"Democracy dies in Darkness" says the Washington Post, as they help turn out the lights.
https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/09/democracy-dies-in-darkness-says-motto.htmlTo conservatives, anything that isn't favorable toward their preferred perspective and politicians, and which calls out and reports negative information about them is biased, as far as they are concerned. The idea of finding a "niche" among the population that is prone to believe conspiracy theories and that is lacking enough education and discernment to actually distinguish between facts and what they perceive as some kind of bias was exploited by Rush Limbaugh. He found his "niche audience" on AM radio, a medium with which he was familiar from his days of playing records and announcing song titles and artists as a disc jockey.
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I couldn't move forward here without mentioning Rupert Murdock. No links, no credit, and one paragraph to simply say that this is one of the biggest obstacles in America to a free press. If it were possible to sue and hold accountable one person for the damage done by decades of misinformation, it would be this man, and his Fox News empire. They were sued, by the way, in a crippling way, and I am praying that there's more of this on the way. That would be one magnificent way to help turn some of the lights back on. If that would extend to all of the right wing extremist wannabees who have followed Murdock's model and imitated his despicable character, like Newsmax and others of that ilk, we might have a free press again at some point. This is one big reason why we no longer do.
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And that illustrates what's going on in America's "free press." It has grown into a system that has been made to work for its ownership's political interests. There is no interest anymore in defending Democracy or in protecting "we, the people" from tyranny. The "niche" audience of people on the political left is still large enough and effective enough to have some influence, and make a place for itself in the market, as we see in MSNBC, and to some extent, still has some influence in the corporate board rooms of the three major networks. But this is not a free press. That has died. This is now, like just about everything else in the United States, a commodity that can be bought and sold in the marketplace.
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... I actually did that once.
One time ... never again.
As more media paywall their content, the non-rich only get lies, conspiracy theories, propaganda and bullshit, which will ALWAYS be free for all to consume and choke on. In short:
They open their sites to Google in order to drive clicks, but the visitor hits the paywall instead. So that's part of how the paywall bypasses work.
Greedy people "want it both ways"
Advertising is a poison, decidedly so in election years, when lies are spread, and always a vector for malware.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/advertising-poison-hooked
I pay for what I value, and also support the free software and other sharing communities. Greed has destroyed much of the sharing spirit that communities have/had built up.
In my jobs, I have always adapted to change. Those businesses not smart enough to figure this out do not deserve my charity. In a real marketplace, they fail, but marketplaces are rigged.
In the rigged capitalist world, dinosaurs do not die out. The entire world is altered at enormous cost, to keep them alive.
So we're can have more of this biased "Reporting"
