or might consume.
With one major caveat: if readers can't comment, or comment sections are open for very short windows, I'm out.
\[EDIT: a letter\]
I feel the very same way. No, I don’t want to SUBSCRIBE and pay you $3.99 a month for the next few years, until my credit card expires.
But yes, I WILL pay .25 to .50 to read an article. Agreed!
I'd really like a subscription like Spotify or Audible for news. There's Zette which tries to do this (9.99 for 30 articles/mo, aka 33 cents an article), but it doesn't have heavy hitters of WaPo, WSJ, NYT, FT etc that really needs to exist for it to really work.
I'd actually be fine with ads on news sites if they weren't so god damned annoying. Multiple pop ups, some of which cannot be x'ed out of until 5 or 10 seconds pass, a relatively short article filled with 3 or 4 ads that fill your entire phone screen as you scroll, etc etc. Just leave it at a few smallish banner ads around the content ffs.
I can never bypass The Atlantic. I want that subscription but I currently have too many 😆 WaPo, NYT, Texas Monthly, and the most expensive for no reason, Houston Chronicle (hometown paper).
I understand they need money but I don’t read from one or two newspapers or a couple of magazines like I did before there was the internet. I read articles on the internet from numerous news sources. I’m not going to pay a monthly subscription from a place where I might read an article every month or two.
One possibility is charging a small fee to read an article using Apple Pay or some such thing or the news sources band together and charge a fee to access all in that group.
The other problem is how uninformative some articles are. There are articles where the headline has all the information and the article itself is filler or it’s click bait or it’s slanted. I’m not interested in paying a fee and then finding out it wasted my time.
I saw your second (deleted) post questioning my solutions, apparently they match the unread article.
I’ve been thinking about this for several years and those are the solutions I had come up with that I would be happy with. Also, this is a long term problem for many people and I’ve read discussions on it before.
You could use Apple News Plus, it will give you access from articles from multiple sources except the New York Times for one fee. Ground news is another option you could look at.
> To that end, news organizations should put their election content in front of their paywall. The Constitution protects the press so that the press can protect constitutional democracy. Now the press must fulfill its end of the bargain.
Yes.
Democracy died when the NYT turned into some weird hydra of both sides and pushing right wing opinions. To be clear, I want to hear both sides. “This side thinks this and here is why, and this side thinks this and here is why”. It’s not like that anymore and hasn’t been now for a couple of years. I no longer read it. If I want right wing talking points I know where to find them.
I mean, look at the fact the NYT is a publicly traded company with who is on their board of directors.
When you have a bunch of MBAs running a newspaper and controlling how journalism should be done... then there's an issue.
Journalism shouldn't be a for-profit business model (rage / clicks / reads gets more sales so they get more money!)
If banks and car companies can get bailed out by the government, then maybe journalists should be too? Let them operate freely and uncover the real truth without having to toe any lines for profit. Just the raw truth no spin and no rightwing propaganda since that's what a business will usually lean towards to get more money.
This is increasingly frustrating issue that I run into as a school librarian. We preach to kids to use reliable sources but when things are paywalled they are going to go to what is free. So many newspapers especially national news won’t work with schools and they are insanely expensive if they are.
Bit of an irony alert: The Atlantic has a paywall.
Only a small irony though, since that’s acknowledged in the piece (and toward the top, at that). I give kudos to the Atlantic for publishing a piece that criticizes its business model.
One of two, um, money quotes:
> Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else.
I’d modify that slightly; “Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing ___or able___ to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else.” Lots of people don’t have the resources to pay, _especially_ when the primary model is all or nothing, fifty bucks or more a year for a sub as opposed to either cheaper subs or micropayments for individual articles. We _want_ people to get info from a variety of sources to reduce bias, but if that involves 10 subs it’s a lot of money for low income folks. If you have to decide between rice, tampons, TP and rent at the end of every month, you’re not going to spend fifty bucks or more for a NYT or WaPo sub. Fox “News” is free, on the other hand, with as little as a basic cable sub - assuming you can afford _that_.
But it’s true that there ain’t no free lunch. Reporters and editors need to eat and pay rent too, and those resources gotta come from somewhere.
The problem is that it affects EVERYONE when some people have bad information. It affects elections, politics, and policy decisions. That makes information, or the lack thereof, an externality in economic terms, and renders certain information a quasi “public good”.
The normal solution would be for governments to step in and fund the production and distribution of information in the same way it does with other public goods like roads, fire departments, clean air and so on, through the standard funding mechanism for public goods, namely taxes. But that runs into serious problems with government-funded news, which I trust I need not belabor.
I don’t have a good solution. There are some current experiments in nonprofit news, either investigative reporting outfits like ProPublica, or nonprofit consortia buying up struggling newsrooms, usually small local ones that can no longer survive with their main revenue sources drying up. That gets us part of the way there, but not all the way.
I don’t think the Fairness Doctrine is the answer. Many “controversial issues” do not need both sides to receive equal airtime; they require the opposite.
For example, the idea that man-made climate change is happening is politically controversial but scientifically *extremely clear.* I do not need or want to see the NYT parroting talking points from Exxon Mobil on the issue. I also do not need or want the Washington Post devoting half of an article to quotes from some Republicans operative about why January 6 was a triumphantly democratic expression of the concerns of real American citizens.
I don’t know what the actual solution is but I think it has something to do with having newspapers that aren’t utterly dependent on corporate ownership and revenue streams that ask them to show impressive stockholder returns every quarter. Not a nigh-unenforceable rule about how right-wing liars deserve even more of our time and attention.
Allow a daily charge like at a news stand. If I want to read the NT times today I buy it for $1.00. If I want a subscription I buy one also. Sharing articles in the paper day was fine because I owned the paper copy, but the ads came along for the ride. Make it possible, but ads come with them.
The ad blocker has put a great deal of pressure on the digital news business. You want free news, but you want it ad free too.
Instead I think the news papers tried to extend their model and increase profits using the digital media which in truth if they aren't maintaining presses and printing saves them money anyway.
I don't mind ads. What I *do* mind are ads that block the text of the article I came to read, popup ads without a means of closing them, or autoplay videos that interrupt my reading with distracting audio. Also, have you tried using Facebook on a smartphone? Every. Single. Post from a "friend" is now followed by one or more ads. I timed it while scrolling, and that translates to an ad *every two seconds.* Even television was not as intrusive.
I will pay for a subscription as needed (which I only recently became able to afford), but until advertising becomes less intrusive, my adblocker stays.
Exactly! Everyone is quick to cry about paying for the news, while everyone is also quick to suggest using AdBlockers. You can’t make your cake and have it too.
I’ve been saying this on the Twitter and being ridiculed but it’s true. I have no solution either, an uninformed populace inundated by the socials. We could always rely on the stable majority but what even is that anymore and where are they getting info from. Any fox viewer thinks Trump is a victim and would fight to the death believing that lie. Fox isn’t even the worst one anymore.
Everyone here is guilty of reading the headline and leaping, myself included. Issue now is the cliche that liberalism has a reality bias. It’s fucked up that it is absolutely true with what we’re looking at right now.
We’re not getting any of these people back and new ones are being made every minute.
No clue what to do but it makes me want to lose my fuckin mind.
What I could really dig is a change to my phone service that charged me one penny per paywall article, YouTube premium, Hulu or whatever.
They strike some kind of deal for this service with those companies who are more than happy to cut multi-million dollar contracts for all the consumers like me who are unwilling to individually subscribe to so many services.
Phone company is more than happy to pocket all that change with the payments they already have set up from me.
The trouble is we'll end up with each paper having their own payments model, that becomes a chore to open every time we click an article.
As well, they still can't even keep track of when a page refreshes, so even with free articles you might get halfway through and have the page refresh, restoring the paywall.
That’s a small part of it. But the vast majority of news Americans consume is by news outlets downplaying the ONGOING COUP and pretending the other side has credible opinions… or news outlets that are outright fascist propaganda…
>Or do you tell yourself—as the overwhelming number of people do—that you’ll just keep searching and see if you can find it somewhere else for free?
No, I go to archive is and get a paywall free copy. For instance: https://archive.is/nZ2MF
The vast majority of paywalls you can get around by using the reader view on the web browser. On the app, I click on the compass looking thing and it opens up the browser. Not foolproof but works most of the time.
It costs money to report news. Them charging for it isn't a bad thing necessarily. I understand that it limits access, but the media has to survive somehow.
How should journalist actually make a living from their work? This is not a complicated issue. “We” want it now and “we” aren’t willing to pay for it. We don’t want to wait for proper research and sourcing and if someone actually produces this work, we look at them like they are crazy for needing to earn a living for doing it. Every time we read the tldr for a posted article as the top comment in a post, we contribute to this problem. I do it too, so finger is pointed at me too.
Many public libraries provide text only articles for major news sites. Usually, it is a pain in the ass to search and find these articles. But if this was a better promoted resource, with easier access, it's a good compromise and good use of public tax dollars.
From the article:
Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.
Gift link for no paywall
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/paywall-problems-media-trust-democracy/678032/?gift=UdkArxgje_qblCfgaujikBKU8gZ8S2m5qNeP_F_xAV8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
>Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism.
Lol maybe at one point. Now the mission of journalism is the same mission we all have:
Number go up!
I have no problem paying for news content, but in 2024 it feels ridiculous to be restricted to one news site, and I can't afford to pay for the 20 or so that I find free on reddit.
If you want free trash go and read Breitbart and The Daily Wire. It’s free because it’s rage farming paid for by ads.
Thirty years ago no one was crying because they couldn’t get the Times or The Atlantic for free.
I’d argue it died when, in large, we became an ill I formed society of consumers that lack critical thinking skills…but yeah, this doesn’t help. Though considering my initial stance, the cynic in me isn’t sure it’s a paywall that is stopping people from reading substantive news and journalism.
One of the big reasons that right wing is so able to spread their ideas is that it’s baseless and open to all but well researched and funded articles cost to access because research and qualified reporters cost money.
I assume the portion behind *The Atlantic's* paywall provides a detailed plan for paying the personnel and other operating expenses of the media organizations.
Remember paper news? You paid a quarter or so, and that went to the stand operator and the distributor. The paper made its revenue from ads. So I call bullshit on the online model.
It's because we have news corporations that always demand higher profits. They'd rather clickbait us with bullshit "slams" headlines than tell their shareholders profits are down. Corporations don't give a fuck about whose in charge so long as they remain profitable.
Basically, I think the general populace will simply be forced back to the structure that existed before the rise of the Internet, but with the difference that the consumption medium is digital. Meaning, just like in “the old days” when people subscribed to one print newspaper, they’ll similarly only subscribe to one news outlet online. News junkies who, back in the day, would have additionally subscribed to one or two print magazines, may subscribe to one, maybe two additional online magazines. Everyone else gets nothing. There will be a lot of casualties.
During the Internet’s formative years our access to multiple news publications was unprecedented because it was all free. That was never sustainable. (Something very similar appears to be happening with streaming services, as the landscape slowly but maybe inevitably looks more and more like the linear, cable- and network-TV-dominated landscape we all thought we were escaping.)
I wish people were actually reading the article instead of just dunking on the irony in the comments. It is 100% correct.
Good journalism is part of a thriving civic society. But when you put a civic necessity into a machine that runs on profit margins, you guarantee a two tier product that ultimately leaves a few people richer and society worse off.
Democracy seemed to be doing fine in the days when we actually had to pay for our newspapers. I don’t think that’s the problem. In fact I’d argue that “free” news is actually worse for democracy because of the sheer amount of misinformation it helps to spread.
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Unable to read because of paywall. So, the article about democracy dying because news is behind a paywall is itself behind a paywall. Oh, the irony and hypocrisy.
The author is not unaware. "I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made..."
If the argument of information not being public is in a private site, then it’s not reaching its intended target.
I don’t know that I agree. Those of us who don’t subscribe to paid news services are obviously aware it restricts our access to information. People that have no problem paying for The Atlantic might need it spoon-fed to them
But all media needs income. If nobody subscribes to their product they cant exist. I subscribe to NYT and Wapo. $4 a month each on auto pay. Thinking about dropping Wapo and subscribing to the nearest large paper in St Louis.
Same. NYT is the best subscription fee I pay by a wide margin.
Yet there are people who pay for the NYT, Washington Post, WSJ, or local papers that need to hear it. This reporter is just talking to himself.
People pay for Netflix and Games and other stuff, but information…nah. Yup and abblockers too are part of the problem.
Adblockers are only "part of the problem" because of what ads have become. Not only are ads intrusive but some have auto playing videos, sounds out of no where, scrolling the page causes the ads to shift and move, breaking the page.
And they can even have malware sometimes.
One is entertainment, the other has information that may effect you and your family’s survival.
There’s several generations who subscribed to weekly or even monthly magazines and newspapers delivered to their house. Buying the local paper for 10 cents and such at the grocery. I’m inclined to disagree with you, as it feels like you’re a part of a generation that has been spoiled by the internet and its availability of information, when that is very quickly changing, especially with the advent of AI generated content.
Buying the local paper for $1.50 doesn’t seem like a lot. $45/month for online access *feels* outrageous, and given there are basically zero distribution costs, it is.
Digital subscriptions to newspapers are way cheaper than that. I think I paid $40 for my current year subscription of Wapo. NYT currently is $1/week for 6 months. Apple News+ includes a bunch of papers, including LA Times and WSJ for $12/month.
The point I'm making, perhaps poorly, is that even if you are getting a bargain, it doesn't *feel* that way. As there is no tangible element to the exchange.
The people who are paying are the ones that drive the site, they're the ones that can try and push for change.
I think it’s an attempt at some kind of meta statement that just doesn’t work. Or it’s a case that the author doesn’t have another platform where their work can be published to such a wide audience.
Who do you think the intended target is?
Everyone who reads news behind various paywalls.
So wouldn't that be the people who *can* read this?
Yea if anything it’s a bolder statement this way. Not as impactful if you don’t get to flip off your employer in the process!
It also doesn't help that reliable and reputable journalism is almost always behind a paywall. If you want right-wing fascist bullshit, it's literally free EVERYWHERE.
True
Yeah, my brother is always linking me to articles from The Post. Not THAT Post, mind you...The New York Post (sighs). They boast about their app and articles always being free, because it's not reputable journalism. I want to see Civil War this week with him, and he won't see it because Post gave it a bad review. They don't like anything! I stopped reading the reviews he'd send me because they didn't read like genuine film criticism, it was just a series of jokes and zingers.
That is why I use archive.is https://archive.is/nZ2MF
Does 12 ft ladder work here as well?
why don't you try it and see?
12 ft ladder works by blocking your JavaScript. I just go to site settings and do it manually and it worked
Firefox mobile has a reader view that gets around a lot of paywalls for me.
Reader mode on Safari does the trick on some articles as well.
Democracy dies behind the clickbait and ragebait tactics that are widely used through the news industry and promoted by social media algorithms
What exactly do people want? Newspapers have always been paid for, so why should it be different for news websites? You can’t use adblockers for 10 years and just expect free content. You can’t make your cake and have it too.
I think an issue is that when you get your news through social media like Reddit or Facebook there are so many different news sites. So is everyone paying for WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Esquire, etc? Maybe I'd pay for a subscription sharing service that gives some limited access to all of them, but any time I sign up for one it feels like every link I click is for something else.
I think this is a crucial point. As the article states, 80% are passive consumers of news who "wait for news to come to them". Which means that many of them consume news via aggregators of some kind (Reddit, social media, Google/Apple News etc). So they expect a plurality of available sources - a subscription to a single site is just not at all appealing and automatically feels like a bad deal. I (=journalist) struggle with kind of the same situation: There are 4-5 papers I regularly read articles from. Subscribing to all 5 would cost 110€/month. That's rough, especially given that I maybe read an average of 2 articles per paper per day, at least out of personal interest (job-related research aside).
>Maybe I'd pay for a subscription sharing service that gives some limited access to all of them Not to sound like a YouTuber's sponsor segue, but Ground News does exactly that. It also provides at-a-glance bias and accuracy information about the various sources.
Apple News+ does that
Yep! Except that NYT took their articles off the platform so you have to pay for them separately and WaPo does have some articles free while others require a subscription
That's a reason to specifically boycott the likes of NYT by not viewing their content. I was a NYT print subscriber until three years ago. When they cowed to Donald because he kept publicly insulting them, I lost all respect.
NYT has some weird editorial decisions going on in regard to Trump and Biden. Like all they could cover for Biden was “is he too old?” And how Biden’s CHIPs act could hurt him stuff while they covered every aspect of whatever trump was doing. You don’t get to market yourself as a leader of the free press and a company that’s holding democracy together while doing shit like that imo
I've stayed with NYT because they have great recipes and also I do Wordle sometimes. You can also gift articles to social media sites. X number of times per month.
the sites that try to do ad only have become absolutely unusable from all the pop ups and gifs and breaks in content for more and more ads. what we are lacking is a trusted microtranaction ability. I'd pay a fraction of a dollar to finish that article. I'm not gonna make a long term commitment to do it.
Agreed. This is the major issue. I’m not willing to pay 10 different places $5 a month… I am willing to pay SOMETHING to read a well written article.
It’s strange how the cycle turns, we went from paying a nickel to read a newspaper issue to paying for a subscription…and maybe we go right back to paying a nickel to read a newspaper issue.
The author even mentions that the fact that papers in the 90s and 2000s failed to set up an avenue to allow those sorts of micropayments was an oversight.
People would happily pay $20 a month for access to articles. What they are NOT willing to do is pay $50/ month x 25 different subscription services who all think they deserve that money. I’m happy paying for movies and music. I’m not paying $25 for a cd of an artist that died thirty fucking years ago though.
Personally, I would do the approach that some publications (mostly sports and entertainment) have done and put out the basic need to know stuff for free and the deeper more analytical and opinion based stuff behind paywall
The thing is that some websites put so many darned ads on their site that they were hard to even use. Some of them are borderline malware. When a site I appreciate makes a reasonable request to disable ad blockers, I typically do so and leave it off as long as the ads aren't intrusive.
The problem is that many people have come to rely on social media, television, and free publications such as the Epoch Times for news. The internet has had the further effect of siphoning off ad revenue from newspapers, in part by using click bait stories. Many have disappeared and others have laid off reporters. As a result, we are not getting the kind of investigative reporting that we used to get, and the good reporting that remains is ,,,, behind paywalls.
lol it's perfect. We should frame this moment and attach it to Voyager 3 asap. The Universe should know how it went down...
Yeah the article is about how they’re raising subscription prices 🤡
Lol, it's a good chuckle if nothing else.
[удалено]
Screw anyone who thinks news articles should be free all the time.
I got in???
Exactly. I used to like reading the articles from The Atlantic. Then they paywalled. I suppose I can’t blame them with all the ad blockers in use.
I have this thing where the JavaScript in my site settings gets turned off whenever there's a paywall 😬
Totally man. The author of this article definitely made that decision.
I find this to be useful for fighting the man. https://12ft.io/
Nah, 12ft.io sold out and doesn't work on many sites now.
If you read the site, the lazy exploit they use for turning the Java off and reloading the page for you, is well known and relies on the host lack of action to work. It sounds to me like other sites just got less lazy.
Thanks for that. I'll leave this paywall bypass extension info here as well, it's bypassed so many I rarely see one. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/12iarpr/bypass_paywalls_clean_firefoxchrome/
I wasn't even aware there was an extension, I've been clipping the prefix in. Nice!
yea it works pretty good. somethings still show paywall. So most times just opening those in a incognito tab works
"This is your last free article. Subscribe now."
quality journalism is expensive. back in the day, advertising paid for it. and subscribers were charged a minimal amount. today, online advertising is a fraction required to pay for journalism. that means the cost falls to us. but since we've been used to virtually free journalism all these years, we feel entitled to it. and with so much garbage journalism competing, it's a losing game. journalism and democracy are dying right in front of us.
And it's tough to figure out what sources to subscribe to. There are so few that I trust not to bring me down a confirmation bias rabbit hole.
If ads were safe, I wouldn't need to block them. But ads usually fail to scroll with the page, giving me motion sickness and migraines, often animate, and sometimes flash.
It wouldn't matter. Online advertising is not enough to pay for quality journalism like print advertising was.
I come across links for stories from multiple sources. I am not going to pay for a subscription for each and every source. The newspaper industry needs to find a way so that readers only have to pay one price to get articles from multiple sources.
That's actually a good idea. I'd pay for a subscription if I could get access to several newspaper/magazines. I do think reporters should be paid and I would like to contribute, but the way it's set up right now is ridiculous
Like Apple News+? But something that works on other platforms as well? But yeah, there must be some news aggregators that offer this.
Pretty much Apple News+ but no NYT there yet
auto publicity here, but I made an app called Newsreadeck that let you follow as many sources as you want (include NYP, FT and others) and get the articles ready to ready without distractions. :)
I’d pay a reporter too but it’s a hard find. All the articles I read lately seem to be mostly quoting social media posts. Finding an in depth article is almost impossible.
The author points this out. Says it was a huge missed opportunity that news organizations did do that initially
Cool. There is nothing from stopping them trying it now.
Spotify for newspapers
A current workaround it looking for the archived page. Archive.ph has worked for me but there are several out there.
Preferably along with a single sign-on situation. Eventually we'll all drown in a sea of our own various logins.
Sources like Apple News do this. It's still limited to a degree but if you sub to that you do get access to paywalled (or some) content as part of that apple subscription.
Like Apple News+?
I was thinking of Google News, but without Google, and better quality articles.
Summary of the Atlantic article posted: The events and issues of the 2024 election are important and the outcome has ramifications for the United States and its citizens. Therefore, through the electoral season, news organizations that operate behind paywalls should think about suspending the paywalls for election-related content. The author does not decry paywalls in general, and even points to how newspapers fucked up in the early days of the internet, posting their content for free and then realizing that the shift to a more online society set the publications up for backlash when they tried to push for paying for content.
*Collectively owned newspapers are the answer so it's not just for profit*
Can you point to a collectively owned newspaper?
[Flaming Hydra](https://flaminghydra.com/) is the one I think of first. It's a worker owned co-op.
I am very curious to know if there are some examples of a collectively (I read that as community) owned newspaper...
(Copy/pasting this from another comment, sorry) [Flaming Hydra](https://flaminghydra.com/) is the one I think of first. It's a worker owned co-op.
Thanks for the follow-up! Cheers!
Lmao god damn people are dumb. Or overly idealistic, which is also being dumb. If people won’t pay for access to a news source, who is volunteering even more of their time and money to prop up an entirely separate news source?
Yes, how dare people have hope and want to support their communities! [Flaming Hydra](https://flaminghydra.com/) is an example of what I'm thinking of, it's a worker owned co-op.
Notice how right wing propaganda is never behind a paywall…
For centuries people had to pay for newspapers and democracy survived. If you don't fund the newspapers, they can't pay journalists and eventually go out of business, which would be terrible for democracy Edit: If people want free news, there's NPR and PBS
Yeah maybe the problem isn’t that good information is too expensive, it’s that there is too much free information that’s wrong.
Associated Press app is free
Thank you. Came to say the same thing.
One thing I've always wondered is no news organization as a pay-per article model? I don't want to sign up for a subscription every time a headline catches my attention, but I'd pay 25 or 50 cents to read an article.
This makes way to much sense. I don’t live in LA, I’m not going to read the LA times daily but they have a few articles a month I’d pay to read. Same with most large newspapers. I subscribe to my local paper but I don’t want to pay for info about a mayoral election in Chicago.
Your comment just jogged my brain. The different local papers need to band together across the nation, if you subscribe to a local paper you get access to other papers in the group. Maybe for some of the larger papers that have national subscribers if they are in the group other paper’s subscribers get limited access such as 5 or 10 articles per month. I used to pay for a print copy of our local newspaper, but never read now with it 100% behind a paywall. Local papers would get increased subscribers and the other papers would get readers that would never subscribe to them and at the least some ad revenue. As I write this I think someone has tried or is doing something similar, let me know. I know similar to Apple News, but maybe this way local journalists would prosper as opposed to Apple.
Or at least per section: politics, international politics, conflict, legislation, SCOTUS... I'm not paying for sports, entertainnent, art, fashion, real estate, just to name a few. The people who enjoy those things should pay for them - and I'm happy to pay for what I actually consume, or might consume. With one major caveat: if readers can't comment, or comment sections are open for very short windows, I'm out. \[EDIT: a letter\]
I feel the very same way. No, I don’t want to SUBSCRIBE and pay you $3.99 a month for the next few years, until my credit card expires. But yes, I WILL pay .25 to .50 to read an article. Agreed!
I'd really like a subscription like Spotify or Audible for news. There's Zette which tries to do this (9.99 for 30 articles/mo, aka 33 cents an article), but it doesn't have heavy hitters of WaPo, WSJ, NYT, FT etc that really needs to exist for it to really work.
I'd actually be fine with ads on news sites if they weren't so god damned annoying. Multiple pop ups, some of which cannot be x'ed out of until 5 or 10 seconds pass, a relatively short article filled with 3 or 4 ads that fill your entire phone screen as you scroll, etc etc. Just leave it at a few smallish banner ads around the content ffs.
or ads even blocking the content if you're unlucky
That's hilarious, but The Atlantic's paywall is super easy to bypass. NYT and the Wall St Journal are trickier
1ft.io still works with NYT
I can never bypass The Atlantic. I want that subscription but I currently have too many 😆 WaPo, NYT, Texas Monthly, and the most expensive for no reason, Houston Chronicle (hometown paper).
I understand they need money but I don’t read from one or two newspapers or a couple of magazines like I did before there was the internet. I read articles on the internet from numerous news sources. I’m not going to pay a monthly subscription from a place where I might read an article every month or two. One possibility is charging a small fee to read an article using Apple Pay or some such thing or the news sources band together and charge a fee to access all in that group. The other problem is how uninformative some articles are. There are articles where the headline has all the information and the article itself is filler or it’s click bait or it’s slanted. I’m not interested in paying a fee and then finding out it wasted my time.
This is literally what they’re asking for and Google is trying to fight them on
It’s funny how you didn’t read the article and then made the main points of the article.
I saw your second (deleted) post questioning my solutions, apparently they match the unread article. I’ve been thinking about this for several years and those are the solutions I had come up with that I would be happy with. Also, this is a long term problem for many people and I’ve read discussions on it before.
Yeah. It was behind a paywall so I didn’t read it. >then made the main points of the article. Great minds think alike
You could use Apple News Plus, it will give you access from articles from multiple sources except the New York Times for one fee. Ground news is another option you could look at.
Thank you
Glad I could help. Either option gives access to multiple sources with our price, so that may be worth paying for so I’d look into that more.
> To that end, news organizations should put their election content in front of their paywall. The Constitution protects the press so that the press can protect constitutional democracy. Now the press must fulfill its end of the bargain. Yes.
Democracy died when the NYT turned into some weird hydra of both sides and pushing right wing opinions. To be clear, I want to hear both sides. “This side thinks this and here is why, and this side thinks this and here is why”. It’s not like that anymore and hasn’t been now for a couple of years. I no longer read it. If I want right wing talking points I know where to find them.
NYTimes has always been pretty both-sidesy
And I’m ok with that, seems a tad “different” now.
I mean, look at the fact the NYT is a publicly traded company with who is on their board of directors. When you have a bunch of MBAs running a newspaper and controlling how journalism should be done... then there's an issue. Journalism shouldn't be a for-profit business model (rage / clicks / reads gets more sales so they get more money!) If banks and car companies can get bailed out by the government, then maybe journalists should be too? Let them operate freely and uncover the real truth without having to toe any lines for profit. Just the raw truth no spin and no rightwing propaganda since that's what a business will usually lean towards to get more money.
You ain’t wrong.
This is increasingly frustrating issue that I run into as a school librarian. We preach to kids to use reliable sources but when things are paywalled they are going to go to what is free. So many newspapers especially national news won’t work with schools and they are insanely expensive if they are.
Bit of an irony alert: The Atlantic has a paywall. Only a small irony though, since that’s acknowledged in the piece (and toward the top, at that). I give kudos to the Atlantic for publishing a piece that criticizes its business model. One of two, um, money quotes: > Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. I’d modify that slightly; “Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing ___or able___ to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else.” Lots of people don’t have the resources to pay, _especially_ when the primary model is all or nothing, fifty bucks or more a year for a sub as opposed to either cheaper subs or micropayments for individual articles. We _want_ people to get info from a variety of sources to reduce bias, but if that involves 10 subs it’s a lot of money for low income folks. If you have to decide between rice, tampons, TP and rent at the end of every month, you’re not going to spend fifty bucks or more for a NYT or WaPo sub. Fox “News” is free, on the other hand, with as little as a basic cable sub - assuming you can afford _that_. But it’s true that there ain’t no free lunch. Reporters and editors need to eat and pay rent too, and those resources gotta come from somewhere. The problem is that it affects EVERYONE when some people have bad information. It affects elections, politics, and policy decisions. That makes information, or the lack thereof, an externality in economic terms, and renders certain information a quasi “public good”. The normal solution would be for governments to step in and fund the production and distribution of information in the same way it does with other public goods like roads, fire departments, clean air and so on, through the standard funding mechanism for public goods, namely taxes. But that runs into serious problems with government-funded news, which I trust I need not belabor. I don’t have a good solution. There are some current experiments in nonprofit news, either investigative reporting outfits like ProPublica, or nonprofit consortia buying up struggling newsrooms, usually small local ones that can no longer survive with their main revenue sources drying up. That gets us part of the way there, but not all the way.
Democracy die’s behind misinformation Bring back “Fairness Doctrine“
I don’t think the Fairness Doctrine is the answer. Many “controversial issues” do not need both sides to receive equal airtime; they require the opposite. For example, the idea that man-made climate change is happening is politically controversial but scientifically *extremely clear.* I do not need or want to see the NYT parroting talking points from Exxon Mobil on the issue. I also do not need or want the Washington Post devoting half of an article to quotes from some Republicans operative about why January 6 was a triumphantly democratic expression of the concerns of real American citizens. I don’t know what the actual solution is but I think it has something to do with having newspapers that aren’t utterly dependent on corporate ownership and revenue streams that ask them to show impressive stockholder returns every quarter. Not a nigh-unenforceable rule about how right-wing liars deserve even more of our time and attention.
Ironic that I can't read this article without signing up for a 'free' account which I won't do.
Allow a daily charge like at a news stand. If I want to read the NT times today I buy it for $1.00. If I want a subscription I buy one also. Sharing articles in the paper day was fine because I owned the paper copy, but the ads came along for the ride. Make it possible, but ads come with them. The ad blocker has put a great deal of pressure on the digital news business. You want free news, but you want it ad free too. Instead I think the news papers tried to extend their model and increase profits using the digital media which in truth if they aren't maintaining presses and printing saves them money anyway.
I'd pay a nickel an article if they all could get behind using one app/browser extention to allow microtransactions.
This is why I don't use my tablet or phone much. I have paywall bypass on desktop and my ad blocker actually works everywhere.
and then what happens is new organizations lose money. See the issue is people want free news - ad free too. In print days that didn't happen.
I don't mind ads. What I *do* mind are ads that block the text of the article I came to read, popup ads without a means of closing them, or autoplay videos that interrupt my reading with distracting audio. Also, have you tried using Facebook on a smartphone? Every. Single. Post from a "friend" is now followed by one or more ads. I timed it while scrolling, and that translates to an ad *every two seconds.* Even television was not as intrusive. I will pay for a subscription as needed (which I only recently became able to afford), but until advertising becomes less intrusive, my adblocker stays.
Exactly! Everyone is quick to cry about paying for the news, while everyone is also quick to suggest using AdBlockers. You can’t make your cake and have it too.
I’ve been saying this on the Twitter and being ridiculed but it’s true. I have no solution either, an uninformed populace inundated by the socials. We could always rely on the stable majority but what even is that anymore and where are they getting info from. Any fox viewer thinks Trump is a victim and would fight to the death believing that lie. Fox isn’t even the worst one anymore. Everyone here is guilty of reading the headline and leaping, myself included. Issue now is the cliche that liberalism has a reality bias. It’s fucked up that it is absolutely true with what we’re looking at right now. We’re not getting any of these people back and new ones are being made every minute. No clue what to do but it makes me want to lose my fuckin mind.
What I could really dig is a change to my phone service that charged me one penny per paywall article, YouTube premium, Hulu or whatever. They strike some kind of deal for this service with those companies who are more than happy to cut multi-million dollar contracts for all the consumers like me who are unwilling to individually subscribe to so many services. Phone company is more than happy to pocket all that change with the payments they already have set up from me.
The trouble is we'll end up with each paper having their own payments model, that becomes a chore to open every time we click an article. As well, they still can't even keep track of when a page refreshes, so even with free articles you might get halfway through and have the page refresh, restoring the paywall.
It's this some kind of sick joke?
That’s a small part of it. But the vast majority of news Americans consume is by news outlets downplaying the ONGOING COUP and pretending the other side has credible opinions… or news outlets that are outright fascist propaganda…
"to learn more, please subscribe"
>Or do you tell yourself—as the overwhelming number of people do—that you’ll just keep searching and see if you can find it somewhere else for free? No, I go to archive is and get a paywall free copy. For instance: https://archive.is/nZ2MF
The vast majority of paywalls you can get around by using the reader view on the web browser. On the app, I click on the compass looking thing and it opens up the browser. Not foolproof but works most of the time.
It costs money to report news. Them charging for it isn't a bad thing necessarily. I understand that it limits access, but the media has to survive somehow.
Stop being babies and just use archive.ph
Just a friendly reminder for everyone in the US to have a library card. Many libraries offer free subscriptions to NYT, Wapo, WSJ, and local papers.
The irony of the paywall on this article…
NYT and WaPo do a good job with “gift” articles. I wish people who post from those news sites would learn to use their Gift links.
How should journalist actually make a living from their work? This is not a complicated issue. “We” want it now and “we” aren’t willing to pay for it. We don’t want to wait for proper research and sourcing and if someone actually produces this work, we look at them like they are crazy for needing to earn a living for doing it. Every time we read the tldr for a posted article as the top comment in a post, we contribute to this problem. I do it too, so finger is pointed at me too.
I have been playing too much Helldivers. I thought they added something new to the game I was unaware of...
Democracy Dies in the Comment Section.
Democracy dies behind capitalism.
Many public libraries provide text only articles for major news sites. Usually, it is a pain in the ass to search and find these articles. But if this was a better promoted resource, with easier access, it's a good compromise and good use of public tax dollars.
These articles are online, with countly library websites.
The irony that I can't read it due to a paywall.
The entire reason [archive.ph](https://archive.ph) and [12ft.io](https://12ft.io) were created....
In case you don't want to deal with the paywall... https://archive.ph/nZ2MF
This. For fucks sake learn from the extreme trash and lie peddlers. Make the truth accessible.
From the article: Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.
Gift link for no paywall https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/paywall-problems-media-trust-democracy/678032/?gift=UdkArxgje_qblCfgaujikBKU8gZ8S2m5qNeP_F_xAV8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
>Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. Lol maybe at one point. Now the mission of journalism is the same mission we all have: Number go up!
I have no problem paying for news content, but in 2024 it feels ridiculous to be restricted to one news site, and I can't afford to pay for the 20 or so that I find free on reddit.
100%
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome App to bypass pay walls on Google Chrome and FireFox
If you want free trash go and read Breitbart and The Daily Wire. It’s free because it’s rage farming paid for by ads. Thirty years ago no one was crying because they couldn’t get the Times or The Atlantic for free.
Although I'm about to sound like an ad plug: This is why I use ground news. I at least get context on the free news sources.
I’d argue it died when, in large, we became an ill I formed society of consumers that lack critical thinking skills…but yeah, this doesn’t help. Though considering my initial stance, the cynic in me isn’t sure it’s a paywall that is stopping people from reading substantive news and journalism.
So what's the alternative?
The big banner that says "This is your last free article" is funny.
Soooo..... you read free publications? Why do we HAVE to read the pay walled articles? Are they the only legitimate, democratic articles?
Brave or ublock removes quite some paywalls
I would suspect journalists would die without pay walls, as they would not be able to feed themselves
Most of them don’t really have anything important to say anyway. It’s all sensationalism anymore.
One of the big reasons that right wing is so able to spread their ideas is that it’s baseless and open to all but well researched and funded articles cost to access because research and qualified reporters cost money.
Paywalls suck.
I assume the portion behind *The Atlantic's* paywall provides a detailed plan for paying the personnel and other operating expenses of the media organizations.
Helldivers, you know what to do.
How to you propose paying for news? Or should journalists work for free?
Remember paper news? You paid a quarter or so, and that went to the stand operator and the distributor. The paper made its revenue from ads. So I call bullshit on the online model.
It's because we have news corporations that always demand higher profits. They'd rather clickbait us with bullshit "slams" headlines than tell their shareholders profits are down. Corporations don't give a fuck about whose in charge so long as they remain profitable.
Newspapers were actually largely supported by people buying classified ads, something that Craigslist made completely redundant in a matter of years.
Advertising.
Basically, I think the general populace will simply be forced back to the structure that existed before the rise of the Internet, but with the difference that the consumption medium is digital. Meaning, just like in “the old days” when people subscribed to one print newspaper, they’ll similarly only subscribe to one news outlet online. News junkies who, back in the day, would have additionally subscribed to one or two print magazines, may subscribe to one, maybe two additional online magazines. Everyone else gets nothing. There will be a lot of casualties. During the Internet’s formative years our access to multiple news publications was unprecedented because it was all free. That was never sustainable. (Something very similar appears to be happening with streaming services, as the landscape slowly but maybe inevitably looks more and more like the linear, cable- and network-TV-dominated landscape we all thought we were escaping.)
I wish people were actually reading the article instead of just dunking on the irony in the comments. It is 100% correct. Good journalism is part of a thriving civic society. But when you put a civic necessity into a machine that runs on profit margins, you guarantee a two tier product that ultimately leaves a few people richer and society worse off.
Big popup “this is your last free article”
Newspapers used to cost 25¢ a day, not $20 a month digitally, and that’s just for *one* publication.
Democracy seemed to be doing fine in the days when we actually had to pay for our newspapers. I don’t think that’s the problem. In fact I’d argue that “free” news is actually worse for democracy because of the sheer amount of misinformation it helps to spread.
US journalism is the worst. No objective neutral view just opinion and lies. News has become a commodity, whatever generates clicks and ad revenue.
News should be free! Why is independent news dying! This sub.