Why after all this time is 'crypto journalism' so shit?

[gentlemand]

https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1030589163609849856

A fine point made here by Jesse Powell of Kraken.

Now mainstream coverage is bad enough but at least the occasional professional journalist is involved in it and a real story pops up. The 'crypto press' however remains an absolute heap of shit that does nothing but regurgitate google translate lies or post whatever they're paid to post.

Why after all this time and all this juicy fodder is it still in this hopeless condition? There are a few bright spots here and there but it's pretty sad that overall you know what's being served to you will most of the time be clueless rubbish if it isn't a flat out lie.

[mk4]

I'm definitely not going to defend them, but I think they know what they're doing. These "news" sites cater to the masses, and writes "news" about stuff that may not matter or may not be important, but are "news" that the majority are going to be interested in; you know, the people who are only mostly interested about the price of bitcoin and nothing else outside of that.

[LeGaulois]

Yeah, it's all about traffic generated, more traffic = more revenues. It's like what kind of journalists writes a 2000 words article to say Lady Gaga has colored his dog in pink.
All of them started to publish articles about crypto because it is tending but doesn't mean in any way they do know what they're talking about

[BitHodler]

Why after all this time and all this juicy fodder is it still in this hopeless condition? There are a few bright spots here and there but it's pretty sad that overall you know what's being served to you will most of the time be clueless rubbish if it isn't a flat out lie.

Hasn't the media always been a noob focused news outlet? They pretty much serve people the quality and content they are worth, which in most cases translates into rubbish content, especially in this industry.

Everyone with sense doesn't pay attention to mainstream media outlets, but follows everything that matters on their own, which results in more accurate and unbiased information that is actually worth something.

The average joes swallow everything you throw at them, and for that reason there is no way to expect anything to change. I even expect things to get worse and it seems that things do indeed only get worse.

[gentlemand]

Everyone with sense doesn't pay attention to mainstream media outlets, but follows everything that matters on their own, which results in more accurate and unbiased information that is actually worth something.

But the crypto specific ones are even more worthless and shit than the mainstream. Most articles they put out can be debunked from the ground up if you spent ten seconds going one level deeper.

By this point I expected a reasonable proportion of properly focused journalism from the inside that's actually worth bothering with. Surely there's some sort of market for it.

[BitHodler]

But the crypto specific ones are even more worthless and shit than the mainstream.

That was actually what I referred to. This industry has one of the worst possible mainstream adopters in existence, and the crypto related news outlets perfectly adjust themselves to serve these people.

It's called know your market and demographics, and the crypto news outlets surely do know how to generate traffic and clicks. We really need to break through the speculative bubble in order to expect quality content.

By this point I expected a reasonable proportion of properly focused journalism from the inside that's actually worth bothering with. Surely there's some sort of market for it.

It seems that the best content nowadays can be found on Reddit, Steamit, Medium. The key is to follow the right people and ignore those who don't contribute to worthwhile exchange of information.

[nc50lc]

But the crypto specific ones are even more worthless and shit than the mainstream. Most articles they put out can be debunked from the ground up if you spent ten seconds going one level deeper.

Lol, Like this one for Example: bitcoin-banknotes-ready-to-replace-traditional-currency
That's so wrong in so many... The bad thing is, most of them have originated from this forum's spam boards and topics.
In the end, it will all comes down to bitcointalk's integrity on Bitcoin~talk which is shrinking exponentially every year.

Yeah, it's all about traffic generated, more traffic = more revenues. It's like what kind of journalists writes a 2000 words article to say Lady Gaga has colored his dog in pink.

Nope, "Lady Gaga colored her doggo pink" needs more than 2000 words to express IMO.

[Slow death]

This is a problem that will not be so easy to solve because bitcoin is not yet regulated in many countries, governments and many institutions do not take seriously cryptos. journalists have few opportunities to get news, Many news sites publish the same news as other news sites. And all news sites post opinions from the supposed experts or influential people of the crypto world. As I said before this happens because there is not much happening in the crypto world and then we have other questions:

The bitcoin news channels are licensed?

Bitcoin news channels have physical office?

Does the cryptos news channel have newspapers?

[gentlemand]

This is a problem that will not be so easy to solve because bitcoin is not yet regulated in many countries, governments and many institutions do not take seriously cryptos. journalists have few opportunities to get news, Many news sites publish the same news as other news sites. And all news sites post opinions from the supposed experts or influential people of the crypto world. As I said before this happens because there is not much happening in the crypto world and then we have other questions:

The bitcoin news channels are licensed?

Bitcoin news channels have physical office?

Does the cryptos news channel have newspapers?

Most of the time decent journalism just needs about thirty seconds of extra thought and research. It doesn't need more funding, regs, premises or permission.

Regardless of its status it's an important development that could use some actual objectivity and prudence. What I don't get is why it's so rare.

[buwaytress]

Phew. Big, big question, OP.

At the heart of the problem(s) is the plain truth that journalism no longer sells. At least, not enough to keep the presses printing. I worked in the news industry; actual newspapers with ink and paper, probably one of the last few in my region that did things the old school way... training cub reporters in the field, a lot of phone calls, observation, stake out, investigation etc.

What makes for good journalism in some circles makes for poor business sense in others. What is truth for some is libel for others. My paper worked in a strict govt regime with a history of shuttering print licences so often in the past 30 years, but we pushed boundaries as often as we could, and were quite "proud" of the numerous times we were summoned to govt offices for "printing lies" or "insensitive material" which we had documented evidence for. It was a wild few years before we eventually got shut down after an offended royal from X country ordered our closure. Not that we would have lasted much longer. Fewer wanted to advertise with such a "risky" brand, and the ads anyway appealed to different readerships, for different news.

As pointed out, business models must match the mainstream appetite. If the mainstream is fixated on price rather than on actual newsworthy items, can these sites be blamed for choosing content that brings in revenue?

Certainly, there is a need and a desire for good journalism. Audiences are, after all, a lot more intelligent that we estimate them to be, given the chance.

However, the notion of journalism as a public service is almost irrelevant in the current climate. People don't want to pay for "proper" news anymore, advertisers are moving away from print (or digital versions of print) and if you don't give the advertisers the traffic they're looking for, you'll bust. There's simply no revenue model that can fit lofty ideals without selling out at some point or to some degree, not unless you've got wealthy people backing your paper/media co who don't need profit.

On a more practical level, there's also an old-school branch that sees reporting (as opposed to journalism) as merely writing what you see and what you hear. The reporter does as much as he can to base news on facts, but there's usually a difference of an untold number of weeks between truth and lies... the reporter has hours to report... to tell it as seen and heard. In this case, there's not much wrong with all the sites regurgitating content. It's what all media do. They have 1 exclusive for every 20 or 30 stories run. That's very, very normal.

Interesting fact: most industries think journalism related to their specific sectors is also so "shit".

[Steamtyme]

Any news story these days requires you take it with a grain of salt, and then dig deeper. Crypto news is no different.

Most "news" comes with the reporters personal opinions and biases strewn in between every word. They see the idea and distort it towards their base, giving the people who create traffic and revenue what they want to hear/read. I wish I had been around when news was just that the facts, I hear it was great. For now it is up to the reader/viewer to take the story and google the key points to see if you can find the missing parts to make an informed opinion. Most of the time you just find the other 4 sites running a near carbon copy of the story you just read.

The second problem I see is the people or organisations that go out there and brand themselves as news. Sometimes this is just to promote their interests or the interests they are paid to promote.

[chris200x9]

Here in our country they spread that bitcoin is scam and that show is really trusted then with a lot of good news that good for people but i think they only interview the person who lose a lot in crypto like newbies about trading still at the end of the news bangko central say that bitcoin have legit for investment so even people say a lot of negative still they promote this by that

Some countries call it has a pyramid scheme and tell their citizens don't invest money. As long as for all illegal activities like hacker demand money in cryptos for their activities this negativity may not go so easily from the people who don't know about the plus points for cryptos. The media need to talk all these good points and educate people instead of spreading only negative points.

[mobnepal]

We have thousands of so called crypto media outlet that only post press releases for ICO and all other post they have is just a news cloned from other outlets either translated or paraphrased. There is actually nothing like special crypto journalism like thing and when bloomberg or bbc try to cover crypto news first they ask ordinary writer to cover it who than put just shitty things on that article because he will be noob about blockchain.

We need some sort of training for all those journalist who are nice at writing other topics?

[Joel_Jantsen]

Take a look around, around 70% of the traffic on this forum don't have their own wallet yet and are mostly dependent on exchange wallets. That is a rough estimate but you get the point, the news wants to carter for that kind of audience because they know the rest 30% are likely to not give a rat's ass about their opinions.

Many people still perceive bitcoin as a way to get rich and not a system made to replace the banks. Such news is perfectly suited for these idiots.

I'm definitely not going to defend them, but I think they know what they're doing. These "news" sites cater to the masses, and writes "news" about stuff that may not matter or may not be important, but are "news" that the majority are going to be interested in; you know, the people who are only mostly interested about the price of bitcoin and nothing else outside of that.

Touche.

[buwaytress]

Take a look around, around 70% of the traffic on this forum don't have their own wallet yet and are mostly dependent on exchange wallets. That is a rough estimate but you get the point, the news wants to carter for that kind of audience because they know the rest 30% are likely to not give a rat's ass about their opinions.

I actually only realised this many months after getting my first Bitcoin and that itself was only several months after learning about Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I had the same access to Google as everyone does as a newbie, probably landed on this forum same as everyone else, but it is strange, isn't it? That most people still don't want to use their own wallets. It's not like it's that difficult, I'm actually still amazed every now and then how I can just restore my wallet whenever I need it on another device.

We need some sort of training for all those journalist who are nice at writing other topics?

Mainstream journalism itself, as I pointed out above, no longer has the resources or motivation to put people through the right training these days. And with what passes as mainstream journalism these days outside of crypto, we really don't have much to complain about for Bitcoin news.

P.S. Did anyone actually see the reporter's response to Kraken CEO's Tweet in OP? That's the other side of the story... actual reporters showing that these CEOs just dance around simple questions when put to them. He opened a can of worms and then couldn't deal with it when a proper journalist Kraken's ignored in the past takes up his challenge.

[audaciousbeing]

Yeah, it's all about traffic generated, more traffic = more revenues. It's like what kind of journalists writes a 2000 words article to say Lady Gaga has colored his dog in pink.
All of them started to publish articles about crypto because it is tending but doesn't mean in any way they do know what they're talking about

You have just summarised everything we are facing in the name of journalism in crypto world. Sometimes you even get to see article that is not well written in a chronological order yet the headline is about what to get your attention to read. I wonder if that is the way journalism is done in the real world, there is no way CNN or BBC would be as sought after as we have them today. All of this still lies in the unregulated environment. Anyone who can form sentences and can build a website is already a journalist. No one is talking about the ethics of the profession, the importance of investigative journalism, the need for proper acknowledgment and most importantly balanced reporting which has eluded the crypto world for a very long time (in that, its only bad news that could cause panic that gets the most reportage while groundbreaking ideas gets little or no publicity).

[xIIImaL]

Just noticed that another crypto journalist thread it also shows the critics about them what they do. So far I see the people never looking to do their own research about cryptocurrencies while they are looking to invest on on trading or anywhere.

So google also sharing the negative news and CNN news site too doing the same. Please care about the own cryptos you hold now. Never believe the news it will be work better than anything.

[Kemarit]

As far as I can remember, specially when I started to post on Press Release section last year, I see tons and tons of garbage articles and they will report any news regarding crypto for one purpose only: traffic. Even a 12 year old school boy can write perfect news compare to those so called reporters and auditors doesn't get a s**t. Yes, maybe there's some authors still left who writes good article because they understand how this technology works. But majority, are complete rubbish.

[lizardbtc]

https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1030589163609849856

A fine point made here by Jesse Powell of Kraken.

Now mainstream coverage is bad enough but at least the occasional professional journalist is involved in it and a real story pops up. The 'crypto press' however remains an absolute heap of shit that does nothing but regurgitate google translate lies or post whatever they're paid to post.

Why after all this time and all this juicy fodder is it still in this hopeless condition? There are a few bright spots here and there but it's pretty sad that overall you know what's being served to you will most of the time be clueless rubbish if it isn't a flat out lie.

Greed and money.

I see many new "News Websites" showing from nowhere. Guess what they are built with WordPress and most of them have some kind of ads. Because it is a business to run your blog, news website, amazon affiliate review blog, or yet any other form of a website with ads and affiliate links that just want you to buy something so that they can profit etc. People don't care. Because they are running out of ideas it is much easier to skim what others are doing and to rewrite things up. Not to mention that there are even articles that will do commentary on tweets and do just that through the article....

If I came to read tweets I would be on twitter not on news website. Then you have ICOs that are looking for attention and maybe other startups/companies that are trying to raise the name for themselves.

Mainly I just use RSS reader and skim through headlines and you can absolutely spot rewritten articles easily from many sources... that is how it is.
People need to think for themselves rather than just read and get others opinion. Because as I said most of these typ of websites are made for profit. They don't care if they will have to lie, rewrite articles as long as they make profit it is worth it.

[leowonderful]

Most sites also hire cheap and shoddy writers just so they can get paid by whoever's sponsoring their articles with minimum effort. I often see this happening with half-assed articles that only show a part of the story (sometimes even on larger crypto news outlets!) and look like they took five minutes to research; it sucks, but almost all articles nowadays are crap and simply just well SEO optimized for clicks and views. It truly pays to do your own research with crypto, and this is also why I enjoy browsing this site and Reddit more to find news about crypto. You get real information most of the time here.