The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.
It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.
Because the media want him to run. Trump brings ratings. They are not incentivized to care about educating anyone; entertainment pays the bills.
Also because the media is owned by billionaires, who skew towards favoring fascism as a matter of class solidarity.
Also because billionaires tend to be sociopaths since that kind of wealth hoarding isn’t really possible unless you have little empathy for others. Sociopaths love fascism because it lets them take what they want by force, ignore social norms, and enslave or genocide anyone who they deem an impediment.
That I will not understand. Fascists are opportunists first. If they see a reason to hate on some billionaire they’ll eat him faster than the poor will. They don’t care that you gave them millions in campaign money, if your kid is gay and you say “maybe it’s okay to have gay kids” they’ll turn on you.
They’re one in the same. The opprotunist fascists are the billionaires. The same sociopathy that rewards capitalists also gives rise to fascists. Its hand in hand.
And history has demonstrated capitalists and fascists being allies.
Edit: this Atlantic article deals with IBM helping Hitler. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/
Edit: now the article below is from a left wing political mag so beat that in mind.
Even aside from the fact that other conservative and liberal parties actually voted for full powers to Hitler in 1933, his regime was characterized by massive interventions to help out private business. And the social Darwinism championed by the Nazis, counting the “unproductive” as mere wasteful expense, obeyed the logic of judging human life by the yardstick of profit.
Edit: I’ll see if I can find anything else.
If anyone else thinks its weird that capitalists, nazis, and billionaires always seem to be in close nit circles; stop thinking its weird.
I realize the following is from R**** 😲 but it is AskHistorians and so, quality post and well cited.
They are not incentivized to care about educating anyone; entertainment pays the bills.
Exactly. Back in the day, news divisions of corporations often operated at a loss because news was regarded as a public service; now they’re expected to always turn a profit.
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The Internet destroyed it. This entire thread is pure amateur hour when it comes to knowledge about the news business. US journalism has tons of problems, but they aren’t related to anything people in this thread are talking about.
This entire thread is pure amateur hour when it comes to knowledge about the news business
From April 12, 1988:
NBC News does not operate at a profit and has, in fact, lost as much as $90 million annually in recent years. The news division will also operate at a loss this year and next. However, in the business plan presented to Mr. Welch last month, the projection was for NBC News to be near the break-even point by 1990.
What’s worse is the media isn’t emphasizing how dangerous any Republicans winning right now is. They are far more dangerous and bold than Trump is right now. They are doing a fascism in Ohio for example.
You don’t say? When all they do is treat this as a football game highlights. Reporting on the dumbest shit and the important things are clips or in the bottom text box.
“The Public” is not one thing. There’s plenty of people who “understand the risks of a Trump victory.” The fact that half of the public not only doesn’t, but desires a Trump victory is also not the fault of “The Media,” because we all have access to the same media.
People who are okay with Trump being in charge of anything are fascists, and that’s their fault.
It’s more like 1/3 dem, 1/3 fasc, 1/3 doesn’t care until it affects them directly and often still don’t since their world is so insular they have a hard time understanding the decisions of others controls much of how their life operates.
I would hazard a 1/3 to 1/2 of that last third genuinely doesn’t have any resources to stay aware and engaged in the electoral process because they’re already used up on surviving and on their individual scale it doesn’t feel like either choice has a meaningful difference. The liberal establishment does itself no favors (and I say this a leftist who votes democrat)
For sure most of them I’ve met are people who lean sorta right because they’re just in their own little uninformed group, but most are too busy partying, surviving, or just literally dumb. Functional enough to hold a job, but when presented with anything out of their comfort zone, they implode.
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Go to any yt video on antarctica
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Read the comments and count how many are about “the Dome”, aliens, flat Earth.
This is your public.
The fuck is “the dome” ?
Oh, you didn’t know? There’s a huge dome encasing the entire (flat) earth, and its edges are in Antarctica. Because that’s where the edge of the earth is. Antarctica is a huge ice wall that keeps all the water in, which just makes global warming much worse 😂
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Antarctica is a huge ice wall
Something tells me these people don’t understand map projections, though that’s the least of their problems.
Go to most any non-specialized social media platform and most any post devolves into fringe and/or right wing BS. Person a) “Nice day today…” person b) “…except for that bitch Pelosi.” a) “Man, it’s cold today.” b) “Fucking libs lying about climate change”. a) Picture of the sky, has a contrail. b) “chemtrails! The Illuminati and globalists are trying to control us!” a) “Nice day today…” b) only because god praise lord Jesus Christ died for your nice day and our veterans and police officers I support blah blah blah…
That’s really funny and ridiculous. What if going out in public was actually like a youtube comment section? That would be amazing.
Move to Missouri or Florida
“Missouri Man” just rolls off the tongue, are they the next Florida?
High concentration of the public there, true.
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Not just trump. Any Republican president will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics. The entire GOP is an openly-fascist political arm of the billionaire class.
And let’s be clear. “Democrat” is simply sucking their fucking dick.
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While I know what you mean, it’s ironic that you posted this on a comment chain about a guardian article. It’s literally an independent left wing newspaper.
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This is objectively bullshit.
Not if you still watch TV
It doesn’t help that the media gamely both-sides every issue, even when the issue in question is not one that has two legitimate sides.
For example, it’s a story when women lose their rights and protections and bodily autonomy, when brown and poor voters lose their voting rights or have their representative power gerrymandered away, when powerful men violate the law and aren’t held accountable, etc.
There are two sides to these stories, but one of them is outside the bounds of the peace that makes civilization possible and when ‘the media’ decline to call that out, they’ve picked a side and it’s not the one that will sustain or defend a republic
Nearly every single repub politician is a fucking worthless traitor.
“But… but… fairness! Both sides!”
Yeah, that’s the damage Fox News has done to our national discourse. As if all sides of the story are backed equally by facts.
To quote Gingrich, “As a political candidate, I’ll go with what people feel…” Because manipulating people’s feelings is easier than manipulating facts.
found the centrist
A trump victory is great for ratings of mainstream media. They are fueled by trump hatred and it makes them billions.
the “Press” is Capitalism ~ only clicks and impressions matter ~ the world can burn
If the public didn’t learn from his prior presidency then we are well and truly fucked and this country is over and done with.
it’s so so sooooo difficult to take this language seriously. because EVERY election is phrased with this sky-is-falling rhetoric. i am 45 and for as long as i have been a voter, this-next-one is the-big-one.
nevertheless, i do actually think that this time bad things really will happen.
also, i want to get it out there that even though this guardian piece downplays “biden is old”, i cannot stress enough that i will unconditionally NOT vote for biden. so these fuckers better put up a reasonable candidate very quickly.
In other words, you’re going to help enable the “bad things” that you agree really will happen.
How brave of you.
I’m 50 something. 2015 was the only big one the USA has experienced during that time. Yet people were too goddamned moronic to see it.
I think you’d have to ignore everything Trump did 2016-20 and ignore what the SCOTUS has become to not see this election as the second big one.
But if Americans are really this idiotic, then I guess we will get what we deserve.
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How did Obama and the DNC “give away” SCOTUS to the Republicans? You can’t be that stupid.
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Republicans had control over the Senate. What were they supposed to do? The Constitution isn’t specific about what to do when a leader refuses to do their job so they can deny a SCOTUS seat to the opposition.
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If we’re going to remain a nation of laws rather than men, then we have to be scrupulous in how we interpret and follow the law. I know you’re prepared to fight fire with fire, but once you validate the precedent of destroying authoritarians by behaving like an authoritarian, you completely remove any justification for opposing what they’re trying to do.
So please, sit down and shut the fuck up.
So… you’re the proof of the article I guess?
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Through the time, the media has changed. No so long ago, it was to inform the population of what was happening outside. The news freedom is important at this point. It allows everyone to build an opinion, and it’s a counter power to the state. The last decade saw a radical change in how we use the media. It’s for a good part of them about making money. Where money was critical to inform the population, this same money became critical to make profit. Internet accelerates the movement with the clicks and the views. The run to maximize the profit coming from the media ruined the quality of the articles behind the motto “more and shorter”.
This change has been coming since the 90s, ever since Reagan shut down the Fairness Doctrine in the FCC and the media cross-ownership rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States
After the 1996 Telecommunications Act, most of those rules were repealed and we began to see quick consolidation of media outlets. That’s why most newspapers and broadcast stations are owned by a single corporate parent. It has not led to greater competition and better journalism. Quite the opposite.
Almost nobody gets any news from anything that would be covered by the fairness doctrine, which was only a possible federal power due to the FCC being in control of allocating radio frequency.
Stop preaching like it would have made any difference at all, because it functional died with the rise of cable TV anyway, Reagan or no Reagan.
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This entire thread is pure amateur hour. The ignorance on display here is very disheartening and speaks to how a lack of media literacy contributes to the larger dysfunction. People know something is wrong, they just have no idea why or how it’s gone wrong.
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That’s an important factor, but another is the shift from print to the internet. With print you bought a paper then looked to see what was inside. You could know which papers had more reliable reporting. With the internet there’s no audience loyalty and most people are not paying, so they’re always desperate to get you to click on their article instead of someone else’s for the sake of the advertising views. So shock, outrage and clickbait win every time, not responsible reporting.
