Media Capture Is No Joke [View all]
Daily Kos, Nov. 28, 2024. Ed. Image: 'I wish this were fake news' poster
For the past week, Elon Musk has repeatedly commented about buying MSNBC. At the same time, Musk accused the news outlet of peddling "puerile propaganda" and derided MSNBC's ratings, which have- as might be expected - dropped since the election. The result has been a string of comments on Twitter and Fox News in which Trump supporters chortle over the thought of replacing Rachel Maddow with Joe Rogan and exult in the distress they believe Musk's comments must be generating on the left.
Many of Musk's "jokes," and those of toadies like Rogan, have been accompanied by the kind of homophobic, racist, or misogynist memes that have come to dominate Twitter since Musk laid down $44 billion to destroy that platform. But even as Musk and his social media pals laugh, no one should consider this a farce. It's a threat. And it's not just a threat against MSNBC. Musk is signaling that he has the limitless resources and unchecked power to purchase and shutter any outlet he believes represents a threat to Donald Trump or the incoming array of kleptocrats. He can not only silence perceived critics, he can do it on a whim.
What Musk is suggesting is known as "media capture," and it's a common practice among authoritarian governments everywhere. Whether it's a long series of Russian journalists falling from windows, or Victor Orban building a media empire that controls every scrap of news reaching the citizens of Hungary, a hallmark of authoritarian governments is that they do not tolerate independent reporting.
One of the first and most obvious messages to emerge in the wake of the election earlier this month was just how uninformed and misinformed many American voters already are. In post-election interviews, many voters falsely attributed policies advocated by Kamala Harris to Trump. The policies that Trump actually ran on, from inflationary tariffs to mass deportations to the destruction of the legal system, were either missed altogether or dismissed as inconsequential political rhetoric...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/28/2289221/-Media-capture-is-no-joke
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