I’ve grown somewhat numb to these sorts of stories, as it feels like we’ve run out of permutations on the deck chairs.
In Ye Olde Tymes — say, 2008 — the corporate model of journalism sitting on top of ads on newsprint was rickety but still functioning. And then consolidation brought a gun to this Jenga game.
Newspapers evolved to all have substantially similar structures over the course of the 20th century because all the pieces worked together for daily just-in-time production. You start pulling out pieces, and bad things happen.
But now the industry has these Frankensteined workflows demanded by Alden, New Media Investment Group and other killers of democracy. Newsroom staff are completely divorced from any production facility in use, so the structures in place are already anachronisms with buzzword-laden window dressing.
As far as I can tell, and certainly from recent job postings, a lot of newsrooms think their audience is Twitter and Facebook, not, say … readers. (Yes, yes, we all know the paper as a whole’s audience is advertisers, but journalists are excellent at self-delusion.)
This sets up an absurd game of telephone from writer to, god willing and the crick don’t rise, an editor at a publication to Massive Online Platform™ to reader. The Value® the publisher brings to the table is name recognition and usually long-expired credibility, while the platform makes it convenient to read alongside “both-sides” thinkpieces about Nazi marches.
But in terms of product? I’d like to see two rounds of editing by people familiar with the subject matter and a proofer on everything; who wouldn’t? One editor is better than none, but that’s the extent of beneficial refinement provided before hitting the reader’s eyes.
The org is paying the reporter less than they could make with an established Patreon and an editor friend, getting ad revenue, and passing it along to Facebook, which also gets ad revenue. They are vampire middlemen in the communication process that exist for people who don’t have an established Patreon (I sure as hell don’t).
But gone are the days when a reporter left a paper and became irrelevant. The journalist is the star online, not the paper, and their followers go with them.
Fixing local journalism will take a lot of things, but we have to burn the village to save it. Let all of the value be extracted from newsrooms to hedge funds so we can stop this farce of framing the future of journalism through the lens of today’s corporate structure and concomitant high overhead costs.
Hearing rumors @WeAreFarmers might pull out of Florida. If that’s true my office is going to explore every avenue possible for holding them accountable. Don’t get to leave after taking policyholder money. Can’t write auto if you’re not doing homeowners either. Zero communication!
“Don’t get to leave after taking policyholder money”
What do you think insurance is? You’re not “purchasing” anything, you’re buying an ability to recover losses. It’s not like when I cancel my policy I get to walk away with a pile of boards from Home Depot on my insurance company’s dime because I haven’t had major damage to my house.
It’s like if Netflix decided to cancel all subscribers in FL and the response was “I gave you all that money and I don’t get to keep watching your movies forever???”
There are some states ( I don’t live in FL, but I doubt they offer this type of insurance) that offer Perpetual Insurance. Which is where you pay upfront for coverage, and when you no longer need coverage you’re money is returned.
It costs a lot upfront, but you save a lot in the long run. And any state that offers this type of insurance, I recommend anyone with the means to jump on it.
That’s fascinating and I have not heard of this type of system before. Presumably in a system like that, they would still be returning the person’s money when they left, though…
Typically when an insurer exits a state they either nonrenew the policies, meaning that you have coverage until the end of the policy period, or they stop writing new business but keep their renewals. Neither one of those constitutes taking the money and running. It’s so weird that people would see it that way.
Anybody voting for GOP should really consider whether they want to live in FL because if they have their way the entire country will be exactly like FL. “Oh but MY representatives will only do the things that are good.” No, they won’t. That isn’t how they operate.
I have a feeling the invisible hand is going to force an about face for the GOP on climate sooner than they’d like. Yes, for now they can rail against woke companies for making decisions that improve shareholder returns, but it’s cartoonish already what with the weather of late — and I’m sure what’s to come will involve blaming residents for leaving when there are no insurance companies left willing to touch Florida (point on the map where the bad man …).
Problem is, residents have different thresholds than businesses, and once commercial insurance starts to decline in availability, no amount of rhetoric is going to fix the grocery stores closing down because they can’t get insurance.
Insurance is ultimately a game of musical chairs. For now, there are so many companies and policy types that it’s the boring part at the beginning where everyone mocks the loser but there really aren’t any stakes. The mockery phase will end as companies increasingly become the last holdouts and shareholders start asking why everyone else left but we’re forecasting blue skies.
Insurance is ultimately a game of musical chairs. For now, there are so many companies and policy types that it’s the boring part at the beginning where everyone mocks the loser but there really aren’t any stakes. The mockery phase will end as companies increasingly become the last holdouts and shareholders start asking why everyone else left but we’re forecasting blue skies.
oh yeah–and the thing is for residents it’s already still really bad. there are people on insurance company number 4 in 4 years (or who have two insurance companies because one has to cover one thing and the other covers everything else), and the state is actively trying to disincentivize joining the lender of last resort because they can’t take on that many policies and it’ll kill the remaining insurers. a bad hurricane this year might genuinely be the thing which kicks off the permanent death spiral here–the market needs years of blue skies to “stabilize”.
Oh, absolutely. I think of it as more of a domino effect than butterfly. What we don’t know is how many dominoes the next one to fall will touch. The actuaries at Farmers determined that N events of X size in Y timeframe make these policies undesirable, but it tells us nothing about what N+1 means to other divisions of Farmers, let alone what happens at other companies with their own Xs and Ys.
Well, each major insurer that leaves makes the state more undesirable for everyone that’s left. Each one of these insurers had their share of the “bad” business and now the ones who are left have to sift through the applicants to try to figure out who is safe to insure and who is going to cost them their ability to continue doing business. So with every insurer that leaves, those undesirable risks who pushed them out end up more and more concentrated with the other carriers. I would expect to see more and more of this.
I was curious about 30-year mortgage origination volumes in Florida, but best I found quickly was from the CFPB in 2019, so it’s useless given the pandemic, supply-chain issues and inflation since.
I can’t imagine anyone there is getting a 30-year today fully expecting to pay it off, retire and die never having to move again.
Like, who would be buying these people’s homes that they’re leaving in FL in order to get a new place somewhere else?
in all probability, a state authority will eventually need to eat the cost and help resettle a large number of people currently living in Florida. whether that’ll be Florida or the US government (or another party) remains to be seen.
Certainly not as egregious as some of the news coming out of Thomas’ and Alito’s camps, but this is still not a great look. Seriously, how hard is it to at least maintain the appearance of impartiality as a SC Justice? Can’t they write books to enrich themselves after their tenure?
Really just seems like blurring the likes of what assistants are allowed to do. There’s no kickbacks or anything for her work on the court. Public speaking and book tours are typical. Her tenure doesn’t have an end date.
In Chicago the whole system was designed for you to pay before you get on. There’s a turnstile to get into the station, and you can only get on the front of the bus and tap before you enter. So fares are actually a large percentage of the budget (I looked it up, it’s about 35% pre-pandemic, post pandemic the numbers got all weird). I have no idea why the system is designed in SF where you can essentially “jump” on for free and never pay.
Speed, space, and cost usually. With busses it is way faster to board if you can just open all the doors at a busy stop and everyone paid on the platform or online. They just get on and sit down and go. The busses in Chicago let you pay by credit card (tap) to get on, which is not particularly common in the US, which helps with this.
It’s also much more expensive and challenging to build a system separated by fare and non fare zone. CTA runs a very old system that was designed ages ago so its pretty easy to keep it that way. Many newly built systems are dealing with expensive right of way acquisition and high construction cost. It’s way easier just to slap a few pay stations around and call it a day. Most people pay to ride voluntarily anyway, and those that can’t afford it weren’t going to pay if there was a fence in the way.
Source: enthusiastic about public transit and city politics, feel free to correct me please
The Jobs act of 2021 is dumping tons of money into rail services and rail infrastructure at many different levels. And businesses are doing what they can to get a piece of that spending.
Would be great to see some sustained support for this kind of infrastructure. I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo, and one of the things that amazed me the most was the (train-based) public transportation system.
I’m so sick of these lying, perverted assholes. This isn’t “their opinion”, this is stochastic terrorism deliberately meant to put LGBT people in physical danger by associating them with pedophilia. It’s the exact kind of hatred the Nazis fomented against Jewish people. They know it’s not true, lying is a means to an end.
These people are genuine extremists who have to be stopped. It infuriates me that so many people still try to play the “both sides” bullshit. Democrats aren’t openly talking about eliminating entire groups of people, like Mark Rubio did.
Wait, what? Target barely even had a Pride campaign this year. They started rolling it out early, then backpedaled so fast and so far that there was basically nothing in June. Certainly nothing that classified as “sexual” to a sane human being. Also, if they’re still claiming there was anything actually trans-body-friendly in children’s sizes, that is pure fiction. As a trans, queer person, I would give Target maybe a C- for LGBTQ+ - friendliness, and that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt. These scumbags are not only morally bankrupt, they’re barking up the wrong tree.
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