Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson responded to criticism over his proposed acquisition of CoinDesk by saying “[this] embodies the fundamental problem of journalism.”
Specifically, he was referring to an op-ed by crypto media outlet Protos, titled “Opinion: Charles Hoskinson would be the worst thing that could happen to CoinDesk,” which criticized Hoskinson’s take on overhauling journalism by changing the incentive structure. through “truth bonds”. .”
The author explained that the journalists’ rejection would make his proposal unfeasible. Furthermore, what stands as “truth” is easily swayed by sentiment online, which, in any case, may be bought into by “an elite minority” anyway.
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In a live stream on January 20, the Cardano founder stated that the media generally has an agenda, citing several examples of this, including FTX paying the Block to generate positive narratives on the now-defunct exchange.
Rather than spin narratives and influence the masses in a particular direction, their interest in acquiring CoinDesk is to return to principled and honest reporting, Hoskinson said.
“Everyone wants to have a outlet and use it as a way to express influence in this space, so ‘our network is great and this other network is bad.’ My interest in the media side is broader, in the sense that I would like to figure out how to get to journalistic integrity, again.”
One approach to accomplishing this could be through the use of truth bonuses. This would imply that a media outlet accumulates money for each published article. If the article is considered inaccurate, the media would lose the guarantee money to the one who denounced the inaccuracy.
“Wouldn’t that be amazing in journalism, where they would be the financial incentive for people to check the facts?”
However, according to Protos, such a system would not be practical.
Hoskinson defends his ideas
However, in defending truth bonuses, Hoskinson explained that financial incentives are key to impacting human psychology and behavior.
He added that journalism’s fundamental problem boils down to the current incentive structure, which he described as one that fosters anger and division.
Journalists and the media compromise their credibility every time they publish an article. The current system has no direct financial penalties for inaccurate and dishonest reporting. But with truth bonds, inaccurate and dishonest reporting carries a financial penalty.
“By the time you actually get caught, there are no real consequences for that; the incentive structure is broken. Truth bonuses with a prediction market model say if you get caught hand in the cookie jar, you actually lose money.”
Under a truth bonus system, the public would be more inclined to trust the media, Hoskinson said.
This post Hoskinson Reacts to Reject CoinDesk Acquisition
was published first on https://cryptoslate.com/hoskinson-reacts-to-push-back-against-coindesk-acquistion/
