a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by blackbootz
blackbootz  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Native Advertising

The trend of posting Last Week episodes to hubski — I'm fine with it.

On a more serious note, this reminds me of NSFWcorps attempts to create an effective investigative journal by 7 dollar monthly subscriptions and donations. How viable is that approach? Is there not enough of a news-reading public willing to pay for that?





veen  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Part of me wants to share half of the Last Week episodes. John Oliver has had a great first season so far.

Investigative journalism is possible - here in the Netherlands we have De Correspondent, where you pay for one year up-front (60 euro, cheaper than most newspapers) to get access to the site. Every weekday, they post 4 articles by the Correspondents. Example: today, the main story is about democracy in Silicon Valley - here's how that looks like. They kickstarted this project about a year ago, and currently have 30.000 paying readers. In a month or two, they're hoping those early adopters renew their subscription - I really hope they can continue this. Then, it'll prove that this approach is viable, if done right.

Meriadoc  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ugh. Don't remind me. I love NSFWCorp so much and I just canceled my Pando subscription because it's fucking abysmal.

blackbootz  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Have you found an alternate news source yet? Something that approaches NSFWCorp?

Meriadoc  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Sadly not. The source veen mentions sounds great enough that I should learn Dutch.

veen  ·  3764 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If it's any solace, there's one article on basic income on it that was translated for appearance in the Washington Post. Here's a great writeup on how the site works and what it does different.

Edit: Maybe Le Monde Diplomatique is something for you?

Meriadoc  ·  3763 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll look into it. I just don't know if there's anything around that has that gonzo journalism spirit to it that really holds true to the idea of 'objectivity' rather than 'neutrality'.

syzo  ·  3763 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I would pay 7 dollars a month for quality news that I could slap into my RSS reader without getting blasted with 200 news stories a day.