Without Trump, the Atlantic has lost *more than half* of its online audience in the last year alone. The NYT and the Guardian have lost 1/3 of theirs. MSNBC and CNN's cable ratings are even worse.
Trump single-handedly saved this industry for 4 years.
Meanwhile, independent journalists who didn't base their entire existence and worldview on Trump -- but understood there were other relevant power centers, problems and pathologies that had nothing to do with him -- are thriving more than never. Maybe draw some lessons from this?
(The only reason The Intercept isn't on that above list is because - even with Trump and even with their obscene salaries and multi-million budgets - their audience size is way too small to measure. If not for @TheInterceptBr & like 3 US writers, their numbers would be negative).
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MSNBC's lawyers argued - and a court agreed - that Maddow can't be sued for defamation, even when she accuses an outlet of being "literally paid Russian propaganda," because nobody takes her seriously. No liberal outlet will mention this even as they *constantly* say it about Fox
There are literally thousands of media reports about this ruling concerning Fox, and almost none about the exact same arguments from MSNBC's lawyers about Maddow, even though the Maddow ruling was first. Once you watch for it, it'll amaze you how glaring:
In both the Fox & MSNBC cases, it's standard for lawyers in a defamation case to argue that the statement in question wouldn't be understood as literal but as opinion/subjective, etc.
But they use this ruling to claim Fox "admits" it lies while ignoring MSNBC's identical ruling.
One of the most transparently fraudulent and self-serving conceits of corporate media -- when they're trying to malign and demean those doing better than they -- is to accuse others of using fear and anger to attract an audience, as if corporate media doesn't do that. NPR:
As @mtaibbi documented in "Hate, Inc." -- what I regard as the best book on modern corporate media in the last decade -- the core model of corporate media is dependent upon dividing the citizenry and stimulating hatred and rage toward one another:
And as @mtaibbi wrote this morning, literally every accusation and grievance @NPR voiced about independent media which is succeeding more than they applies at least as much to NPR. The funniest one: those other outlets are bad because they're partisan.🤣
If you trust the Biden WH to decree what is "misinformation," these claims have been deemed as such:
* COVID is transmitted human-to-human (Jan 2020)
* You should wear masks to protect against COVID (March 2020)
* It's possible COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab (all of 2020).
If, last March, you encouraged people to wear masks against COVID, the WHO/CDC/Fauci cabal said that was "disinformation."
If, throughout 2020, you said it seems possible COVID came from a lab leak, you were banned from social media.
Who trusts them to be the Ministry of Truth?
The people who lied repeatedly before the election, saying the authentic Biden documents were "Russian disinformation" - and censored reporting based on that lie - now want to anoint themselves the Ministry of Truth, empowered to censor "disinformation":
Seriously, who the fuck is the White House to be dictating who should and should not be banned from social media platforms, to keep lists of who they think are the spreaders of "misinformation," and then pressure companies they regulate to obey? This is pernicious shit:
Here's more of Jen Psaki issuing decrees on who should and shouldn't be allowed to use social media, then smugly scoffing at the notion that this should concern anyone on the ground that we're going to die if we don't submit to the White House's orders:
Day 2 of @ACLU silence as the White House expands its boasting of the pressure it's placing on the tech companies it regulates to censor content it designates as misleading and to ban the people on its lists, now insisting they be banned on all platforms.
The Biden administration is telling Facebook which posts it regards as "problematic" so that Facebook can remove them.
This is the union of corporate and state power -- one of the classic hallmarks of fascism -- that the people who spent 5 years babbling about fascism support.
If you don't find it deeply disturbing that the White House is "flagging" internet content that they deem "problematic" to their Facebook allies for removal, then you are definitionally an authoritarian. No other information is needed about you to know that.
There is no circumstance -- none -- in which it's acceptable for the White House or any other agency of the government to be providing lists to Facebook of "problematic" content it wants removed, yet's that exactly what Psaki says they're doing:
The Speaker, already one of the richest members in Congress, has become far richer through investment maneuvers in Big Tech. In July, she had a private conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook -- the company in which the couple has traded more frequently and profitably.
As the California Democrat has risen to obtain greater political power, her personal wealth has risen along with it. Pelosi “has seen her wealth increase to nearly $115 million from $41 million in 2004,” reports @OpenSecretsDC.