The advent of internet and the notion that news should / could be 'free' has caused a steep decline in quality journalism worldwide, I think.

I have some journalists (for a local newspaper) in my circle of friends and they all complain there's no 'newsroom' anymore for most (dutch) newspapers. All journalists now are supposed to 'self-redact' and their copy is just pasted into the newspaper without anybody else looking at it.

Lots of 'journalists' are freelancers who just send in their piece. Even those often get published with minimal oversight. There just isn't enough money to have a redaction.

Fact-checking is(or should be) done by the one writing the piece. So personal biases are hardly ever caught.

Admitted, all these stories are for a small local newspaper with very tight budgets. But according to my friends it's the same everywhere when they speak to their friends, and even the big national newspapers here have very minimal supporting personnel.

It's no wonder the world polarizes.

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mcculley 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I would love to know what it would cost to subscribe to a newspaper that gets revenue only from subscribers and runs no ads. Is it so high that nobody tries?

	▲	Abstract_Typist 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		An "ad-free" subscription to The Guardian is $18 per month ($15 starter, students $10 a year). They aren't funded exclusively by subscribers because that would exclude a source of revenue that enables cheaper subscriptions. But you can have no ads for a reasonable premium. https://support.theguardian.com/us/contribute
	▲	freedomben 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I would add another important caveat to this: no dark patterns in subscriptions (like call to cancel), and a reasonable price on the subscription. I would gladly pay for something like this
	▲	intended 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yep. Professional journals can be a few 100s$ per year. So you could get quality journalism, it would just be for very few people compared to the masses. Historically, public/mass news services were dependent on adverts or classifieds to pay for their running. That business has been consumed by ad tech. YouTube has become a source for journalism now, but the viability of newspapers and local beats has reduced.