Why You Should Ignore the News

The business of journalism breaks into two parts: consumers and sources.

Corporate media outlets are essentially middlemen. Their business isn’t reporting the news — their business is connecting customers with holders of information (sources).

Sources

It’s easy to think of a news report as one all-encompassing story, instead of numerous individual pieces of information. This leads people to think they understand geopolitics because they watched a CNN hit on Syria. But that report isn’t a description of what’s going on in Syria, as much as it’s a compilation of information gleaned from a number of information holders (sources).

Sources are everything, because they are the producers in this information market. And just like with any purchase, you should figure out who’s making your product. Do you treat everything sold at Walmart equally or do you buy certain brands and avoid others? Walmart is the middle-man between you and the companies making your TV, clothes, and groceries. It’s up to you to choose which ones you trust. Which brings us to…

Consumers

You are the consumer of the source’s information. And like any good middle-man, the media company’s job is to find consumers and then find them products they want.

Which means (if the company is doing its job), the report you read on Syria is not only a compilation of a limited number of information points, but also that those pieces of information are ones that are chosen specifically for the target consumer.

The obvious problem here is that, within this middle-man business model, there’s no real place for the information the target consumer doesn’t want to see.

When you buy an Xbox at Walmart, you want an Xbox. It would be pretty upsetting if you bought what you thought was an Xbox, got it home, and there was dog food in the box.

The same thing would happen if a dedicated Fox News viewer were to turn on Hannity and see information that contradicted the conservative line on Iran. Or if one of MSNBC’s faithful were to hear Rachel Maddow demonstrate a competent understanding of economics. That’s not what either of them came to the information store to purchase.

It’s easy to see this dynamic at play in super-partisan outlets like Fox or MSNBC, but this is how all corporate news media works. They’re all fundamentally using the same middle-man business model.

There are corporations that offer a less politically biased product, but that’s only because these companies are targeting a more “moderate” audience. These outlets aren’t fundamentally better at delivering the whole picture because they still only deliver the product the consumer wants. In many (such) cases, “moderate” media outlets are worse at delivering news, since they exclude extreme views altogether. Your average Washington Post reader doesn’t want to even consider the horrors of the military industrial complex or the problems inherent to central banking.

I hear people say things like, “When I read the news, I pick out the facts and ignore the opinions and bias.” But how can you avoid the bias when it occurs during the compilation of facts?

If the facts were selected in a manner with which to deliver confirmation bias to a certain consumer group, there can only be a limited window of opinions the reader can possibly form from those facts.

Luckily, the internet has disrupted the media industry so greatly that their stranglehold on information is a thing of the past. The ability to instantly connect with people all over the world has exposed corporations that are selling connections instead of products. The middleman isn’t necessary anymore. Now you can get your information directly from the source — from other individuals on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. And as long as these companies keep their platforms relatively free and open, you don’t need to consume information through a targeted corporate filter.

Of course, the fear is that these companies will restrict the open flow of information on their platforms. I’m not as worried about this as some people.

Most of the bans and “crackdowns” on speech by Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook have been aimed at people who have a large audience, like Alex Jones or Gavin McGinnis, and who are basically following the middle-man media model (albeit with better personalities). Even if these companies manage to eliminate all their new media enemies, they will have to ban their entire consumer base before they stop the free flow of information between individuals.

Ultimately, what’s important isn’t whether or not Alex Jones can target his consumers with filtered information points. What’s important is that Alex Jones’ consumers can communicate freely with his sources. To be honest, I have no idea who Alex Jones’ sources are and that was probably a terrible example. I imagine most of them are too afraid of the radioactive internet waves that WiFi routers emit to have a Twitter account in the first place. All that aside…

Understand that the disruptive power of the internet is that, for the first time ever, otherwise unrelated strangers can instantly connect with each other. It is NOT that unrelated strangers can now connect to a media personality that feeds them tailored information. That ability always existed.

We’re headed in a good direction and there’s probably not much anyone can do to stop it.

If you enjoyed this read, check out my podcast Own Yourself every Friday evening and follow me over on Twitter @VotingIsVilence. I’m also on Minds @AlexRDell.