Journalism needs a Glass-Steagall act /thread

The glass-steagall act put in place a firewall between commercial, retail banking & investment banking. Idea was that FDIC-guaranteed retail bank funds shouldn’t be used for risky investments / 2

Journalism should institute a similar firewall between news that is meant to inform (breaking news, investigations, features) and commentary on news & culture (opinion pieces, “explainers”, etc) /3

Why? First, journalism is taking a lot of heat fake news, disinformation, and editorialization. By explicitly separating fact generating / reporting from commentary, outlets and their backers can choose business models & technical infrastructure best suited for each category / 4

On the fact generating / reporting side, organizations could implement reforms intended to restore confidence in “news”. /5

Two that come to mind are introducing an accreditation system for “news” journalists and increased requiring outlets to embed sourcing for all claims made in an article into the article — i.e. through annotated press releases. /6

These steps would be “anti-narrative” and probably make the “news” less exciting to read. However, the desire for narrative — particularly counter-intuitive or surprising narrative — distorts facts and opens journalists up to charges of editorialization. /7

News reporting stripped of commentary and refocused on interpreting or introducing primary sources would have the additional benefit of concision. /9

So how do we fund the “boring” side of the house? 1) Publishers could also build tools for parsing “news” content for underlying claims & relationships between entities / events / concept. This would become a data asset they can sell to FIs, corporates, etc /9

2) By taking concrete steps to signal credibility of “news” content through changes to the process of creating and displaying news (I/e accreditation, visibly grounding reporting in primary sources) media organizations can pursue favorable tax treatment (i/e 501(c)(3) treatment

“News” outlets could also seek to establish matching donations programs with donors, etc. These ideas are coming from head of @report4america in @Poynter https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2020/its-time-to-uproot-american-newspapers-from-hedge-funds-and-replant-them-into-more-hospitable-ground/

On the other hand, you would have commentary / opinion reporting, blogs, @SubstackInc newsletters, etc. Unshackled from needing to comply with the onerous demands of actual news reporting, the news as entertainment side of the house could focus on that — being entertaining / 11

Being entertaining, and experimenting with technologies and revenue models (I.e. @SubstackInc, @buymeacoffee, @Patreon) that are suited for entertainment. / 12

Tl;dr. 1) Separate news from commentary. 2) Make news boring. 3) provide news outlets with favorable tax status & provide other forms of support suitable for public interest org & not corporation 4) Allow commentariat to do whatever they want / end thread