jaredwiener

No idea why this is getting downvoted, but would love to hear what people think is wrong.

This requires some nuance, since I think it goes beyond a "tax on linking," as I have seen it described.

News is a strange product, and one that I think a lot of people in tech get wrong. The atomic unit of journalism is not an article....it's the reporting. Even deciding to write an article is an act based on the analysis of the reporting.

Further, a good headline often tells the story itself -- and that is implicitly included when we talk about links. How often have you read a headline, and then not clicked on the link? Probably a bunch. But you still know OJ died, or the bridge in Baltimore collapsed, etc, etc. That level of reporting, the confirmation that it happened, all that stuff -- all was expensive, all required labor and other resources.

So -- from the consumer perspective, what happens? You get clickbait. The publishers have to recoup the expenses somehow, and they need you to click through to show you ads, or a paywall. "This item in your cabinet could kill you!" Or, they cover the site with ads, hoping to get as much out of the few clicks they get.

I am not saying this in support of the CJPA, nor in support of Google. Just saying this is an existential crisis that came from the simple act of aggregation.

(Disclaimer/shameless plug: I'm a former journalist building https://www.forth.news, a social-media like news feed for reading news. While we are not there yet, our goal is to be able to revshare with the reporters/newsrooms who write the stories to be able to monetize those headlines.)

My understanding -- and grain of salt, etc, since I don't actually work for an airline or anything -- is that airlines check passports out of liability. If you were to arrive at your destination and be turned away at the border, they would be required to fly you back to your country of origin. So....they check passports.

TSA checks IDs -- any valid IDs -- to let you in the secure area.

But will there be a funeral mass?

Whats with the weird AI pictures? It's especially jarring on obits, when the pictures aren't photos of the people who died.

We work directly with newsrooms and journalists

I don't -- and that's one of the reasons why we're starting close to home.

That said, every journalist on Forth agrees to follow our editorial policy (https://www.forth.news/docs/editorial) to ensure a standard of coverage.

And if anyone reading this is a reporter or newsroom leader, we'd love to talk: https://journalists.forth.news

Thank you!

Right now its ads, as you may have noticed. We're looking to do more sponsorship deals, and then potentially explore a subscription model when we feel that we have enough to warrant it. (Though still keeping some free tier.)

The big thing for us, as former journalists, is to make sure we can get to a point where we can do a revshare back with the people doing the work -- the newsrooms/reporters.

If you're talking about the "Nearby" page, it's because at the moment we only have local coverage in the US. We're working on ramping up -- so hopefully we can come to Canada soon.

BTW, if anyone here is looking for a replacement to Artifact --

I've been working on https://www.forth.news. We're a news feed for news; scroll/follow like social media, but all posts come from verified journalists who agree to an editorial policy. Would love to know your thoughts.

Unrelated to the content of the article -- I've never seen an online article be truncated to tease a print version.

The problem with this approach is that it incentivizes the incredulous, overhyped, yellow journalism that people (at least claim to) hate.

Good journalism takes time, and there are a lot of dead ends. Even entire stories.

One personal example -- in a previous point in my life when I worked as TV news producer, I once thought I discovered an incredible example of government over-spending -- airports in the middle of nowhere Alaska built to handle the largest commercial jetliners. But after further digging, I learned that this really made flights to and from Asia safe; a pilot could opt for one of these long runways in an emergency. Suddenly they didn't seem so pointless -- and there was never a story.

That's the kind of rabbit hole I would not have been able to go down if my entire paycheck was dependent on maximum eyeballs. Could it have been a story? Yes! Was it? No! Was it something I thought warranted a few hours of investigation? Yes.

These various business models all have pros and cons, but ultimately, some form of community investment into media is needed. Whether thats through subscriptions, advertising, donations, or some thing else is still unclear. And of course, on the newsroom side of things, they need to foster the trust that they are looking into things that may turn out to be nothing, but also could be important. We as a society just need to find a way to pay for it.

I'd also argue that they aren't actually reporting the news. They are repackaging reporting someone else has already done -- and those people, doing the reporting, are usually the ones struggling economically.

My wife is very into Ghostbusters pinball -- just found it at a combination pinball arcade/all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, that seems to also have fried oreos covered in nutella.

This is going to be a very unhealthy weekend for me.

I've been working on www.forth.news.

It's not a 1:1 replacement -- Forth is a news feed for news, more like a social feed, but all the posts come from verified journalists. We're still bringing on news orgs/reporters, hitting local to world, and various niches in between.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Just get an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

/s

It's not really IMAX -- it's more immersive.

I saw the Postcard from Planet Earth in there -- it isn't a full 360 screen, but it does go way up and down around you.

Unpopular(?) opinion: the people who pay for their replies to be boosted are the people whose replies I want to see the least.

Lots to unpack here -- but I will try.

First, the overarching point -- about the livelihoods coming from accuracy. I think you are confusing a publisher's business model with a reporter's ability to continue to be hired. If a reporter is caught making things up, that generally is the end of their career. (See Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, etc)

We license Reuters reporting, so we are not just "rehosting another company's content." And yes, we have had conversations with Reuters and are confident they are also following our editorial policy, and if that were to change, then we would address it.

We speak with the individual reporters we onboard, verifying they are who they say they are, and that they understand the editorial policy as well. And we reserve the right to take action if that trust is violated.

You can also turn it into a positive -- you're small and new, but it means that you will be incredibly responsive to any feedback/changes/issues/support they face. You can build out the product with them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37761887 !

For what its worth, this is a major driver to why we're building forth.news.

Forth is a news feed for news. Scroll through headlines and follow who/what you want; the feed is populated exclusively by journalists.

Would love to hear HN's thoughts. https://www.forth.news

Aside from my own personal issues with that chart, two big differences: - we're vetting the journalist, so this can include the ever growing number of freelancers/independents and many smaller outlets that would never make it onto a chart like that; and the delivery mechanism.

We are pulling in reporters who work for all sorts of outlets, from small local newspapers to national TV networks, across various types of media, beats/verticals, and locations. We want to be "around the block and around the world," covering local stories across the US and major national/world issues.

Like social media, users can self-curate, to see everything in one place, based on their own interests. For a casual news consumer, you don't need to go to 20 different websites to see headlines.

If I can self-promote for a second --

This is precisely why we're building forth.news. We know that the next US election will be under constant attack, with a barrage of mis/disinformation from various nation states and seedy domestic groups. The surge in popularity of GenAI and deepfakes will make this harder to detect and avoid propaganda.

Forth.news is a news feed for news. Like social, you can self-curate and follow individuals/topics/organizations you want, in a reverse chronological feed. All of our posts come from vetted journalists, who are who they say they are.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yes. Writing is only a small part of journalism. AI cannot do reporting.

To clarify: I'm not saying that reporters are somehow inherently unable to post hate speech, I am saying they are not doing it on this platform.

We have an editorial policy that defines how we see journalists and reporting, and what is and isn't allowed: https://www.forth.news/docs/editorial

I know journalism has a bad rap in some circles, but most reporters are genuinely trying to share real stories.

FWIW, I posted this Show HN yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36622035

We're building forth.news, which is sort of the exact opposite of this view point. We're only news. Only journalists post, so theres no hate speech, no spam, and no misinfo.

If you want to get headlines, and you want to curate your own feed, check out https://www.forth.news

The reporters are writing their own posts. Some of those posts contain links to the article they wrote, some are just threads.