The Fourth Estate's Future
January 3, 2024 9:57 PM Subscribe
Most aren't predictions as much as wishful thinking or pitches.
posted by signal at 4:17 AM on January 4 [10 favorites]
posted by signal at 4:17 AM on January 4 [10 favorites]
All of this happened while real experts and good news consumers appropriately laughed off — and turned off — the kayfabe version of the news, rightly codifying it as part of an elaborate power game that did not comport with any future they believed possible.
Is that even true? Did people stop watching the news? It looks like it might be but it's telling that the search results were basically a bunch of websites I've never heard of or don't know well enough to trust all saying TV news viewership is down. The 4th result down was forbes.com and okay, sure, I guess if they're saying the sky is blue I don't need to squint too hard when I look out the window to confirm.
So if I take it on faith that their numbers are right, checking some of the other results looks like CNN and MSNBC are down a whopping 47% and 33% respec... wait, is that right? Who is axios.com that sounds familiar. Now I'm checking their wikipedia entry and I see
In March and April 2019, HuffPost and Wired reported that Axios had paid a firm to improve its reputation by lobbying for changes to the Wikipedia articles on Axios and Jonathan Swan.[11][12]
Great now I have to check the wiki talk to see the changes, who made them, and... You know what, forbes saying "Fox down 18% YoY" is probably close enough.
For an article about the state of journalism in 2024 this whole farce is damning. I spent more time fact (and then source) checking what the journalist wrote. For the US at least it seems the situation is irreparable. At this point "news" for me comes from either the BBC or, for local affairs, actual human persons that I have inspected myself and determined they are, in fact, not bot-generated text blobs.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:29 AM on January 4 [3 favorites]
Is that even true? Did people stop watching the news? It looks like it might be but it's telling that the search results were basically a bunch of websites I've never heard of or don't know well enough to trust all saying TV news viewership is down. The 4th result down was forbes.com and okay, sure, I guess if they're saying the sky is blue I don't need to squint too hard when I look out the window to confirm.
So if I take it on faith that their numbers are right, checking some of the other results looks like CNN and MSNBC are down a whopping 47% and 33% respec... wait, is that right? Who is axios.com that sounds familiar. Now I'm checking their wikipedia entry and I see
In March and April 2019, HuffPost and Wired reported that Axios had paid a firm to improve its reputation by lobbying for changes to the Wikipedia articles on Axios and Jonathan Swan.[11][12]
Great now I have to check the wiki talk to see the changes, who made them, and... You know what, forbes saying "Fox down 18% YoY" is probably close enough.
For an article about the state of journalism in 2024 this whole farce is damning. I spent more time fact (and then source) checking what the journalist wrote. For the US at least it seems the situation is irreparable. At this point "news" for me comes from either the BBC or, for local affairs, actual human persons that I have inspected myself and determined they are, in fact, not bot-generated text blobs.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:29 AM on January 4 [3 favorites]
The best thing you can say about these predictions is that they stopped including Amy Webb. Every year they're the most embarrassing part of being an American journalist.
posted by Four String Riot at 9:02 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by Four String Riot at 9:02 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure where forbes.com came in, but it's an interesting case in that the masthead stands for nothing at this point and if you're on the website you need to know which of the contributors are reliable. nature.com is the same way: some of the scientific journals on that website are perfectly fine, and some ... are not.
posted by mscibing at 10:03 AM on January 4
posted by mscibing at 10:03 AM on January 4
I feel like a lot of these boil down to:
"Well, journalism is often text, and ChatGPT is brand-spanking-new and makes text, so maybe that?"
When people reiterate that text-generating AIs are useful, and the future, they actually become the future, maybe too fast for anybody.
I'm not saying they're not useful, but the things chatbots say are almost entirely interpolations of things humans have said, so I think they contain less actual signal for the time being. Using them everywhere in their current state will just create more meaningless noise on the Internet.
posted by helenoreoax at 10:58 AM on January 4 [2 favorites]
"Well, journalism is often text, and ChatGPT is brand-spanking-new and makes text, so maybe that?"
When people reiterate that text-generating AIs are useful, and the future, they actually become the future, maybe too fast for anybody.
I'm not saying they're not useful, but the things chatbots say are almost entirely interpolations of things humans have said, so I think they contain less actual signal for the time being. Using them everywhere in their current state will just create more meaningless noise on the Internet.
posted by helenoreoax at 10:58 AM on January 4 [2 favorites]
It will always be necessary to pick amongst the detritus to find any possible nuggets from the news, no matter the source or bias...
posted by jim in austin at 5:22 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 5:22 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
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posted by atomo at 1:23 AM on January 4 [2 favorites]