There have been a few times where I have clicked on a news article only to realise that I have been hit with a paywall. I don't mean this in any offensive way. "Hit" sounds very serious. No, I mean I have been casually surfing and I click on a news article and then I am presented with the opportunity to log into the news providers website in order to keep reading. Of course, for me to log in I have to pay. This is the paywall that I have been "hit" with.
Some papers like the Irish Times, or simply the "Times" which is the New York paper is it? want to charge. I am fully in agreement with them paying of course. They have staff that they need to pay and research that needs to happen etc etc. Ever consider how much it cost to pay a reporter, ship them out to some foreign county and give them a hotel room and expenses in order to cover a news story first hand? It costs a lot. A lot of money goes into uncovering the truth.
Then the likes of Facebook and Google and a slew of leeches read that article that the determined reporter gave us and flogs the news off as its own. What does the Times get for all of their trouble and cost. Well someone like me either reads the news second hand and thinks its "hmm, interesting" or I am hit with the paywall. At which I am like - no thanks dude.
_(retouched).jpg/1920px-2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09254-2_(50820534063)_(retouched).jpg "Stupid Americans attacking their own democacy")
The news does not mean that much to me. Or rather, YOUR version of the news does not mean that much to me. I can get it somewhere else, either from a local source on the ground where the news is happening locally, or I can get the news from the article in question off a second hand report who has copied all the interesting bits from the article. Someone who will have read the article and "reports" on the situation pretending that they themselves have uncovered this info. Or simply someone who will say "I have read that this is happening".
Either way I do not have to pay the Times. But am I killing old school news media. Well, yes. Yes I am. But to blame me personally is interesting. Am I personally responsible for killing paywall news papers? Okay, lets say I am. Am I responsible for letting the Irish language die for not supporting it? Am I responsible for destroying the environment for not using a Tesla but instead using a gas guzzling Ford.
Basically, everything you do means that you are not doing something else. Of course there are always people in the crowd that are going to shout out that some actions are good and some actions are bad. Supporting Tesla means more zinc production which is destroying land, rivers and communities. Speaking English mean NOT speaking some other language. If I speak Irish am I killing English? I never heard and English speaker bust into a room of Irish speaking children and scream at them for not speaking the Queens English because for heavens sake English is dying out! But guess what, I have heard Irish speakers scream at children for speaking English.
Does not matter what you do - it means you are not doing something else. So lets take this back to the news. That paywall. Don't want to pay for your news - fine don't. But when Putin is controlling 20% of your social media and all of a sudden you think it is a good idea to begin teaching Russian in the West of Ireland instead of Irish OR English don't try to figure out what happened. You know what happened. You should have paid for the paywall to be gone. You should have paid for proper reporting.
When you pay for the news, in general I am going to say you are paying for real reporting. When you get your news for "free" you are paying with your soul. Again... when you look at the mirror and only see someone morally bankrupt, opinion-less and confused about the world around them remember what I told you. You pay for the news with your wallet or your soul. No one misses the water until the well runs dry.
The news does not mean so much to me that I pay for it all the time. But I think I know what is going on to a degree. I follow a few different news sources. I am aware that I am however mostly ignorant about the world. I know very little. Can you say that? Look at the attacks on the Capitol Hill in USA or at home look at the rise of right wing anti immigration and anti gay movements that are happening in Ireland. Do they pay for their news? Not a chance.. they are ignorant, live in their own hateful little echo chambers. They are scum.
Not paying for the news, or more importantly, not caring where your news comes from is a dangerous thing.
