wait what happened to the free press 🤨🤔🤔 could it be that such a thing is merely a mirage in liberal “democracies”?
Democracy, liberal or not, can only exist where there is a free press. That’s what was so concerning about Bezos’ actions with WaPo in the lead up to the election. His and others interference with the press is what has helped us all descend into authoritarianism. Imagine a world without the likes of Rupert Murdoch or massive ownership consolidation of most sources of information.
don’t have to imagine it, we’re all in it
Sorry. “Without” Autocorrect Faux-Pas
While I’m not defending our current situation for news, there is a reason conditions are the way they are. The general unprofitability of running a news network in the modern day, especially when both print and online advertising rates are rock bottom, forces all but the biggest players out.
Social media, 24/7 cable news, and forum websites are many peoples’ main sources of news, often due to their entry price of 0. As a result, the death of well funded independent journalism was inevitable, and we’re all suffering the consequences of that. Especially those who don’t know how or don’t care to verify their sources.
At this point I tend to have better luck running a Wikipedia search on the latest events and checking the citations section than checking any major website/app’s feed, especially with most media feeds being curated nowadays. Unless open platforms gain wider adoption, where people all over the world collaborate to find answers to the world’s problems, I doubt things will improve.
As long as the press is a capitalist enterprise it will be owned and directed by capitalists. This not a malfunction of the system, or an undesirable byproduct, its core to the maintenance of capitalism that its press be owned by capitalists.
I don’t disagree but I also want to clarify that a press run or funded by the government is the opposite of a free press.
Run yes, funded no. ABC & BBC are a net positive - as long as they stay independent.
Right, but it follows that at the moment no western liberal democracy has a mainstream free press since they’re all ran or at least funded by their liberal government or by private capital
