出版与作家生涯2021stratechery.com
出版业回到了未来
Publishing Is Back to the Future
导读
这篇文章从出版业的历史循环出发，讨论媒体商业模式如何从广告赞助回到直接向读者收费（订阅、会员、打赏），以及这种转变对内容质量与新闻独立性的影响。对写作者来说，值得读的地方在于：收入来源会塑造选题与写法，理解这一点才能想清楚自己为谁写、靠什么活。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
先想清楚收入从哪来：靠广告就要追注意力，靠读者订阅就得对读者的长期信任负责，两种模式会写出不同的文章。
- 02
病毒式传播和真实性重叠很小，标题党本质上只是把传播性硬拉到与内容勉强相交，长期会消耗信任。
- 03
把读者当成愿意为价值付费的长期关系：主动为自己认可的小作者和小机构付费订阅，也是在为自己想要的写作生态投票。
- 04
媒体为自身商业利益而扭曲报道由来已久（如美联社与西联的互惠关系），读到行业自我叙述时要保持警惕。
HN 评论精选
利润动机催生标题党，取消利润动机又会滑向意识形态；他理想中的新闻是只求准确、不带议程的事实汇总。
在商业里，生存动机变成利润动机；对内容创作者来说，利润动机在网上表现为抓眼球的内容。但病毒式传播和真实性是两种很少重叠的属性，标题党只是作者把传播性硬拉到与自己的信息勉强重叠，而整篇文章也可能纯粹只是抓眼球。在重视真相的媒体工作也无法免疫利润动机——只要内容在任何一个层面还得赚钱。虚伪出现在他们开始否认这一点的时候。但没有利润动机，媒体又容易变成意识形态驱动，NPR 再怎么努力，在某些人眼里倾向依然明显；而意识形态本身也可以成为利润动机的一部分，比如 Fox。我最想看到的是一个只收集、整理世界上正在发生事件的平台：没有议程，没有作者，只有准确描述世界的信息，比如疫情信息站，或者全国汇总的实时警情记录——发布时唯一的判断标准是准确。难点在于，是否有人愿意承认这是一种更有价值的新闻形式。
unabst查看英文原文
In business, the survival motive becomes the profit motive. For content creators, the profit motive then manifests online as attention grabbing content. However, virality and truth are highly specific properties that rarely overlap. Clickbait is the author stretching virality to somewhat overlap with their message which hopefully holds some truth, but the entire piece can also just be an attention grabber. If you work at a news source that values truth, sadly you're still not immune to the profit motive, so long as the content at any level is still required to make money. Hypocrisy arises when they begin to deny this. But without the profit motive, outlets can easily become ideology driven. As hard as NPR may try not to be this, to some their bend is obvious. And then their is ideology as part of the profit motive. Like Fox. What I would love to see is a platform that simply collects and sorts the events of the world as they unfold. Covid sites are one example. No agenda, no authors. Just the information that accurately describes the world as it unfold, or at least in theory. Another example would a police log published live at every department aggregated at the national level. No decisions would be involved in the publishing except that the post is accurate. The rest is each officer simply doing their job, and hopefully a great job. But the leap is in considering this a more valuable form of news. From attention grabbing to accurately exposing the state of affairs for easy consumption. The problem with this of course is politics. When the events are what these representatives say, and what they say is dishonest, then even the honest news is the state of the dishonest affairs.
媒体为商业利益自我审查有历史先例，美联社与西联的互惠关系就是一例。
新闻界为了自身商业利益而扭曲对自身行业的报道，这并不是第一个世纪才有的事。几十年来，美联社和西联公司一直是一种共生关系：美联社拿到优惠费率，交换条件之一就是禁止其订阅报纸批评西联的电报垄断。（出处：Paul Starr《The Creation of the Media》第5章第184页，可惜网上没有链接。）
rst查看英文原文
This isn't the first century in which the press has skewed its coverage of its own business to serve its business interests. For decades, the Associated Press and Western Union had a symbiotic relationship in which the AP got favorable rates in return for, among other things, forbidding its subscribing papers to criticize the Western Union telegraph monopoly. (Here's where I'd link to a reference if it was on line, but it's not: Paul Starr, "The Creation of the Media", ch. 5, p. 184.)
主动挑选并为有价值的内容和服务付费，是读者用钱包支持好写作的方式。
这篇对新闻纯粹性背后的经济问题讨论得不错。有时我觉得这么做有点反常，但我确实很享受自己决定为什么付费。当我发现小型视频博主，或者我认为传递了有用信息的机构时，我很乐意订阅。我自己决定支持多少，并设个日历提醒几个月后取消。PBS、Democracy Now、《卫报》这类则在我的长期捐赠名单上。服务也一样：我总体上批评大科技公司，但我乐意为自己觉得有价值的服务付费，比如 Office 365、YouTube Music 和云平台。我也认可苹果的隐私政策——不是因为它们多好，而是和其他 FANG 对比出来的，所以我妻子和我买了不少苹果设备。
mark_l_watson查看英文原文
Good discussion of economic issues against purity of journalism. Sometimes I feel perverse about doing this, but I take real pleasure in deciding what things to pay for. When I find small time video bloggers and also organizations that I believe have a useful message, I enjoy subscribing. I decide how much I want to support them and set a calendar reminder to cancel after a few months. Some news like PBS, Democracy Now, and The Guardian are on a permanent donation list for me. Same thing for services. I am a critic of big tech in general, but I enjoy paying for services that I find of value, like Office 365, Google YouTube Music, and cloud platforms. I find high value in Apple’s privacy policies, not because they are great but because of comparisons to other FANG, so my wife and I indulge in lots of Apple gear.
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