Agree that initially they were never on “Team Trump” largely because Trump was going to push through things they wanted anyways (deregulation, taxes, SC etc).
They probably thought he was a moron, but a useful moron they could use at a distance. That has all changed now as Trump has effectively re-aligned GOP power structures over the last few years.
The power structures that the Koch brothers built over the last few decades are not helping their cause as much as they used to, which is precisely why they have come out of the shadows this time around to finance Haley.
Trump vs Haley is now effectively Koch & their backers vs Trump and his cultists
At this point, the media is complicit. I can kind of give them a pass for 2016 because it was all so unprecedented. This time around, they know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re ok with the consequences.
Also, Biden probably has a better chance against Haley than Trump, so whether you prefer Biden OR Haley, I think the obvious thing to do is vote for Haley in the GOP primary if you don’t want Trump to pull a Grover Cleveland.
If Trump wins the nomination I have a feeling they will focus on turnout in key states like never before. While a person who supports Trump in 2024 but didn’t in 2020 is nonexistent… if they can boost their turnout they could still win.
Complicit? They’re just private businesses running a business. They’re in the business of people reading what they have to write.
I think America would be a smarter place if everyone read the newspaper everyday instead of Facebook, but that’s not the fault of media companies, that’s the fault of the people themselves.
Is it behind a pay wall for you? Newspapers are expensive. Fact based journalism is expensive. Social media is free. Americans without the means to pay for good journalism can get local broadcast and social media for free.
Advertising drives American society. We have the thinnest of legal controls on false advertising. As long as a media/news producer doesn’t lie about a corporation or individual with deep enough pockets to sue them there are no limits to what they can say.* We the consumer of content have no way to determine fact from fiction other than analysis of context and knowing the content producer.
The biggest limit on content is you cannot say things that piss off your advertisers or content host.
The current structure of our digital world is designed to push users to consumer more advertising. It is feelings based clicking. Trying to get to good journalism is like trying to keep your feet planted against a riptide. Even good articles have those sponsored links at the bottom drawing you to puppies, nipples, and/or violence.
Quaker Oats can’t consider how much sawdust to put in their oatmeal without considering a federal regulation. Are there any similar protections for the American consumer of media? We, America, can’t seem to even consider some form of limitation and without it the sheer size of the corporate and national players will overwhelm the choose of the individual consumer.
“Fact based journalism” is a fallacy. Newspapers claim this as well as “responsible journalism”, but it is not. I do not view any social media at all (intentionally), which includes ads or articles. But I’m sure that newspaper reporting is better than social media news. However, social media has pushed “newspapers” into shittier reporting. Misleading headlines, more opinion pieces disguised as objective, and decisions on what to report on and what not to report on. There are very few challenges to “societal beliefs” that are espoused as facts by the publisher. A lack of true debate. Newspapers further the divide.
I’ve considered subscribing to a paper or two, but there are far too many options. Somewhere like WaPo or NYT will occasionally come out with an amazing article (like the recent graphic one on school shootings from WaPo), but I can’t justify a subscription when 95% of the time I see the WaPo headline and go, “Huh let’s read about this from a place I can access.” Or I can simply bypass it, but that’s more effort than most people will go through if they even know they can.
Yep, and this may very well be the downfall of America. The constitution broken and discarded due to a strict literal adherence to the constitution.
We need regulation on food because most people do not eat locally. Local food gives the individual a reasonable ability to determine the quality of the food they purchase. I can visit the cow before I serve the steak. A little local newspaper reporting on local news is the same. Once it is no longer reasonable for the individual to determine the quality of what they are consuming, whether food or information, some form of assistance needs to be provided to the individual to do determine the quality.
There must be checks and balances to all forms of power within a society. I don’t think power corrupts I think it magnifies. Government power must be limited with checks and balances. Nongovernment entities must also be limited with checks and balances. By trying to clinging to an understanding of “what people put in their brain” from over two centuries ago we are leaving the power of the digital world to those that gain power from controlling “what people put in their brains” without checks and balances.
In 1990, a week of home delivery (for people living in the Northeast) of the New York Times cost $5 ($600 a year in 2023 dollars). A week of a home delivery for The Buffalo News cost $3.05 ($365 a year in 2023). These prices were significantly subsidized by advertising revenue.
We paid a lot more for newspapers back then, although we didn’t have the external costs of paying for computer and internet.
Nowadays I think long and hard if it’s going to cost more than $5 a month.
I’ve thought that in 2023 we’d be better off if they had used more words to write a narrower amendment. Something along the lines of:
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the people to use speech or the press to criticize government officeholders or candidates for government office, or to promote or oppose changes to government policies.
I’d like to be able to control commercial speech. I’d ban alcohol and gambling advertising outright, and tax most other commercial advertising.
It’s not so much the cost (although $600/year would be beyond my price point). It’s the cost AND the variety. Do I pick NYT just because they’re a big paper? I like a lot of WaPo reporting but I see them as biased and I’d prefer a more moderate venue. I already read AP News and Reuters so where’s the best place to add context? When I read that Tangle News it seems pretty quality and balanced for free already.
Basically, I’m not going to subscribe to 5 papers and am overwhelmed with options.
Networks fully embraced broadcasting Trump 24/7 because it brought viewers, which brought advertisers and their sweet moolah - and they figured “if we don’t cover his hate and vitriol for what it really is, people will still be smart enough to figure it out.” Which, they clearly aren’t (and never were to begin with).
Newspapers fully endorsed talking about Trump but not his hate and vitriol because they didn’t want to lose subscribers at a time where people were already turning away from newspapers in numbers.
Everyone in the media knew who Trump was. They just chose their instant meal ticket over the proper functioning of decades of democracy that helped bring about their existence in the first place.
I’ve got time and interest, but I’m not spending $100 a month to support journalism across the state. I wouldn’t have a problem dropping say $50-100 a year to get full access to a wide swath of newspapers around the country. As it is, I’d have to pay $10 a month for online access to the local newspaper, only to see stories in the next town over firewalled off and have to pay $10 a month for that, then another $10 for stories 2 towns up, etc. etc. etc.