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Topic: Why after all this time is 'crypto journalism' so shit? (Read 419 times)

sr. member
Activity: 1078
Merit: 342
Sinbad Mixer: Mix Your BTC Quickly
Because like you said, they are to do whatever they are paid. Whether it is a crucial news or a ridiculous ones, journalists always strive to write whatever they want to write. If they want to change the public opinion, they will write an article full of convincing arguments. They really can play with words and expressions. That's why people should not follow them blindly as they have to check everything by their own eyes.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3014
Welt Am Draht
They make money from the advertisers on the site or in the newspapers. These companies request the site statistics and the circulation figures, to determine which outlet will give them maximum exposure. So, if they can attract more views and visitors to their sites, then they succeeded in their goal.

People are being bombarded with information and news every day, so if you can put some sensational articles out there that can grab their attention , then you might draw them to your site.  Roll Eyes

I clearly know nothing about this. I would assume that someone chucking money at a site claiming a certain amount of figures would want to fund something that wasn't utterly dire.

It seems to me the equivalent of buying vs earning Facebook likes or something. If your site is shit less people will stick around. Those visits will be empty. I might spend several hours on a high quality site and no more than 10-20 seconds on a typical fuckhole.

I'd love to know which crypto sites are actually making money.
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 3603
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I have a family member working for a local news media outlet and he says that his editor is only interested in articles that will attract attention and that would draw people to their site. They have to look for all the juicy click bait stuff and they are under tremendous pressure to come up with articles that would draw in the crowd.

He says some stories are even fabricated to bring in the numbers, because it is all about the money.  Roll Eyes Now add to that, the lack of knowledge about Crypto currencies and also deliberate FUD being spewed out by the media and you have a perfect shitstorm.   Roll Eyes

That's pretty much the newsroom I used to work in too. The worse was when journalists were all assigned to do sponsored content... the almost impossible task of churning out a newsworthy piece based on content submitted by a client. That's a large portion of content on financial publications now too... Forbes and the like, Huffpost, etc.

When it comes to boardroom discussions or editorial meets, the first order of business is the news, and then all the following agenda items are about money. It's a hard business to keep afloat and since advertising revenues are falling for everyone, especially online, sponsored content is really the only thing paying the bills. The shareholders ultimately decide what to pursue, and that's a natural business model.

The funding and cost of real investigative work is back-breaking... and then what's the reward? A Pulitzer if you're top class, some small award for your newspaper if you're regional or national, and a lot of angry police, authorities, companies who make your life hell trying to get information later.

Fabricating stories though? That's wag-the-dog stuff at least traditional papers and most editors still don't want to dabble in.
legendary
Activity: 3514
Merit: 1963
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I have a family member working for a local news media outlet and he says that his editor is only interested in articles that will attract attention and that would draw people to their site. They have to look for all the juicy click bait stuff and they are under tremendous pressure to come up with articles that would draw in the crowd.

I may be more discerning and less of a mong than most, but I would only bother once with a site that fed me pure shit. If I assured of getting objective and factual content I'd pop along a few times a day.

I still don't get how they'd make any money out of me though as I'm also undim enough to adblock.

They make money from the advertisers on the site or in the newspapers. These companies request the site statistics and the circulation figures, to determine which outlet will give them maximum exposure. So, if they can attract more views and visitors to their sites, then they succeeded in their goal.

People are being bombarded with information and news every day, so if you can put some sensational articles out there that can grab their attention , then you might draw them to your site.  Roll Eyes
legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1179
I still don't get how they'd make any money out of me though as I'm also undim enough to adblock.
You reading their article is already a hit they can leverage, and in case you are using a vanilla browser with basic settings, they could even leverage other data such as what you did before visiting their site.

If you want to cut everything out, then the only way is to avoid news outlets from which you know only produce rubbish articles. If that's not an option, then use chrome's incognito tabs as that seems to help as alternative.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3014
Welt Am Draht
I have a family member working for a local news media outlet and he says that his editor is only interested in articles that will attract attention and that would draw people to their site. They have to look for all the juicy click bait stuff and they are under tremendous pressure to come up with articles that would draw in the crowd.

I may be more discerning and less of a mong than most, but I would only bother once with a site that fed me pure shit. If I assured of getting objective and factual content I'd pop along a few times a day.

I still don't get how they'd make any money out of me though as I'm also undim enough to adblock.
legendary
Activity: 3514
Merit: 1963
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I have a family member working for a local news media outlet and he says that his editor is only interested in articles that will attract attention and that would draw people to their site. They have to look for all the juicy click bait stuff and they are under tremendous pressure to come up with articles that would draw in the crowd.

He says some stories are even fabricated to bring in the numbers, because it is all about the money.  Roll Eyes Now add to that, the lack of knowledge about Crypto currencies and also deliberate FUD being spewed out by the media and you have a perfect shitstorm.   Roll Eyes
sr. member
Activity: 644
Merit: 261
Its about selling news and it has come to the stage where good journalism
is very much watered down by terrible reporting.

There are far more people who either done know a lot or love to hate bitcoin
so any sort of news real of false will sell.


Yes, they just want a click bait so that they can earn more so even though a news is fake, they would even sensationalize it so that it would be more talk about and more people would visit their site. This is the reason why I don't easily believe the news anymore because there are times when they would omit certain facts about the case so that people would misunderstood it and in turn react negatively. Besides that, many people would likely check a negative news than a good one because they would be more concerned with their investments.
legendary
Activity: 2380
Merit: 1343
Its about selling news and it has come to the stage where good journalism
is very much watered down by terrible reporting.

There are far more people who either done know a lot or love to hate bitcoin
so any sort of news real of false will sell.

legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 3603
Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!
Another good read pertaining on how shit crypto journalism is, there is no consensus in the cryptocurrency community when it comes to journalistic standards. The article discusses how Coindesk, published a controversial article about Ethereum proposal, the EIP999. Vitalik took to Twitter to vent his outrage about the articles. Of course, not all agree to him so the whole debate started and up to now, there's no universal ethics about crypto journalism, whatsover. Rubbish and shill articles continue to make it to crypto related websites as to this day.

Even in the traditional industries/sectors, there aren't agreed standards. Just different codes, different guidelines, but really, no standard. It's too subjective to apply something concrete to.

Meanwhile, some of the best pieces out there (to me) continue to rank the lowest in terms of readership, shares and engagement. If some believe news standards merely reflect the societies that consume the news, then perhaps we're all to blame for (perceived) falling standards?

As I said anyway, the public is no longer the primary interest served by media.
sr. member
Activity: 2618
Merit: 439
Another good read pertaining on how shit crypto journalism is, there is no consensus in the cryptocurrency community when it comes to journalistic standards. The article discusses how Coindesk, published a controversial article about Ethereum proposal, the EIP999. Vitalik took to Twitter to vent his outrage about the articles. Of course, not all agree to him so the whole debate started and up to now, there's no universal ethics about crypto journalism, whatsover. Rubbish and shill articles continue to make it to crypto related websites as to this day.
hero member
Activity: 2170
Merit: 528
There's still not that many people with knowledge of cryptocurrencies so they have to hire anyone willing to do it. The typical recruitment process gives you points. Since you can't have much experience in cryptocurrency journalism (there are almost no pro cryptocurrency journalists that got fired from their previous jobs) you're getting points for interest, presence, any previous experience in journalism. News sites like Coindesk are full of writers who don't know much about cryptocurrencies and are paid to look for news elsewhere and rewrite them. News from China are translated from Chinese outlets, news from India are from Indian outlets, news about plans of companies like Bitmain are rephrased tweets. He said she said articles based on gossip.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3014
Welt Am Draht
https://mobile.twitter.com/RyanHurley2/status/1034137763992481793

Relevant and something I hadn't really thought about before. Most people here will know more than the reporters.
newbie
Activity: 98
Merit: 0
Because now every second person is journalist. And in such a competitive topic as the cryptocurrency, there are a lot of those who write all they think. And there are a lot services such as upvotes.io, that promote all.
legendary
Activity: 1792
Merit: 1283
Couldn't agree more with the point made by Jesse Powell, you'll the the same headlines over and over again, just reworded...
Not something that's unique for crypto, but it does seem to be especially prevalent in this industry.

I would really like to see some new publications pop up that work with a subscription-based model, instead of an ad-driven one.
On the condition that they only publish high quality and unique articles. I would definitely be willing to pay for that.
legendary
Activity: 2170
Merit: 1427
So far I see the people never looking to do their own research about cryptocurrencies while they are looking to invest on on trading or anywhere.

People are lazy. In most cases the average person adds lots of value to expert opinions, which explains why you see plenty of people here talk about experts predict this or that event or price, while in reality these "experts" don't know shit. Even if they are an expert in their own non-crypto field, it doesn't make them an expert here. They blindly assume that crypto related news sites did their research and spread honest and unbiased information, which obviously isn't the case.

Also, most crypto related news sites are lazy ass bitches just copying articles from other sites and post it as if it was something they have written and conducted research on. Just browse through various news sites and you'll see that in most cases articles with the exact same wording are posted everywhere. That's not journalism, that's parasitic behavior over the back of journalists that did all the work.
legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 1130
Bitcoin FTW!
Most sites also hire cheap and shoddy writers just so they can get paid by whoever's sponsoring their articles with minimum effort. I often see this happening with half-assed articles that only show a part of the story (sometimes even on larger crypto news outlets!) and look like they took five minutes to research; it sucks, but almost all articles nowadays are crap and simply just well SEO optimized for clicks and views. It truly pays to do your own research with crypto, and this is also why I enjoy browsing this site and Reddit more to find news about crypto. You get real information most of the time here.

full member
Activity: 448
Merit: 109
https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1030589163609849856

A fine point made here by Jesse Powell of Kraken.

Now mainstream coverage is bad enough but at least the occasional professional journalist is involved in it and a real story pops up. The 'crypto press' however remains an absolute heap of shit that does nothing but regurgitate google translate lies or post whatever they're paid to post.

Why after all this time and all this juicy fodder is it still in this hopeless condition? There are a few bright spots here and there but it's pretty sad that overall you know what's being served to you will most of the time be clueless rubbish if it isn't a flat out lie.

Greed and money.

I see many new "News Websites" showing from nowhere. Guess what they are built with WordPress and most of them have some kind of ads. Because it is a business to run your blog, news website, amazon affiliate review blog, or yet any other form of a website with ads and affiliate links that just want you to buy something so that they can profit etc. People don't care. Because they are running out of ideas it is much easier to skim what others are doing and to rewrite things up. Not to mention that there are even articles that will do commentary on tweets and do just that through the article....

If I came to read tweets I would be on twitter not on news website. Then you have ICOs that are looking for attention and maybe other startups/companies that are trying to raise the name for themselves.

Mainly I just use RSS reader and skim through headlines and you can absolutely spot rewritten articles easily from many sources... that is how it is.
People need to think for themselves rather than just read and get others opinion. Because as I said most of these typ of websites are made for profit. They don't care if they will have to lie, rewrite articles as long as they make profit it is worth it.
legendary
Activity: 3080
Merit: 1353
As far as I can remember, specially when I started to post on Press Release section last year, I see tons and tons of garbage articles and they will report any news regarding crypto for one purpose only: traffic. Even a 12 year old school boy can write perfect news compare to those so called reporters and auditors doesn't get a s**t. Yes, maybe there's some authors still left who writes good article because they understand how this technology works. But majority, are complete rubbish.
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1005
Just noticed that another crypto journalist thread it also shows the critics about them what they do. So far I see the people never looking to do their own research about cryptocurrencies while they are looking to invest on on trading or anywhere.

So google also sharing the negative news and CNN news site too doing the same. Please care about the own cryptos you hold now. Never believe the news it will be work better than anything.
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