Tortoise - a new place for news?

Tortoise - a new place for news?

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Discussion

EddieSteadyGo

Original Poster:

11,717 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Came across this today - Chris Cook (one of the chaps on Newsnight) is leaving the BBC to join a new organisation called Tortoise.

They have an interesting idea of reporting "not breaking news but what’s driving it".

With all of the bullst in the newspapers which is mostly designed to provoke a negative reaction, I thought this was interesting idea.

Their plan is to charge for their journalism on a subscription model to ensure their independence.

Mulling over making a small donation to their kickstarter page.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tortoisemedia...

Has anyone come across this?

durbster

10,223 posts

221 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Traditional news media is a dead-end these days, so I think any new ideas are welcome.

I've often thought a news model based on journalists rather than news organisations could be interesting. That's effectively what Twitter offers, and that platform delivers news extremely well.

The problem is, it also delivers bullst and propaganda equally well and relies on the chumps reading to parse it all. And we know people just aren't very good at that.

Something a bit like Twitter but without the bks would be good.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
durbster said:
The problem is, it also delivers bullst and propaganda equally well and relies on the chumps reading to parse it all. And we know people just aren't very good at that.
True.

But perhaps the understatement of the century?

EddieSteadyGo

Original Poster:

11,717 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
I think part of the problem is that we (the public) expect everything for free. So we get the quality (and manipulation) which goes along with that.

Hence why the Daily Mail (amongst others) publish articles which are designed to make people angry and fearful. Those emotions generate a far greater immediate reaction which in turn causes more clicks, more impressions and hence more ad-revenue.

Slight aside, but I watched a brilliant TED talk, saying how much better the internet would be if search engines worked on a paid subscription model.

Imagine paying Google a monthly fee to actually work on your behalf to show the very best and most relevant answers to your questions, rather than displaying in the top position whoever was prepared to pay the most to be there...

dmulally

6,180 posts

179 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Thing is they'd happily sell you a subscription as well as take money from a company to write an advertorial.

EddieSteadyGo

Original Poster:

11,717 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
dmulally said:
Thing is they'd happily sell you a subscription as well as take money from a company to write an advertorial.
Cynic!

Derek Smith

45,512 posts

247 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
I don't think paying is such a good idea.

Google works on algorithms. They are manipulated by those who promise SEO but in general, Google does quite a good job. I agree that the paid-for ones at the top are often, but by no means always, best avoided, but for the rest, what else is Google going to do?

Those companies that pay for good quality SEO are not necessarily rubbish.

Where Google fails is in the way people use it. If a company is on page 2 for certain important keywords then they are going to suffer. Page 3 and it is dead. However, often what is just what you needed, and would have been on page 1 if you'd used proper keywords, is just a page away.

I can't see Google being able to provide anything better than that. They can't individually check each website.


dmulally

6,180 posts

179 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
EddieSteadyGo said:
dmulally said:
Thing is they'd happily sell you a subscription as well as take money from a company to write an advertorial.
Cynic!
By they I mean me. I'd happily shill for a mars bar.

EddieSteadyGo

Original Poster:

11,717 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Derek Smith said:
I don't think paying is such a good idea.

Google works on algorithms. They are manipulated by those who promise SEO but in general, Google does quite a good job. I agree that the paid-for ones at the top are often, but by no means always, best avoided, but for the rest, what else is Google going to do?
\
Those companies that pay for good quality SEO are not necessarily rubbish.

Where Google fails is in the way people use it. If a company is on page 2 for certain important keywords then they are going to suffer. Page 3 and it is dead. However, often what is just what you needed, and would have been on page 1 if you'd used proper keywords, is just a page away.

I can't see Google being able to provide anything better than that. They can't individually check each website.

Google could be so much better.

Its primary focus is maximising ad revenue. And I say that as one of its advertising "customers".

I'm not saying it does a bad job in terms of providing relevant results. And of course many companies who pay either on a PPC basis, or pay to manipulate the natural search results, have a direct interest in being relevant for the given search term.

But its objectives are not aligned with what would actually provide the most benefit to its users.

Here is the link to the video which makes the original argument in more depth. [IIRC someone else posted the link on a different thread, but it is worth re-posting].

https://www.ted.com/talks/jaron_lanier_how_we_need...