In that context war and combat were the big sellers and got the most coverage, because you just had to be in the right spot at the right time. There is little or not investigation. The best news coming out of there had nothing to do with combat action, but rather things that demanded real investigation. The hard work of journalism. These stories were extremely rare, in comparison.

The other major issue is allowing an audience to dictate your subject matter, which is my interpretation of crowdsourcing. I would say this is the quickest way to defeat your primary mission of objectivity and shortest path to bias. The big challenge here is how to determine what qualifies as a story worth publishing, particularly for an international audience.

One way to limit bias is to disallow opinion pieces and editorials. Fox News is, on occasion, a great source of journalism, but journalism doesn't drive its ratings. Editorial pundits do, and a clear bias is the result.

Also, their bias is not out of a need to make money. It's not incidental. It's an open, well-funded attempt to push the country to the right, and it worked.

> Also, their bias is not out of a need to make money. It's not incidental. It's an open, well-funded attempt to push the country to the right, and it worked.

I completely disagree. The pundits make money from advertising sales. The greater their following the more they can charge for ad time slots. Fox claims to be the highest rated and most watched televised news. It isn't about setting a political mandate. It is all about making money.

Moderates were pushed to the right after Obama's time in office just as they were pushed to the left after Bush's second term. Now, it seems, many voters are being pushed to the left since Trump has entered office. There isn't a conspiracy here.

EDIT: Rupert Murdock was a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Isn't that inevitable when your main revenue source is in-article advertising?

This. I subscribe to the New York Times. Not because I believe they cover everything the best (I go to sports blogs and r/cfb for college football), and not even because they cover the things I'm very interested in pretty well.

I subscribe, because on an average day, what they've chosen to cover and to cover well, generally appeals to me. This includes all the many, many things I am not aware of or give a high priority to on an average day, until I see it on the front page of the NYT.

This isn't at all an argument that the NYT is better than every other outlet there. First of all, there are places that beat out the NYT on some days -- and conversely, days when the NYT has done something abysmal.

But the cost of finding that optimal outlet (an argument for why personal optimization in this area has highly diminishing returns could be its own topic) -- which would be in addition to the cost of time that I spend consuming news and commentary -- isn't worth if relative to the NYT's success rate.

Note I'm never restricted to the NYT on any day, of course. I'm arguing for why I'm fine with having the habitual inclination (and the recurring credit card payment) to make the NYT my primary choice on an average day.

That answer is really the fundamental issue. OP Mizza had 2 paragraphs about "process" and "tools" because he believes the barrier to investigative journalism is the lack of a collaboration/communications hub. He wrote:

>When it comes to massively collaborative investigation, the key thing is _process_, not product. [...] I think in terms of what is needed of tools to be developed [...] cobbled together using Google Docs, Facebook and Slack

It's misleading to think that a technical software solution such as having programmers develop a slack+github+crypto-email hub will unleash investigative journalism.

The real key issue is the funding, not the web communication platforms. Another commenter nodded in agreement with Mizza and said we need more "PBS Frontline". Well, that show is funded[1] by viewer donations and grants from billionaires' philanthropic foundations. (e.g. John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation oversees a ~$6 billion endowment.)

Can WikiTribune can attract billionaires to write checks and pay for investigative journalism? We don't know yet. Maybe the only realistic path is for WikiTribune to start modestly with their supporters paying $15/month[2] for "fact-checked" and "evidence-based" journalism and when they build enough of a reputation, billionaires will open their wallets to pay for expensive months-long investigative work.

If applying for grants from philanthropic foundations (like PBS Frontline has done) is the wrong funding model for investigative journalism, I'd rather we discuss alternative ways to pay journalists instead of software tools.

Yes, new collaborative software tools can help smooth over some editing workflows -- but that's not the real problem.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/about-us/our-funders/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikitribune#Business_model

In fact the central genius of it, and Wikipedia, is that it's basically outside the commercial realm, and therefore at least theoretically free of most of the distortions the profit motive creates in journalism.

Hence they don't really need an "edge" either, but if they did, they do have one: "We're a non-profit." And/or, "You wrote it." (The public, that is.)

It's basically a copy of Wikipedia where instead of "no primary sources" they'll likely toggle it over to "all primary sources" (or mostly). Though actually I wonder why they didn't just keep it as part of Wikipedia itself, but maybe that's the reason right there.

And it's even harder if you are not a well known entity that can open doors. 60 Minutes, NYTimes, WSJ etc the usual suspects are a well oiled machine of access. Don't think for a second (I know this wasn't your point btw.) that a nobody even with money and talent can duplicate that advantage.

I think/hope you might be mistaken here. People used to think UX wasn't a feature people would pay for, and Apple proved them wrong.

The existing "Wikipedia = relatively unbiased, and accurate" brand might make a big difference if WikiTribune can deliver.

You have papers with excellent track records for accurate reporting getting blasted as fake news constantly.

TBH same paper can have a track record of accurate reporting in some things, and be wildly biased, inaccurate and unreliable in other things. It is easy to find ones that are all-around bad, it's not hard to find ones that are good at something and bad at something, but finding ones that are universally good... that's challenging. I wonder which ones you think have excellent record, never reporting anything bad or inaccurate.

One paper that does a great job in my opinion is "Die Zeit". I am not familiar with the American media landscape and thus a equivalent, however.

They aren't often though, because they stake their reputation on being accurate.

Bias is harmful, but I think the WaPo and NYT are a much more acceptable level of bias then say, Fox.