The Quest for Profit Does Not Lead to Truth
How is the pursuit of profit connected to an objectively informed citizenry? This article does a very good job of covering all the ways that pursuit of profit drove the media to inundate an already misinformed plurality of the population with lies and sensationalism masquerading as fact. You quote a couple of the people leading these virtual tabloids who recognized that objectivity and truth were obviously being destroyed by their actions but who just as obviously didn’t give a shit. “Oh boy, I guess that was a bit over done . . . But it wasn’t our fault. We made lots of money!”. Isn’t that a fair paraphrase?
Let’s take this a step further. Your underlying assumption is that journalism in the public interest can be expected from organizations totally devoted to profit. I have only respect for market economics in the provisioning of non-essential goods and services but not for public information. Coverage of a critical presidential election in, still but not for long, the richest and most powerful country on the planet with two hundred years of history and tradition in vetting presidential candidates in the public forum would suggest that an unqualified, scandal ridden, television personality, with a serious personality disorder would be denounced and ignored. How many competent and experienced national politicians have been destroyed for showing emotion at the wrong time or that appeared to possibly have some involvement in a questionable business relationship? I don’t think I need to go to the trouble of listing names from the last thirty years. What was the difference with Trump? You are saying it yourself in this article. The only difference was profit. Why were those other politicians denounced and ignored by the media? No profit. Why was Senator Bernie Sanders, an experienced, outside the parties, popular candidate with actual solutions for the very same problems nearly completely ignored until he could be forced out? No profit.
Please understand this is a very, very good and important article outlining the full extent of the US media’s responsibility for what may well be the end of the United State of America. But your not going to get them to admit to anything other than that they did their job. They used the election to be even more profitable. Civics lessons do not draw a crowd or money. Pretending that profit is not a problem puts you in the same category as the people you are denouncing as normalizing the disaster. Journalists committed to the public good are far outnumbered by pundits making fortunes by pandering to all the lies and conspiracies.
So what do we do? Forget US media. Until we can remove Trump and his minions from power and create publicly owned media, social networks, and chatbot channels that can be trusted, read the international English language publications, The Economist, The Guardian, BBC News, NHK World, Al Jazeera English, that is the only option. And simply ignore Trump as he should have been ignored before.
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