Topic: Why after all this time is 'crypto journalism' so shit? (Read 437 times)

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.  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.   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You have just summarised everything we are facing in the name of journalism in crypto world. Sometimes you even get to see article that is not well written in a chronological order yet the headline is about what to get your attention to read. I wonder if that is the way journalism is done in the real world, there is no way CNN or BBC would be as sought after as we have them today. All of this still lies in the unregulated environment. Anyone who can form sentences and can build a website is already a journalist. No one is talking about the ethics of the profession, the importance of investigative journalism, the need for proper acknowledgment and most importantly balanced reporting which has eluded the crypto world for a very long time (in that, its only bad news that could cause panic that gets the most reportage while groundbreaking ideas gets little or no publicity).

I actually only realised this many months after getting my first Bitcoin and that itself was only several months after learning about Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I had the same access to Google as everyone does as a newbie, probably landed on this forum same as everyone else, but it is strange, isn't it? That most people still don't want to use their own wallets. It's not like it's that difficult, I'm actually still amazed every now and then how I can just restore my wallet whenever I need it on another device.


Mainstream journalism itself, as I pointed out above, no longer has the resources or motivation to put people through the right training these days. And with what passes as mainstream journalism these days outside of crypto, we really don't have much to complain about for Bitcoin news.

P.S. Did anyone actually see the reporter's response to Kraken CEO's Tweet in OP? That's the other side of the story... actual reporters showing that these CEOs just dance around simple questions when put to them. He opened a can of worms and then couldn't deal with it when a proper journalist Kraken's ignored in the past takes up his challenge.

Take a look around, around 70% of the traffic on this forum don't have their own wallet yet and are mostly dependent on exchange wallets. That is a rough estimate but you get the point, the news wants to carter for that kind of audience because they know the rest 30% are likely to not give a rat's ass about their opinions.

Many people still perceive bitcoin as a way to get rich and not a system made to replace the banks. Such news is perfectly suited for these idiots.

Touche.

We have thousands of so called crypto media outlet that only post press releases for ICO and all other post they have is just a news cloned from other outlets either translated or paraphrased. There is actually nothing like special crypto journalism like thing and when bloomberg or bbc try to cover crypto news first they ask ordinary writer to cover it who than put just shitty things on that article because he will be noob about blockchain.

We need some sort of training for all those journalist who are nice at writing other topics?

Some countries call it has a pyramid scheme and tell their citizens don't invest money. As long as for all illegal activities like hacker demand money in cryptos for their activities this negativity may not go so easily from the people who don't know about the plus points for cryptos. The media need to talk all these good points and educate people instead of spreading only negative points.

Any news story these days requires you take it with a grain of salt, and then dig deeper. Crypto news is no different.

Most "news" comes with the reporters personal opinions and biases strewn in between every word. They see the idea and distort it towards their base, giving the people who create traffic and revenue what they want to hear/read. I wish I had been around when news was just that the facts, I hear it was great. For now it is up to the reader/viewer to take the story and google the key points to see if you can find the missing parts to make an informed opinion. Most of the time you just find the other 4 sites running a near carbon copy of the story you just read.

The second problem I see is the people or organisations that go out there and brand themselves as news. Sometimes this is just to promote their interests or the interests they are paid to promote.

Phew. Big, big question, OP.

At the heart of the problem(s) is the plain truth that journalism no longer sells. At least, not enough to keep the presses printing. I worked in the news industry; actual newspapers with ink and paper, probably one of the last few in my region that did things the old school way... training cub reporters in the field, a lot of phone calls, observation, stake out, investigation etc.

What makes for good journalism in some circles makes for poor business sense in others. What is truth for some is libel for others. My paper worked in a strict govt regime with a history of shuttering print licences so often in the past 30 years, but we pushed boundaries as often as we could, and were quite "proud" of the numerous times we were summoned to govt offices for "printing lies" or "insensitive material" which we had documented evidence for. It was a wild few years before we eventually got shut down after an offended royal from X country ordered our closure. Not that we would have lasted much longer. Fewer wanted to advertise with such a "risky" brand, and the ads anyway appealed to different readerships, for different news.

As pointed out, business models must match the mainstream appetite. If the mainstream is fixated on price rather than on actual newsworthy items, can these sites be blamed for choosing content that brings in revenue?

Certainly, there is a need and a desire for good journalism. Audiences are, after all, a lot more intelligent that we estimate them to be, given the chance.

However, the notion of journalism as a public service is almost irrelevant in the current climate. People don't want to pay for "proper" news anymore, advertisers are moving away from print (or digital versions of print) and if you don't give the advertisers the traffic they're looking for, you'll bust. There's simply no revenue model that can fit lofty ideals without selling out at some point or to some degree, not unless you've got wealthy people backing your paper/media co who don't need profit.

On a more practical level, there's also an old-school branch that sees reporting (as opposed to journalism) as merely writing what you see and what you hear. The reporter does as much as he can to base news on facts, but there's usually a difference of an untold number of weeks between truth and lies... the reporter has hours to report... to tell it as seen and heard. In this case, there's not much wrong with all the sites regurgitating content. It's what all media do. They have 1 exclusive for every 20 or 30 stories run. That's very, very normal.

Interesting fact: most industries think journalism related to their specific sectors is also so "shit".

Most of the time decent journalism just needs about thirty seconds of extra thought and research. It doesn't need more funding, regs, premises or permission.

Regardless of its status it's an important development that could use some actual objectivity and prudence. What I don't get is why it's so rare.

This is a problem that will not be so easy to solve because bitcoin is not yet regulated in many countries, governments and many institutions do not take seriously cryptos. journalists have few opportunities to get news, Many news sites publish the same news as other news sites. And all news sites post opinions from the supposed experts or influential people of the crypto world. As I said before this happens because there is not much happening in the crypto world and then we have other questions:

The bitcoin news channels are licensed?

Bitcoin news channels have physical office?

Does the cryptos news channel have newspapers?

Lol, Like this one for Example: bitcoin-banknotes-ready-to-replace-traditional-currency
That's so wrong in so many... The bad thing is, most of them have originated from this forum's spam boards and topics.
In the end, it will all comes down to bitcointalk's integrity on Bitcoin~talk which is shrinking exponentially every year.

Nope, "Lady Gaga colored her doggo pink" needs more than 2000 words to express IMO.

That was actually what I referred to. This industry has one of the worst possible mainstream adopters in existence, and the crypto related news outlets perfectly adjust themselves to serve these people.

It's called know your market and demographics, and the crypto news outlets surely do know how to generate traffic and clicks. We really need to break through the speculative bubble in order to expect quality content.

It seems that the best content nowadays can be found on Reddit, Steamit, Medium. The key is to follow the right people and ignore those who don't contribute to worthwhile exchange of information.

But the crypto specific ones are even more worthless and shit than the mainstream. Most articles they put out can be debunked from the ground up if you spent ten seconds going one level deeper.

By this point I expected a reasonable proportion of properly focused journalism from the inside that's actually worth bothering with. Surely there's some sort of market for it.

Hasn't the media always been a noob focused news outlet? They pretty much serve people the quality and content they are worth, which in most cases translates into rubbish content, especially in this industry.

Everyone with sense doesn't pay attention to mainstream media outlets, but follows everything that matters on their own, which results in more accurate and unbiased information that is actually worth something.

The average joes swallow everything you throw at them, and for that reason there is no way to expect anything to change. I even expect things to get worse and it seems that things do indeed only get worse.

Yeah, it's all about traffic generated, more traffic = more revenues. It's like what kind of journalists writes a 2000 words article to say Lady Gaga has colored his dog in pink.
All of them started to publish articles about crypto because it is tending but doesn't mean in any way they do know what they're talking about

I'm definitely not going to defend them, but I think they know what they're doing. These "news" sites cater to the masses, and writes "news" about stuff that may not matter or may not be important, but are "news" that the majority are going to be interested in; you know, the people who are only mostly interested about the price of bitcoin and nothing else outside of that.

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.