Hacker News Reader

> it's local and in-depth generic reporting that's struggling.

Exactly. And what's killing it is the big news companies like the NYT since they get preferential treatment by social media and search.

If you search for wildfires in idaho or california, you will most likely get links to NYT, WSJ, CBS, NBC, etc articles first instead of local news sources. People aren't going to click or scroll down to get a more accurate or indepth local source.

As more people use search and social media for news, it will be the local news that will suffer as tech caters to the biggest news companies.

I bet an idahoan who searches for wildfires in his state will more likely get an article from the BBC rather than a local source from idaho.

Seems like we are in an era where only the biggest survive in all industries.

What makes you think those news sources are getting preferential treatment?

There has been a move toward boosting 'authoritative sources' in the tech industry the past few years. Of course after intense pressure from the 'authoritative sources' demanding preferential treatment on tech platforms.

This is a blog from the ceo of youtube, but it isn't just youtube. It's a priority of alphabet, the parent company of youtube, google, etc and all major tech/social media companies - apple, facebook, reddit, etc.

https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-four-rs-of-responsib...

What local news source is more 'authoritative' than the NYT, WSJ, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox News, etc? When the george floyd incident happened, what sources were you presented with on tech platforms? Local news from minnesota or NYT, CNN, BBC, Sky News, etc?

Not wrong, it's actually the only part of the article that's correct. The entire adtech industry has seen a race to the bottom due to 3rd-party cookies and audience-based buying of highly-targeted impressions. Things like retargeting and data leakage are endemic problems and basically the entire reason trade groups like DNC exist.

These "high paying" advertisers don't exist. Campaigns aren't sold or activated like that. There are brand safety and inventory quality issues but "prestige and association" is not as important as you might think, and all media agencies have been focused on backing into the lowest CPM for the last decade.

It's finally being (forcefully) solved through cookie blocking and privacy regulation leading to the rise of first-party data again, however that makes walled gardens like Facebook and Google stronger too at the same time which brings a whole new set of problems.

High paying advertisers definitely exist: they're focused on brand building and they make direct deals with publishers. Prestigious sites often make the majority of their ad revenue from direct deals.

"strong signal about the user's interests."

I would also note that by only advertising to those already looking at cat websites, advertises are missing out on those customers that are not giving off strong cat vibes. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that don't think about their cat enough to search for cat stuff, but that still buy cat food every week.

If an advertiser were to run an ad alongside an article about the wild fires, they might reach a wider market. Who knows, they might even convince some folks to get a cat who were not even thinking about it.

p.s: And isn't that what marketing is all about - solving problems you don't even have!

p.p.s: When you know you have a problem you look at a catalog, not ads.

p.p.p.s: Also, bubbles.

> but that still buy cat food every week

I do that, but only because The Cat will stuff me into the cat food hopper if I don't.

One thing I never understood is "Why don't the newspapers run their own ad network?"

Good lord, it can't be any worse than what exists now.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

So with the internet ad market exploding (see Google's 69% growth in ad revenue to over $50B for the QUARTER) but somehow the NYTimes, with their "prestigious site" saw ad revenue DECREASE by 8.5% (1).

Perhaps someone can name a publisher that practices "highly commercial journalism" and "is in good shape" for us? Ideally there'd be 100's for a diverse ecosystem of free press.

If one does not see the threat to journalism one must be well paid not to.

1: https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2021/05/Press-Release-3.28....

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something, when they don't realize they are completely ignorant about the topic, but instead of learning about it they post ad hominem attack quotes instead"

― Me

Very little of the NYT is an example of what I was trying to talk about with "highly commercial journalism" -- that is writing about things with a strong tie to commerce. Sites like The Wirecutter or The Points Guy.

The NYT is famous for high quality deep journalism, where reading their site doesn't tell you very much about the visitor, which is the category I described as "struggling".

(Additionally, responses like your opening are why I included the introduction about earning to give in https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads)

NYT owns Wirecutter. They paid $30million. That seems pretty low for a site linked to commerce, but if someone offered me 8 digits for one of my sites I'd already be in Hawaii.