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Comment by comodore_ | Hacker News Reader

Traditional newspapers and newer media (like Buzzfeed, Huffpost, Vox...) are scared, especially their journos. The clickbait, garbage content factory approach just doesn't cut it anymore, and it doesn't raise their profile as journalists offering anything of value. They despise Substack because it threatens to erase the last thing they have left in this business, a kind of ill-perceived legitimacy that they demand their work at a major outlet should give them. The success of independent Substack writers just vaporizes this entirely. They are stuck in a low-paying job, have no prospects in this industry, and no one to appreciate their pathetic work except their like-minded media colleagues. That's why they hate Substack writers. Substack writers pull traffic, the average journos @nyt, wp, you name it, don't.

I highly recommend this post from ferddie de boer https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/its-all-just-displaceme...

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As someone who followed the spygate saga of Trump (I mean really followed) it became clear to me that the journalist is much more important than the outlet for credibility. Good journalists were the key to good information and writing.

Substack makes a big difference because those “10x” journalist no longer need to be tied to an outlet.

What’re the journalists on substack that are publishing new, investigative journalism that isn’t itself linking to or reliant upon other news that got the scoop first? Genuinely asking. (I don’t want and don’t care about commentary. Commentary imo is outrage wank.)

The "confrontational libertarian" Glenn Greenwald, who ironically switched to substack because the intercept, tried to meddle with his reporting about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was censored by facebook and twitter.

EDIT: I guess some people think this a controversial take, hence all the down votes.

I've been reading his stuff after his "Why I left the Intercept" got posted here.

I've gotta say, I agree with lots of what he's saying about journalism nowadays. The whole article about journalists using the language of victimhood [0] to protect themselves really struck a nerve. I've seen this attitude and behaviour first-hand.

Commercial journalism is a mess, and getting messier. The business model is broken, and journalism is trashing what's left of its reputation trying to save it. I don't know if Substack is the answer. It might just be the final nail in the coffin. But something has to replace this mess.

[0] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-attack-the-powe...

I looked into Glenn Greenwald but as I said before I’m not looking for political commentary, just the facts, from reporters who aren’t just re-reporting something that some other journalist already found.

https://thedispatch.com/about

Here you go.

Link is to about page because I cannot remember for the life of me what is members only and what is not. They’ve got reports, fact checks, morning newsletters, weekly newsletters, podcasts (which are all non-member accessible), and guest pieces.

I googled “the dispatch political bias” and got political garbage like “ Bernie Sanders and the Rise of Woke Marxism” which took me to a real article on the dispatch website with that title. How the heck is this not political commentary? I’m explicitly asking for news that doesn’t have stuff like this.

Do me a favor and read the about page. Here’s an excerpt:

“ We don’t apologize for our conservatism. Some of the best journalism is done when the author is honest with readers about where he or she is coming from, and some of the very worst journalism hides behind a pretense of objectivity and the stolen authority that pretense provides.”

Aptly describes my exact problem with most “news” publishers: they’re less than upfront and honest about their own biases and everyone has them, and it shapes the institution’s biases as a whole.

The meat and potatoes is the Morning Dispatch and Weekly Dispatch, but they also publish opinion pieces. You’re not always going to agree, just as I don’t always agree, but you asked. Check it out or don’t.

He asked for substack author, and you provided a non substack link.

Believe it or not, that’s actually a link to a Substack site.

The Dispatch has had a custom domain since they launched at the tail end of 2019.

I don’t give a flip what political angle they have I don’t want that political angle in my reporting. Why is that so hard to ask for earnestly?

You can ask for it; finding it is the real problem.

If I thought it existed, I would be in your shoes right now. My compromise with reality is to prefer publications which are upfront, honest and generally reasonable as determined by the body of their work, not one headline found on Google.

They do reporting, they do opinions, they do newsletter and podcasts which mix both. I can live with that as long as I know where they’re coming from, what their scope is, and as long as they’re not pretending to be something they’re not.

Having read The Morning and Weekly Dispatches from the beginning, I haven’t been disappointed. I also enjoy the G-File and Vital Interests (both part of the Dispatch). Based off your preferences, you might actually enjoy Vital Interests if you are interested in foreign policy, but I can say for certain that you probably don’t want the G-File because that is unapologetic political wonkery, and to Jonah’s credit, he doesn’t sell that as anything but what it is.

That’s one of the nice things about old-style publications: they try to offer some variety and don’t mix reporting with opinion pages.

So to repeat my recommendation: check out The Dispatch, specifically check out the Morning Dispatch, the Weekly Dispatch, maybe Vital Interests.

It might not be your cup of tea, or it might.

Thanks for the recommendation. I just checked the latest Dispatch Weekly and am pretty disappointed by the reporting there, as a lot of the summaries still read more like political commentary and wankery than reporting facts, and the long essay about some reporters child is completely unnecessary. Is that normal for that newsletter?

I put up a temporary email address in my profile. Email me there, I’ll be removing it tomorrow.

Don’t expect a response before 6PM Pacific, I’ll try to get back to you sooner than that, I’m still working right now.

Pretty much all reporting has bias. As they say, they're at least being honest with you. You can't avoid it, because people are inherently biased. They can strive to remove it from the writing, but that doesn't mean they succeed.

There is a level of this that is reasonable, which is that what is presented in the writing be factual and not sensationalized. I imagine The Dispatch believes they meet this bar (I have no idea, I just heard of them now).

But there is a level of this that is impossible, which is avoiding prioritizing some aspects and not others. Merely choosing what to put in a headline vs first paragraph vs 5th paragraph is making a subjective decision about what is most important.

Even more subjective is choice of words for complex phenomena that defy simple summary. For example, were the activities of last summer protests, or were they riots? Most people have an opinion on which word is a better fit, but there is no way to deny that both have a basis in objective fact. So, writers choose one or the other depending on their own biases and what they want to emphasize.

Finally, there is the "file drawer" source of bias, which is simply not covering some things that you don't think are important. You're not lying or misinforming anyone, but you are making a subjective decision about what people should be thinking about.

I personally think it's best if a publication is open about how it's going to be making these various subjective decisions. And I think it's dishonest for someone to claim their news reporting can be purely objective.

Assume that all journalism has some from political bias, then analyze stories from different angles to develop an informed opinion. Relying on either the outlet that says "look at me, I have no bias," or the outlet that all the popular people say you can trust, carries with it a dangerous underlying assumption.

Getting the “scoop” is something reserved for soft pieces. That’s exactly how it works. If you have bad news that’s coming out, you find sympathetic journalists who will help you frame it in a beneficial way (even if the news is damaging).

You’re going to see a lot of this with the nursing home scandal in New York over the next few months.

This was something really common throughout spygate.

This makes me both anxious if those independent journalists will be able to keep high quality. Sure, they can do opinions, but if there's a big event, NYT gets a pass - will they? NYT has resources they can move around, independents don't.

On the other hand being able to subscribe to specific quality writers and not sponsor the package deal with crap included (reminds me of cable packages) feels great.

Do you really care about that big event? I mean to the extent that you optimise your daily news reading to accommodate it?

This isn't meant to say that you won't really. (You may say that I do — I've subscribed to a staid broadsheet for most of my life and get a thick wad of paper delivered every morning.) It's meant to make you ask the question of yourself. Do you want something that'll get that pass, do you want those clueful commentators, or what do you want? ("Want" so much as to pay for it.)

I wonder if Substack subsumed newspapers and other aggregated media would we be in a better or worse position?

For me at least Substack presents a solid wall with very little to help discovery. Who do I subscribe to and why? The website is awful at showing me interesting writing. Right now they seem heavily reliant on the writer already having a platform and there is no opportunity for serendipitous discovery.

I've also got the sinking feeling that it won't reduce the proliferation of low quality content for clicks because that business model is perfectly feasible in the subscription world. It might even speed it up as people gravitate towards paying for content that they agree with or tickles them.

I'm also concerned about what this paywalled, atomisation of information and ideas does to society. Looking at the subscription rates it looks very expensive to maintain a rounded view or even to subscribe to more than a handful of writers. If we're going to complain about newspapers and journalism losing their way (in a value to society sense) does the model of Substack actually fix it or is it just a way for a minority of writers to find financial success?

> For me at least Substack presents a solid wall with very little to help discovery. Who do I subscribe to and why? The website is awful at showing me interesting writing.

This is by design, because if they did recommend "controversial" people, they'd be accused of being a [bad thing.]

That sounds quite conspiratorial. Are you saying the majority of popular content on Substack is actually just "controversial" people rather than quality journalism?

No. I can't find the original post, but I do remember reading a Substack post (by the founders) saying that they deliberately don't like using content recommendation systems.

It doesn't have to be the majority of popular content.

If they actively recommend anyone, they will end up recommending people that are controversial to some groups, and they will be attacked as curators and 'platformers' of these people.

They're going to get that anyway for hosting people. And if you read their writing on the subject they do want to improve discovery as well as giving direct support to specific writers: https://blog.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-modera...

"At the same time, while we take a hands-off approach with who may use the platform, we will continue to take an active approach in helping and promoting promising writers. We are doing this by improving discovery on the platform and building programs, such as fellowships, grants, and mentorship, to support writers. Our partnerships team will also continue to work with high-revenue and high-potential writers."

So I'm not sure this claim about avoiding recommendations is actually true.

Nobody is arguing that the majority of popular content on YouTube is controversial, but there have definitely been arguments that YouTube radicalizes people.

If they can say that for YouTube, why not for Substack if it implements similar discoverability?

> I've also got the sinking feeling that it won't reduce the proliferation of low quality content for clicks because that business model is perfectly feasible in the subscription world. It might even speed it up as people gravitate towards paying for content that they agree with or tickles them.

Agree. One of the functions of major news outlets in the past was to be gatekeepers, but in a good sense: they would not countenance a journalist going off on flat earth conspiracy theories, for example, because their editorial process filters out stuff like that. Of course there are the negative aspects of gatekeeping; nothing's perfect.

Substack will likely see the day, if it hasn't happened already, where a content creator is pushing bogus information and Substack will come under public scrutiny. It's another variation on the 8chan situation: if you allow anyone to publish, you're gonna get a lot of illegal or harmful content.

Does the “average” Substack writer really pull that much traffic?

Unlikely. As in book publishing, music, and TV network shows, the hits subsidize the rest.

Also as in those other industries, nobody knows what will be a hit until they're well on their way up, so a thriving business needs to be willing to experiment.

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