The purchase of The Baltimore Sun is further proof that conservative billionaires understand the power of media control. Why don’t their liberal counterparts get it?
How different would things be out there in America if, 15 or 20 years ago, some rich liberal or consortium of liberals had had the wisdom to make a massive investment in local news? There were efforts along these lines, and sometimes they came to something. But they were small. What if, instead of right-wing Sinclair, some liberal company backed by a group of billionaires had bought up local TV stations or radio stations or newspapers all across the country?
Again, we can’t know, but we know this much: Support for Democrats has shriveled in rural America to near nonexistence, such that it is now next to impossible to imagine Democrats being elected to public office at nearly any level in about two-thirds of the country. It’s a tragedy. And it happened for one main reason: Right-wing media took over in these places and convinced people who live in them that liberals are all God-hating superwoke snowflakes who are nevertheless also capable of destroying civilization, and our side didn’t fight it. At all. If someone had formed a liberal Sinclair 20 years ago to gain reach into rural and small-town America, that story would be very different today.
There has in recent years been an impressive growth of nonprofit media outlets, led nationally by ProPublica and laying down roots everywhere, from the aforementioned Baltimore, where the Baltimore Banner has sometimes been scooping the Sun, to my home state of West Virginia, where Pulitzer Prize–winner Ken Ward’s Mountain State Spotlight is doing terrific reporting. These outlets are welcome indeed. They do sharp and necessary reporting. But they’re nonprofits, which, under IRS rules, cannot be partisan. They have to be apolitical.
I think one of the hard issues about making left-wing spin-machines is that a large chunk of the left would reject them. Following the old adage, “Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line,” I fear that you can get the right to follow any ridiculous story because they are unified in wanting their ‘side’ to win, but a good number of Democrats would become disenchanted by fake news and may even become turncoats if asked to believe muckraking spin as Truth. Surely there’s a good number of low-interest left-leaners who would be happy to believe and follow half-truths and lies, but I doubt Democrats would get the same consensus of accepting such as good politics the way Republicans do.
This right here. There’s simply no mirror image of Fox News or Breitbart on the left, nor would I want one.
The problem is that we have a wildly uneven playing field where one side refuses to play by the rules. There’s no good faith engagement with right-wing media because they will say and do whatever it takes, destroy whatever and whomever it takes, lie, cheat, spin, etc. to achieve their goals. The right wing is working in a fully scorched earth mentality. It doesn’t matter if what they’re doing hurts themselves, their followers, whomever: they are 100% fueled by hatred and a desire for dominance, and if it means burning the whole country down to get what they want, that’s just fine to them. A while back I saw someone say “Republicans would let Trump take a shit in their mouths as long as a Liberal had to smell it” and it never fails to be true.
There’s simply nothing like that on the left, and I totally agree that it wouldn’t be effective even if there were. Truth means nothing to the Right. But using spin and rage-baiting is not something that’s part of a leftist ideal. For people who believe in truth, equality, equity, basic human decency, and a desire to actually build a society that cares about the people in it, using tactics like that are antithetical.
I don’t know what the answer is though. As someone up the thread pointed out, there’s no such thing as a liberal billionaire, and even if there were, trying to buy back all of the media in the country wouldn’t help. It would just feed the right’s narratives even further. But what the fuck do we do when we have media that presents “Let’s have a more caring and compassionate society” and “We think entire groups of people shouldn’t exist” as equal ideas that should be given equal weight and discourse?
As someone up the thread pointed out, there’s no such thing as a liberal billionaire
I don’t know about that. Bill Gates is pretty decent these days. In fact he probably always was a decent human being, but his poor business practices overshadowed that in the past. Tim Cook seems a pretty decent person too and just him coming out did a lot for the LGBT community. I think most Silicon Valley CEOs are pretty progressive in fact (Musk excluded obviously)
They’re pretty right-wing economically due to being CEOs (and billionaires) but fairly left-wing socially.
Unfortunately that’s not really true. Silicon Valley has deep roots in Libertarianism. Some of them might talk the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” talk, but that’s becoming more and more rare. People like Marc Andreesen, Peter Thiel, Musk, Bezos, Zuck, et al are deeply terrifying, and are openly espousing racist and eugencist beliefs.
Bill Gates is pretty decent these days. In fact he probably always was a decent human being, but his poor business practices overshadowed that in the past
Actually he’s a deeply terrible person. Even outside of swallowing up and destroying competition and pushing monopolistic business practices, he was a tyrant to work for, treated everyone around him like shit, sexually harassed multiple women, and has ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Actually he’s a deeply terrible person. Even outside of swallowing up and destroying competition and pushing monopolistic business practices, he was a tyrant to work for, treated everyone around him like shit, sexually harassed multiple women, and has ties to Jeffrey Epstein…
Wow. I had no idea. I’m sure you’re right, I don’t really follow US media very well. I just remember seeing him give a cool gift during secret santa on reddit and thinking “Huh this guy actually turned out okay”.
Some of them might talk the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” talk, but that’s becoming more and more rare. People like Marc Andreesen, Peter Thiel, Musk, Bezos, Zuck, et al are deeply terrifying, and are openly espousing racist and eugencist beliefs.
Hmm ok, I thought it was more liberal there. Especially because I’ve heard it’s a good and inclusive workplace etc. But like I said, I’m not very aware of the US so I stand corrected. Thank you.
I think one of the hard issues about making left-wing spin-machines is that a large chunk of the left would reject them. Following the old adage, “Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line,” I fear that you can get the right to follow any ridiculous story because they are unified in wanting their ‘side’ to win, but a good number of Democrats would become disenchanted by fake news and may even become turncoats if asked to believe muckraking spin as Truth. Surely there’s a good number of low-interest left-leaners who would be happy to believe and follow half-truths and lies, but I doubt Democrats would get the same consensus of accepting such as good politics the way Republicans do.
This right here. There’s simply no mirror image of Fox News or Breitbart on the left, nor would I want one.
The problem is that we have a wildly uneven playing field where one side refuses to play by the rules. There’s no good faith engagement with right-wing media because they will say and do whatever it takes, destroy whatever and whomever it takes, lie, cheat, spin, etc. to achieve their goals. The right wing is working in a fully scorched earth mentality. It doesn’t matter if what they’re doing hurts themselves, their followers, whomever: they are 100% fueled by hatred and a desire for dominance, and if it means burning the whole country down to get what they want, that’s just fine to them. A while back I saw someone say “Republicans would let Trump take a shit in their mouths as long as a Liberal had to smell it” and it never fails to be true.
There’s simply nothing like that on the left, and I totally agree that it wouldn’t be effective even if there were. Truth means nothing to the Right. But using spin and rage-baiting is not something that’s part of a leftist ideal. For people who believe in truth, equality, equity, basic human decency, and a desire to actually build a society that cares about the people in it, using tactics like that are antithetical.
I don’t know what the answer is though. As someone up the thread pointed out, there’s no such thing as a liberal billionaire, and even if there were, trying to buy back all of the media in the country wouldn’t help. It would just feed the right’s narratives even further. But what the fuck do we do when we have media that presents “Let’s have a more caring and compassionate society” and “We think entire groups of people shouldn’t exist” as equal ideas that should be given equal weight and discourse?
I don’t know about that. Bill Gates is pretty decent these days. In fact he probably always was a decent human being, but his poor business practices overshadowed that in the past. Tim Cook seems a pretty decent person too and just him coming out did a lot for the LGBT community. I think most Silicon Valley CEOs are pretty progressive in fact (Musk excluded obviously)
They’re pretty right-wing economically due to being CEOs (and billionaires) but fairly left-wing socially.
Unfortunately that’s not really true. Silicon Valley has deep roots in Libertarianism. Some of them might talk the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” talk, but that’s becoming more and more rare. People like Marc Andreesen, Peter Thiel, Musk, Bezos, Zuck, et al are deeply terrifying, and are openly espousing racist and eugencist beliefs.
Actually he’s a deeply terrible person. Even outside of swallowing up and destroying competition and pushing monopolistic business practices, he was a tyrant to work for, treated everyone around him like shit, sexually harassed multiple women, and has ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Wow. I had no idea. I’m sure you’re right, I don’t really follow US media very well. I just remember seeing him give a cool gift during secret santa on reddit and thinking “Huh this guy actually turned out okay”.
Hmm ok, I thought it was more liberal there. Especially because I’ve heard it’s a good and inclusive workplace etc. But like I said, I’m not very aware of the US so I stand corrected. Thank you.