Jul 12, 2024 09:46
And no, they are not trash for the reasons conspiracy theorists and "independent" podcasters and bloggers like to pretend they are trash - in fact that bloc of grifters whose primary message is "LOL the mainstream media sucks so send us money so we can tell you just how much they suck" are exactly a part of the problem. Those guys have no content of their own beyond whining about other people's content.
The media is not trash because they bend the truth, or because they engage in propaganda for one party or another, or because they are too woke, or because they are too conservative, or whatever. That's freedom of speech, in a free country they're allowed to be just that.
Western media is trash because by and large IT'S NOT FUCKING FREE.
There is nothing more infuriating than reading a blog, which has an extract from an article that seems interesting, so you try to click through to the source that was quoted, but first of all you can't just copy the link to the place because ordinary links don't exist in email newsletters any more, instead you get a redirect link that obfuscates the original link that it's actually linking to and instead sends you through a proxy who is harvesting data on all the clicks to give feedback to the writers about engagement... As if it wasn't enough that they already put fucking tracking pixels into the emails so that they can even see when and how often people open the mail, safe in the knowledge that most users aren't privacy-savvy enough to block all images in their email client to thwart this kind of privacy invasion. Thanks, Substack, you fucking scummy, VC-funded, Silicon Valley shitbags for turning blogs into exactly the kind of privacy-invading, money-grubbing, engagement-oriented social media shitshow that they used to be a respite from.
But then you finally get through the click redirect nonsense AND THEN YOU STILL CAN'T READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE BECAUSE THERE IS A PAYWALL. Oh hello, here we are talking about how democracy dies in darkness or how we have all the news that's fit to print except LOL POOR PEOPLE CAN'T READ IT. And do not even start with this bullshit of "oh well people used to have to pay for newspapers", get the fuck out of here. Homeless people sleep under newspapers. There's newspapers lying around in every train station and diner and park bench and in the goddamn public library. If people want to read the news in a newspaper, they can read it, for free, exactly as it should be, because it is important in a democracy that anybody can access news that can inform them of what is going on in their community and in their government, that those with authority are transparently being held to account.
The mainstream media isn't evil because they are biased, or they aren't holding the right people to account, or whatever. They're evil because nowadays they often place an arbitrary barrier in front access to information that actually should be free.
And of course there's ways around it. You can open a private browser tab, or you can look up the article on one of those shady "archive" websites that de-paywalls and de-tracking-pixels articles. Except you fucking can't because you don't have the original link to the article because it was obfuscated by the scummy middle-man who is only interested in making their own money off of privacy invasion and selling engagement metrics to "independent" writers who are being strongarmed into paywalling their own fucking content too. Yeah, all those brave, canceled journalists who left the mainstream media to kick off their own blogs, go straight to a monolithic social media platform whose primary goal is to extract as much personal data from their users as possible so they can bump the valuation, go IPO and make a bunch of rich people even richer, so by the way, make sure you paywall half your content and send out bait-and-switch newsletters that give half the article and then abruptly stop and say "but if you subscribed you could read more".
No. No, you motherfuckers, i won't subscribe. You are all fucking assholes.
I have no problem paying for journalism. I have been a long-time paid subscriber to The Guardian, for example, and you know why? BECAUSE THEIR FUCKING NEWSPAPER IS FREE TO READ FOR ALL. They actually do care about a free media, and that's something that i think is worth paying for. CBC (Canada), another good example. They fucking care about making sure everyone can read the news. PBS, BBC. People whine about government-funded news sources and how they aren't fair and balanced, but you know what's really unfair and unbalanced? NOT LETTING THE PEOPLE READ YOUR REPORTING IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, fucking hell. Trash trash trash.
Yes, i have had an exhausting week at work, i am cranky, and i am letting some frustration out on unrelated things because i have had it. I have another TED talk about class consciousness that i half-wrote in my head but haven't had the energy to sit down and write out. But this morning's quiet "let me just relax and read the news before i have to face the day's drama at work" except I CAN'T READ THE NEWS BECAUSE FUCK YOU kinda gave me the push i needed to rant. Goddamnit i am supposed to be on a bike right now and i haven't had breakfast yet. Fuck this shit. I blame the media.
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