Ask HN: Disrupt Sensationalistic Media

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3593354

by mohene1 • 14 years ago

2 4 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I was wondering if there is a way to mask a site visit. Instance, someone clicks on an article and their site visit is not recorded or is somehow made unverifiable.

The goal is to disrupt "journalists" from pandering to the most sensationalist headlines to get more clicks.

I find that the state of news is deteriorating to the point of gossip - even more so than the Citizen Kane scenario - because some people are paid proportionally to the number of clicks they receive. A problem is that this would also disrupt Adsense revenue and other click-through programs.

ISeemToBeAVerb• 14 years ago

I think it's great that you want to disrupt the media, but I don't think this idea is the way to do it. You're talking about taking a glass full of water out of an ocean.

If you're a developer wanting to make a difference I HIGHLY recommend checking out "The Information Diet: A Case For Conscious Consumption" by Clay Johnson.

I spent many years working in broadcast news and I can say that many of Clay's observations rang true with what I've observed over the years.

olalonde• 14 years ago

And what is your alternative to Adsense so that journalists make money?

mohene1• 14 years ago

AznHisoka>I dont' consider myself rational, I don't think it is just to discourage an idea because it is not perfect. You also don't need to reduce traffic, all you have to do is to make the article view count unreliable.

People can print what people like, but without compensation they won't benefit from the attention.

I read part of the Clay book. I am not interested in defining news to "make people think logically." Just the opposite, I expect people to think differently. I am interested reversing the tide of attention-seeking headlines which decreases focus on real news. If a reporter suggests a real news segment I am sure they will get shot down because the boss can see what articles make the most money, attention seeking articles. If the numbers are unreliable, the playing field becomes level since advertisers can no longer directly differentiate articles' popularity.

olalonde>An Alternative to Adsense income. One consequence might be sites offering services or products. Newspapers might need to start charging for their services. The New York Times has already done this.

In this scenario, attention seekers might be starved of cash, because who will pay for hyped news. From my experience there is a market for real gossip and real news, but no so much sensationalistic news.

The justification for this comes from the fact that news is nothing now.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

You can just view the Google cache rather than go straight to the article. But that won't stop people from posting sensationalist headlines - everyone knows that's what people want. Just because a few rational geeks frown upon it won't make them change.

Ask HN: Disrupt Sensationalistic Media

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