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Comment by returningfory2 | Hacker News Reader

Thank you so much for this comment - you've put a name ("contrarian and counter-cyclical reporting") on a phenomenon that I've observed a lot and is one of the main reasons I don't consume the media anymore.

The craziest example for me was NYC congestion pricing. When it was about to happen, all the reporting was about all of the downsides of the tolls starting. A week after the New York Governor "indefinitely paused" congestion pricing, the reporting was all about the downsides of the tolls not starting.

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There is also a bias that the people who agree with the status quo tend not to be noisy about it, so as the status quo shifts you may well hear from different people to before.

So the media intentionally stirs controversy and they aren't even getting paid to do it by hostile states or the ultra-wealthy? There really is no hope is there.

The media relies first and foremost on advertising revenue, which depends on ratings or viewership metrics, which become the goal. The more viewers you get, the more expensive advertising slots become: the point stops being to report the facts and starts being to engage the audience at an emotional level, so that they come back for more.

the newsroom did used to be slightly more insulated when advertising was limited by technology, but once the doors blew open with Craigslist and other online ads it became a craven race to the bottom for both attention and shrinking the newsroom

There is one group that funds the majority of the media and conditions that funding on nonstop controversy all the time: average people.

The vast majority of people don't look at news media (much less pay for it) unless there's a massive controversy.

There really is no hope is there.

No, there's not. The incentives are hopelessly misaligned.

If the biggest, most profitable story is the destruction of civilization itself, then the news media -- which like so many other institutions in our society is owned by people too old or too wealthy to suffer the eventual consequences -- will cheer it on.

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