Well like I just said, I'm not convinced looking at it through overall number of worthy/unworthy stories published is a metric that makes a lot of sense.

But sure, that statement is an improvement because it at least makes clear that if you were to remove the corporate media tomorrow something of important value would be lost. Something the original statement definitely does not convey.

I am formally challenging the notion that if corporate media were to disappear, people would suddenly lose their will to report and investigate on serious affairs that make up the tiny fraction of valuable content. If anything, there is a likelihood that people would even feel more compelled to do so with the understanding that they cannot expect major news outlets to do the work for them. I do however champion the loss of the will to report on everything other than that in corporate media’s hypothetical absence.

We can even go as far as to say that corporate media likely will not disappear anyway, and if it were to, in 2022, it would just be repackaged in a different format with new corporate or neo-corporate entities in its place.

In conclusion, and irrespective of the hyperbolic rhetoric of “corporate media produces nothing of value” or the more analytically amicable, “only the tiniest fraction of corporate media produces value”, I hereby declare an end to all corporate media and it’s theoretical subsequent reiterations.

Your average individual would have investigated something regardless of the presence or absence of corporate media, mostly because these stories don't just immediately happen; they take months of work where the public obviously has no clue what is or isn't being looked into.

But your average individual also doesn't, and realistically won't, have the reach of corporate media. That's where their value lies: they are able to get stories out to millions of people and the recognition behind their name to give credibility to the reporting.

> But your average individual also doesn't, and realistically won't, have the reach of corporate media. That's where their value lies: they are able to get stories out to millions of people and the recognition behind their name to give credibility to the reporting.

The irony of this is that the reach of corporate media is effectively deadened due to the reason that we’re having this discussion at all: the same outlets bely their own influence by publishing worthless content. In a world without corporate (news) media, there are still other ways to get news out through the wire.

Credibility is a good point, but speaks to a larger discussion on whether credibility in the media is based off of reputation, legacy, acolytes, accolades, etc?

At the end of the day, if the fall of corporate media effectively obliterates peoples will to “speak truth to power”, as the journalists like to say, then society is in pitiful shape and those whose will would disappear along with the Post, the Times and the Tribune lack integrity.

Well, question is really who will pay investigative journalist ? Independently funded ones would be overall better option but that's not exactly easy sell ("I might or might not produce some content once in a while") and "getting the name for yourself" first is pretty much requirement for crowdfunding.

To consider financial incentives or any sort of funding is an affront to those affected by a serious matter that may warrant an investigation.

Yet people doing the investigation have to eat and if they are good at their jobs it's better that they do their job, full time, instead of having "investigative journalist" as a hobby in addition to their "normal" job

Your’re tiptoeing around the gravity of situations such as, “how some lawyers and doctors rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners stricken with black lung disease, resulting in remedial legislative efforts.” [Pulitzer Prize winning investigation, 2014] I would hope that the people who are involved in uncovering actions like this don’t perceive their practice as a mere job or a hobby, relative to whether they’re paid for it.

In the scenario we’re discussing (a world without corporate media), people who truly care enough about events, plots and schemes that threaten the moral fiber, dignity, agency and safety of humanity will see to it that they’re uncovered. That is unless, all investigative journalists are frauds who are driven only by glory and gold.

What you’ve described would be “better”, sure. It would be “better” if it rained during a drought than if it didn’t. But what are people going to do in the meanwhile?

Is “corporate” media the only kind of media there is that can present the news either way?

I'd accept "Nobody should be out in this kind of weather!" or "Nobody can play the oboe!" as a kind of colloquial hyperbole that works in part because people know it's hyperbole and there's a shared sentiment ("we all would find being out in this weather or the difficulty of learning to play the oboe well relatable").

It's a poor contribution to a conversation about the value of media as business enterprise because it's really not clear what the hyperbole is or what the common relatable point is supposed to be. And it might even be subtly nihilistic or privileged ("who's to say I can't believe whatever the hell I want regardless of what them news people say, they're probably just pushing what they want to believe just I like I am anyway").

So "only some fraction of the corporate media's output has intellectual value" would be an improvement. Increased clarity often is.

And it could lead to actually useful understanding, which is that a LOT of things which have high rates of mediocre or even useless output still have value.