It’s been more than a year since the publication of “Mandate for Leadership,” the 900-page book of policy proposals also known as Project 2025. The book outlines how a future Republican president should navigate an administrative transition. Media has painted the book as a harbinger of what’s to come rather than the culmination of a decades-long plot to undermine democracy.
I think we need different incentives than profit when it comes to information sharing. Maybe a profit motive isn’t the best thing for a “news” source to have. Especially when ratings seem to be tied to ragebait and hate.
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Journalists and editors need to eat. And the problem is if the government gets involved and funds it, well let’s just say that ends badly. Not even the post office is allowed to run without being fucked with by republicans, and then they are somehow forced to turn a profit, when they are also forced to run in a way that is antithetical to making profit based decisions. And now you have the government deciding for the news, what is biased. And no more reporting on government officials that aren’t just puff pieces.
It’s not impossible, however. While the BBC indeed has a lot of problems on its own, it’s actually been relatively well separated from the British government. They’ve had more issues with covering up for their own celebrities like Jimmy Savile, rather than covering for the government.
But yes, journalists need to eat and they’re being paid so little that it results in the kind of media landscape we have now. We no longer have a host of long-form investigative journalists who are given months to research and develop stories. The 24 hour news cycle has reduced everything to minimal impact and journalists having to pump out stories without real depth.
Ok…. And you assume this will be true… if an American government… who established a Russian asset as president, is attempting to defund private schools so that they can give money to certain religious orgs and push a Christian message, who is trying to privatize the post office, and who refuse to answer to war crimes is a good environment to take control of the news media?
I didn’t argue that at all, but you do you on putting words in my mouth.
I didn’t attempt to. Just saying. You said it wasn’t impossible for government owed news media to dutifully report against the government. Maybe not, but our country’s kinda stacked the deck against that
Yeah the issue is the profit motive encompasses all industries and forces them to a race to the bottom. Innovation is eaten alive for profits, nothing goes back into the company, and the shareholders reign supreme. This is simply an example of what capitalism does to journalism, nothing more.
I’m not sure why we need share holders at all. Not sure what function they serve. A business can remain active without the stock market if they produce value. They could innovate and not necessarily be wholly motivated by profit above all else.
They used to