The concentration and consolidation of power stretches across all sectors of the economy and society. Some in the media are declaring a new role and thus a new power in American society. It is the power of omission. The power of the eraser. The power of the secret. It’s new.
https://twitter.com/radiochio/status/1569477782236966912
2/ It commoditizes information that used to be called news and prices it into a conflict economy that schedules its release in shady arrangements where the titillations are speculative instruments sold in a media market. Sometimes it’s breaking news. Often a book deal.
3/ The “news,” such as it once was, and is still occasionally practiced, was a public good. Delivering it was viewed as a public trust for a generation. The media era that preceded this one was born out of a shocking revelation.
4/ The revelation was the deliberate lying by high government officials about a war that could not be won and a political scandal that made a President a disgrace. Accountability drove the ethic and the media revealed that politicians lie.
5/ Today the American people have concluded that the politicians and media lie together. Trust has collapsed. It has collapsed because of political coverage that is fueled by thermobaric cynicism.
6/ It has created a great national disorientation. It has stoked conflict where there should be empathy and accommodation where there should be principled defiance. People are turning off the news because moral equivalence, ludicrous parity between the lie and truth and confusion
7/ are exhausting companions on a busy day for most people. The nation needs truth tellers, explainers and people who can provide context in a transforming world where one era is passing to another. Instead we have the cheaply packaged reporter versions of subprime mortgages. Bad
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