The Dying Art of Disagreement
Excellent article.<p>However, there is one glaring issue. I completely agree that part of the increasing radicalism among younger Americans is coming from an increasing sensationalistic media that will say anything and do anything for clicks. [0] Unfortunately, there is a reason for that. Another absolutely phenomenal article that was written by a 50 year veteran of the news industry is &quot;The Bad News About the News.&quot; [1] It describes more in detail precisely why the media has become what it has become. And the answer can be summed up in one word: money.<p>For many decades a small handful of media organizations had an effective monopoly on news, and access to information in general. That entailed a practically endless stream of money. Ethics and integrity cost nothing in a world where money is no concern. But then enter the internet. It, as a competitor to traditional news outlets, started very slow. And that slowness led traditional news media to fail to appreciate its potential. In short order the internet not only showed its potential but turned traditional media outlets borderline obsolete. They died from a fatal case of myopia. And we replaced them with social media which has shown that negative news, partisan news, emotionally charged news, and sensationalized news is what gets clicks. Even better when you combine them together.<p>And in the end, if you can&#x27;t beat them join them. This has likely only been urged on by the ownership of the news media today. Time Warner owns CNN. Comcast owns NBC. Disney owns ABC. These are not exactly the first names you think of in altruism, which is what valuing an informed public over profitable quarters comes down to. The BBC is a peculiarity. They have ostensibly no profit motive, but I&#x27;m not familiar enough with their funding&#x2F;directives&#x2F;etc to even try to hypothesize why they&#x27;ve also jumped on the bandwagon. I can say something about ostensibly not for profit organizations in the US like NPR. NPR has been struggling. In the past 10 years alone they&#x27;ve had to buy out contracts and downsize multiple times. The only way they keep afloat is by donations, and mostly large donations. With them barely staying afloat if they publish anything that might cause a corporate donor to pull their support, it would be enough to put the company back in crisis. The company itself ends up beholden to special interests in a way that&#x27;s even more insidious than Time Warner owning CNN. That&#x27;s a direct and visible line. The line between donor interests and &#x27;not for profit&#x27; organizations is less apparent to many.<p>I&#x27;m in no way defending what the news media has become. But like the article emphasizes, I think the first step before judging a group is to try your best to try to genuinely understand why they behave&#x2F;think the way they do, in lieu of just attaching a label to them and calling them evil.<p>[0] - An image that sums up the state of the media today. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;PxU76c0h.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;PxU76c0h.jpg</a><p>[1] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;csweb.brookings.edu&#x2F;content&#x2F;research&#x2F;essays&#x2F;2014&#x2F;bad-news.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;csweb.brookings.edu&#x2F;content&#x2F;research&#x2F;essays&#x2F;2014&#x2F;bad-...</a>