11 ms·

The Media and Silicon Valley Are at War

38 points by apsec112 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago
> On the contrary, there is a culture clash between mainstream media which is becoming increasingly progressive and tech which is also quite progressive, but moderated by the influence of libertarians and the Intellectual Dark Web. > (Aren’t their worldviews essentially the same? No, see Freud’s Narcissism of Small Differences. What matters is proximity - both coexist within the bubble of educated professionals.) Which set of over-educated, under-cautious, overly self-actualized, out-of-touch know-betters will lead the country to Truth (TM)? Choices choices.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
The Media is dominated by labor unions. I suspect that is the key difference and the source of the conflict. Every unionized journalist has a financial conflict of interest in how they cover the news.
- croes 6y ago
  How would that change if they weren't unionized?
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    They would have no financial interest in empowering the political left. Without the anti-capitalist ideology journalists popularize, with stories about 'Amazon the exploiter' for example, the laws that violate their employers' contract liberty, and consequently provide unionized journalists with above market wages and protection from competition from other workers, would not exist.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      That’s the product not of financial interest, but geographic consolidation. As local media disappears, and the industry becomes consolidated in NYC and LA, it becomes increasingly comprised of people who are either from there, or the kind of people who are happy to leave their home towns in the rest of the country to move there. Regardless, that leads to the ideological uniformly you see. Economics is secondary here.
    - ameister14 6y ago
      That kind of story predates journalist unions. The owner of the newspaper has a financial interest in selling papers, and more people are workers than owners.
    - croes 6y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys-gamestop-story-its-hedge-funds-short-sellers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys... Sure, totally anti-capitalist ideology. Journalists are already too dependent on ad revenue, that's why they hardly criticise the top 1%.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Reddit is a threat to unionized journalists. They need top down control to maintain their privileges, like the guilds of old. Case example, for years Vox writers published articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... Fast forward three years, a new anti-gig-economy law forces Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the unionized journalists who agitated for the law: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...
    - dgb23 6y ago
      Unions are simply a tool for collective leverage and act as a counterbalance to financial leverage, where ownership and labor are disjoint and have competing interests.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Unions under current laws can force employers to negotiate exclusively with them, and can strike without fear of being fired and replaced. Collective bargaining in a free market, where the union and employer both freely choose to engage in it, is not exploitive. Under current laws, employers can be forced to engage in collective bargaining, thus limiting their options, and making it a tool for exploitation. "They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor." But that's not contract liberty. If you have contract liberty, you can choose to "rely on wage labor", as you put it, without entering into collective bargaining. The laws the unions rely on restrict contract liberty, i.e. freedom of association, and they're based on socialist constructs like "wage slavery". "Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to." I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say or what argument you think I'm making that this is relevant to. For example, I have no idea what this is referring to: "If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor)". Could you 1. reiterate to me what you think my argument is, and 2. elaborate on and clarify your point so that I may better understand it?
        dgb23 6y ago
        They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor.
        dgb23 6y ago
        > But that's not contract liberty. You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. "A company is not forced to use wage labor" does not mean "they can choose to employ workers under any kind of contract without push-back". Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to.
- mc32 6y ago
  So the union members are the luddites in this scenario. Which means in the long run, they are fated to evolve like the blacksmith of yore. No longer the center of activity, they went on to become machinists and mechanics, important cogs but not as important as before.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    The guilds only fell due to the incidental conditions in Europe. Perhaps under different conditions, like Europe coming under a single empire without the competitive and evolutionary pressures that in our timeline led to sovereign powers embracing trade and markets, guilds would have solidified their power. The fall of unions may not be inevitable.
- dgb23 6y ago
  You might want to have a look here[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
jackdaniel 6y ago
> we can hope that it’ll balance out and that the best ideas will win in the marketplace of ideas In other words, if I and my "adversary" are wrong, it will all sum up to being right. Right?
- krcz 6y ago
  Maybe there just is no objective "right" and it's better to have two biased stories with diverse biases instead of one trying its best to be unbiased.
  - jackdaniel 6y ago
    I don't have an opinion whether sourcing information from multiple opposing sources gives best opinion. Maybe it is fine, my point is that the premise of "averaging opposing narratives gives the average correct result" is not right. Let's consider a few (made up) scenarios: A is right and B is right, but they show two different sides of the story - for example a description of hurdles of two different social groups from the insider perspective, and description of a conflict between them using that perspective. Reading both is clearly good, because your understanding of the issue is deeper than just following your bubble's narrative. So far so good. A is wrong and B is wrong. For example A says, that if we let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse, and B says that if we won't let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse. Both (in this hypothetical scenario) are just putting a bogeymen to advance some narrative - you are not smarter from reading them, even more, you may truly believe either A or B and have your opinion altered by a cynical actor. Not so good, but still - you may think - since both say something completely opposite, then maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle; then you benefit from the fact, that there are two (not one) - just as you said in the parent comment. A is right and B is wrong. Say one group says, that FOO is good for you (and it is an opinion supported by some amount of evidence, and in our artifical example it is true that FOO is good for you), but B says that it is very very bad for you - be it ignorance or cynical narrative incited by Mordor-funded trolls :-) Clearly with one source of information (that is A) we are better of. So please let me reiterate - I'm not saying that sourcing information from multiple outlets is good (or wrong), only that saying that "averaging" the information gives you a more correct opinion seems dubious to me.
KaiserPro 6y ago
This appears to be a simplistic take. The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. Each media company has a target audience, and it optimises for that audience continuously. Their viewers or readers like that "property" because it's views/biases/style reflects their own. > "The media is becoming more progressive" that's a broad sweep. The demographic is changing and the various properties are changing to reflect that. Granted, there is some leeway in a media organisation pushing it's audience to one side of a debate or other. However it needs the audience to go with it. However there is no evidence provided that this is the case. I think the bigger issues is that people have realised that a small number of business are increasingly becoming arbiters of _everything_. Be that Tv shows, what opinions are penalised, who can trade where and for what price. (See the backlash from Facebook's fucking stupid PR spat against apple.) In short, I don't think the author was able to fully express their claim without making broad unsupported statements. Finally I don't think a16z's media push is going to get overly far _unless_ they provide content that people want to consume at the correct price and place. If you want to see what I mean, just look at what happened to the "let's disrupt hollywood" Effort, which amounted to nothing. (hollywood is disrupted, but by the pandemic, disney, amazon and netflix, not a startup)
- pydry 6y ago
  >The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. By and large it is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_owner...
  - lasagnaphil 6y ago
    Reminds me of this Sinclair compilation video: https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI
- libertine 6y ago
  >The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. Well in the eyes of the "advertiser" - the money - they are indeed a homogeneous lump that sell their advertising inventory to some DSP... while Facebook/Google have extremely valuable inventory due to the data granularity. And you might say, "oh this has nothing to do with advertising!". Let me tell you that I've witnessed the inner workings of large old media protecting some advertisers, as well as pilling up to attack tech giants. Media and Silicon Valley are at war since the share of media budgets accelerated towards tech giants, departing from "old" media. The media started to feel the urge to compete with user generated content when faced with this reality that reflected as lower CPMs for their inventory, and started to pump content (news/opinions/etc) - the "truth" became irrelevant as long as they are the first, or have the snappier header to grab clicks. The media is as much to blame for the status quo as any other player.
fallingknife 6y ago
> journalists barely scraping by, facing constant layoffs and a grim future as their audience slowly dies off and their authority is eroded. After watching the hysterical, paranoid coverage of the Trump administration, and now the pathetic, fawning coverage of Biden, I can't help but feeling that they deserve it.
- scient 6y ago
  Yeah, its pretty awful when the objectively worst president ever, who is nosediving the whole country, is being justifiably criticized over it in a "paranoid" manner, and the man who has to come after him and clean up all the crap is being pointlessly "fawned" over. I want to live in the fantasy world you live in.
  - lordloki 6y ago
    Is this really the place for a comment like this? This comment shows pretty clear bias and concludes with an insult. This is subpar dialog for HN.
  - lasagnaphil 6y ago
    The US seems to be nosediving at breakneck speed though, regardless of the change of president, due to the immense systemic issues it accumulated over the decades. Please try escaping out of your own liberal fantasy bubble and explore some other bubbles if you want to see how other people think about your country.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      I don't see why you assume parent is living in a fantasy bubble. Their only big claim is that Trump is objectively the worst president ever, a claim which will probably be backed up by history based solely on the unprecedented scale of his attempt to undermine the 2020 election. Even other republicans are calling him, and those who align with him, out for their antics. In what sense is this part of a "liberal fantasy bubble"?
cousin_it 6y ago
War for who gets to choose which stories are important and which points of view are respectable. I'd like that war to be won by the public, not media or SV. Society's means of communication and coordination should be equally open to all, under rules decided by all.
- thesuitonym 6y ago
  That third side already exists: The media is supposed to be independent.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - menofsteel 6y ago
    The media can't be independent of its own interests. No-one can, including any new Silicon Valley media.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  >...Society's means of communication and coordination should be equally open to all, under rules decided by all. I'm not seeing how this makes sense at all.
motohagiography 6y ago
There is a "The Media," as an entity, and it is a social class with membership based on internal codes of recognition. To be "media" means you are aligned to dominant power, and that you are a medium of that power. Ask editors and reporters whether a given writer or blogger counts as "media" or not, and you will see this is the difference. Similarly, just because you write code and live in the greater Bay Area doesn't make you part of the "Valley," either. It usually means having wealth from investments in seed and early stage tech companies. For a16z to create a public relations arm just means they're diverging, and the old east coast elite monopoly on granting media status is just one of the few slow moving dinosaur taboos ripe for disruption.
screye 6y ago
I have a hypothesis. This was inevitable. Media has always been a mix of 3 types of people: Journalists, activists and glory hunters. The shift in the revenue model since the advent of social means has banished Journalists. The only ones who can bear to stay in this dying industry is those who are in it for more than money or profession. Enter activists and glory hunters. A similar thing happened in liberal-arts academia ( and tangentially K-12 education). The slog to tenure is so horrible, that anyone who pursued critical analysis and scholarship has fled/pivoted to more rewarding industry positions. The only ones remaining are ones who care too much for the labels (Professor) or those for whom activism is a primary motivator. Thus, institutions that cater to someone of a certain education level are quickly diverging from the expectations the said consumer has from these institutions. The activists at the institutions want to impose their dogma which is exactly what a large portion of the deserters were fleeing in the first place. These people have been loosely referred to as 'The Grey tribe'. SSC figured this out a decade before and put in better words than I can. However, I recon there is far greater mutual resentment between the industry workers and institutional activists than is acknowledged by the media. Institutional activists hate tech, not due to moral reasons, but existential reasons. They know, that the power they wield is fickle. It is build on moral high-ground, virtue signalling and reputation. On the other hand, tech wields real power; power lend to them by money. Why won't they fight the war in the open ? Because media is fundamentally intertwined with politics. The Democrats and Republicans have mutually alienated each other in a manner that reconciliation isn't on the horizon. Republicans win on voter turnout. Democrats rely on receiving both the captive voter (blue tribe) and most of Grey-tribe, who hate Democrats less than Republicans. An out and out moral war leaves room for Republicans to pivot towards grey-tribe favored moderation. (Unlikely, but stranger things have happened). At the end of the day, the 'prestige' media still relies on the 'prestigious'(D.C. royalty) to bestow that prestige on them. They cannot run afoul of them entirely. IMO, the war is raging fiercer than ever. It is like two dogs who are leashed, stretching the limits of their freedom. The only reason blood hasn't been drawn, is because there are bigger masters holding the reigns (Tech - Profit motive and regulation threat. Media- Politicians and the appearance of fairness)
why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
Good. 'Presstitutes' on one side versus sociopaths on the other. Mutual destruction would be a wonderful thing.
fmajid 6y ago
The media is critical of tech because tech has impaired journalists’ job security and careers. Nothing more than sour grapes, no conspiracy needed. That also avoids them having to introspect and see how much their deference and connivence with the George W. Bush and Obama presidencies cost them in credibility. If you are going to get crap fake journalism, you might as well get the free one served by Google et al rather than pay for it.

38 points by apsec112 6y ago

> On the contrary, there is a culture clash between mainstream media which is becoming increasingly progressive and tech which is also quite progressive, but moderated by the influence of libertarians and the Intellectual Dark Web. > (Aren’t their worldviews essentially the same? No, see Freud’s Narcissism of Small Differences. What matters is proximity - both coexist within the bubble of educated professionals.) Which set of over-educated, under-cautious, overly self-actualized, out-of-touch know-betters will lead the country to Truth (TM)? Choices choices.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

The Media is dominated by labor unions. I suspect that is the key difference and the source of the conflict. Every unionized journalist has a financial conflict of interest in how they cover the news.

croes 6y ago
How would that change if they weren't unionized?
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  They would have no financial interest in empowering the political left. Without the anti-capitalist ideology journalists popularize, with stories about 'Amazon the exploiter' for example, the laws that violate their employers' contract liberty, and consequently provide unionized journalists with above market wages and protection from competition from other workers, would not exist.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    That’s the product not of financial interest, but geographic consolidation. As local media disappears, and the industry becomes consolidated in NYC and LA, it becomes increasingly comprised of people who are either from there, or the kind of people who are happy to leave their home towns in the rest of the country to move there. Regardless, that leads to the ideological uniformly you see. Economics is secondary here.
  - ameister14 6y ago
    That kind of story predates journalist unions. The owner of the newspaper has a financial interest in selling papers, and more people are workers than owners.
  - croes 6y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys-gamestop-story-its-hedge-funds-short-sellers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys... Sure, totally anti-capitalist ideology. Journalists are already too dependent on ad revenue, that's why they hardly criticise the top 1%.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Reddit is a threat to unionized journalists. They need top down control to maintain their privileges, like the guilds of old. Case example, for years Vox writers published articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... Fast forward three years, a new anti-gig-economy law forces Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the unionized journalists who agitated for the law: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...
  - dgb23 6y ago
    Unions are simply a tool for collective leverage and act as a counterbalance to financial leverage, where ownership and labor are disjoint and have competing interests.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Unions under current laws can force employers to negotiate exclusively with them, and can strike without fear of being fired and replaced. Collective bargaining in a free market, where the union and employer both freely choose to engage in it, is not exploitive. Under current laws, employers can be forced to engage in collective bargaining, thus limiting their options, and making it a tool for exploitation. "They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor." But that's not contract liberty. If you have contract liberty, you can choose to "rely on wage labor", as you put it, without entering into collective bargaining. The laws the unions rely on restrict contract liberty, i.e. freedom of association, and they're based on socialist constructs like "wage slavery". "Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to." I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say or what argument you think I'm making that this is relevant to. For example, I have no idea what this is referring to: "If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor)". Could you 1. reiterate to me what you think my argument is, and 2. elaborate on and clarify your point so that I may better understand it?
      - dgb23 6y ago
        They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor.
      - dgb23 6y ago
        > But that's not contract liberty. You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. "A company is not forced to use wage labor" does not mean "they can choose to employ workers under any kind of contract without push-back". Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to.
mc32 6y ago
So the union members are the luddites in this scenario. Which means in the long run, they are fated to evolve like the blacksmith of yore. No longer the center of activity, they went on to become machinists and mechanics, important cogs but not as important as before.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  The guilds only fell due to the incidental conditions in Europe. Perhaps under different conditions, like Europe coming under a single empire without the competitive and evolutionary pressures that in our timeline led to sovereign powers embracing trade and markets, guilds would have solidified their power. The fall of unions may not be inevitable.
dgb23 6y ago
You might want to have a look here[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

jackdaniel 6y ago

> we can hope that it’ll balance out and that the best ideas will win in the marketplace of ideas In other words, if I and my "adversary" are wrong, it will all sum up to being right. Right?

krcz 6y ago
Maybe there just is no objective "right" and it's better to have two biased stories with diverse biases instead of one trying its best to be unbiased.
- jackdaniel 6y ago
  I don't have an opinion whether sourcing information from multiple opposing sources gives best opinion. Maybe it is fine, my point is that the premise of "averaging opposing narratives gives the average correct result" is not right. Let's consider a few (made up) scenarios: A is right and B is right, but they show two different sides of the story - for example a description of hurdles of two different social groups from the insider perspective, and description of a conflict between them using that perspective. Reading both is clearly good, because your understanding of the issue is deeper than just following your bubble's narrative. So far so good. A is wrong and B is wrong. For example A says, that if we let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse, and B says that if we won't let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse. Both (in this hypothetical scenario) are just putting a bogeymen to advance some narrative - you are not smarter from reading them, even more, you may truly believe either A or B and have your opinion altered by a cynical actor. Not so good, but still - you may think - since both say something completely opposite, then maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle; then you benefit from the fact, that there are two (not one) - just as you said in the parent comment. A is right and B is wrong. Say one group says, that FOO is good for you (and it is an opinion supported by some amount of evidence, and in our artifical example it is true that FOO is good for you), but B says that it is very very bad for you - be it ignorance or cynical narrative incited by Mordor-funded trolls :-) Clearly with one source of information (that is A) we are better of. So please let me reiterate - I'm not saying that sourcing information from multiple outlets is good (or wrong), only that saying that "averaging" the information gives you a more correct opinion seems dubious to me.

KaiserPro 6y ago

This appears to be a simplistic take. The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. Each media company has a target audience, and it optimises for that audience continuously. Their viewers or readers like that "property" because it's views/biases/style reflects their own. > "The media is becoming more progressive" that's a broad sweep. The demographic is changing and the various properties are changing to reflect that. Granted, there is some leeway in a media organisation pushing it's audience to one side of a debate or other. However it needs the audience to go with it. However there is no evidence provided that this is the case. I think the bigger issues is that people have realised that a small number of business are increasingly becoming arbiters of _everything_. Be that Tv shows, what opinions are penalised, who can trade where and for what price. (See the backlash from Facebook's fucking stupid PR spat against apple.) In short, I don't think the author was able to fully express their claim without making broad unsupported statements. Finally I don't think a16z's media push is going to get overly far _unless_ they provide content that people want to consume at the correct price and place. If you want to see what I mean, just look at what happened to the "let's disrupt hollywood" Effort, which amounted to nothing. (hollywood is disrupted, but by the pandemic, disney, amazon and netflix, not a startup)

pydry 6y ago
>The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. By and large it is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_owner...
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  Reminds me of this Sinclair compilation video: https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI
libertine 6y ago
>The author assumes that "the media" are some homogenous lump that all thinks the same and pumps out the same content. Well in the eyes of the "advertiser" - the money - they are indeed a homogeneous lump that sell their advertising inventory to some DSP... while Facebook/Google have extremely valuable inventory due to the data granularity. And you might say, "oh this has nothing to do with advertising!". Let me tell you that I've witnessed the inner workings of large old media protecting some advertisers, as well as pilling up to attack tech giants. Media and Silicon Valley are at war since the share of media budgets accelerated towards tech giants, departing from "old" media. The media started to feel the urge to compete with user generated content when faced with this reality that reflected as lower CPMs for their inventory, and started to pump content (news/opinions/etc) - the "truth" became irrelevant as long as they are the first, or have the snappier header to grab clicks. The media is as much to blame for the status quo as any other player.

fallingknife 6y ago

> journalists barely scraping by, facing constant layoffs and a grim future as their audience slowly dies off and their authority is eroded. After watching the hysterical, paranoid coverage of the Trump administration, and now the pathetic, fawning coverage of Biden, I can't help but feeling that they deserve it.

scient 6y ago
Yeah, its pretty awful when the objectively worst president ever, who is nosediving the whole country, is being justifiably criticized over it in a "paranoid" manner, and the man who has to come after him and clean up all the crap is being pointlessly "fawned" over. I want to live in the fantasy world you live in.
- lordloki 6y ago
  Is this really the place for a comment like this? This comment shows pretty clear bias and concludes with an insult. This is subpar dialog for HN.
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  The US seems to be nosediving at breakneck speed though, regardless of the change of president, due to the immense systemic issues it accumulated over the decades. Please try escaping out of your own liberal fantasy bubble and explore some other bubbles if you want to see how other people think about your country.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    I don't see why you assume parent is living in a fantasy bubble. Their only big claim is that Trump is objectively the worst president ever, a claim which will probably be backed up by history based solely on the unprecedented scale of his attempt to undermine the 2020 election. Even other republicans are calling him, and those who align with him, out for their antics. In what sense is this part of a "liberal fantasy bubble"?

cousin_it 6y ago

War for who gets to choose which stories are important and which points of view are respectable. I'd like that war to be won by the public, not media or SV. Society's means of communication and coordination should be equally open to all, under rules decided by all.

thesuitonym 6y ago
That third side already exists: The media is supposed to be independent.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- menofsteel 6y ago
  The media can't be independent of its own interests. No-one can, including any new Silicon Valley media.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
>...Society's means of communication and coordination should be equally open to all, under rules decided by all. I'm not seeing how this makes sense at all.

motohagiography 6y ago

There is a "The Media," as an entity, and it is a social class with membership based on internal codes of recognition. To be "media" means you are aligned to dominant power, and that you are a medium of that power. Ask editors and reporters whether a given writer or blogger counts as "media" or not, and you will see this is the difference. Similarly, just because you write code and live in the greater Bay Area doesn't make you part of the "Valley," either. It usually means having wealth from investments in seed and early stage tech companies. For a16z to create a public relations arm just means they're diverging, and the old east coast elite monopoly on granting media status is just one of the few slow moving dinosaur taboos ripe for disruption.

screye 6y ago

I have a hypothesis. This was inevitable. Media has always been a mix of 3 types of people: Journalists, activists and glory hunters. The shift in the revenue model since the advent of social means has banished Journalists. The only ones who can bear to stay in this dying industry is those who are in it for more than money or profession. Enter activists and glory hunters. A similar thing happened in liberal-arts academia ( and tangentially K-12 education). The slog to tenure is so horrible, that anyone who pursued critical analysis and scholarship has fled/pivoted to more rewarding industry positions. The only ones remaining are ones who care too much for the labels (Professor) or those for whom activism is a primary motivator. Thus, institutions that cater to someone of a certain education level are quickly diverging from the expectations the said consumer has from these institutions. The activists at the institutions want to impose their dogma which is exactly what a large portion of the deserters were fleeing in the first place. These people have been loosely referred to as 'The Grey tribe'. SSC figured this out a decade before and put in better words than I can. However, I recon there is far greater mutual resentment between the industry workers and institutional activists than is acknowledged by the media. Institutional activists hate tech, not due to moral reasons, but existential reasons. They know, that the power they wield is fickle. It is build on moral high-ground, virtue signalling and reputation. On the other hand, tech wields real power; power lend to them by money. Why won't they fight the war in the open ? Because media is fundamentally intertwined with politics. The Democrats and Republicans have mutually alienated each other in a manner that reconciliation isn't on the horizon. Republicans win on voter turnout. Democrats rely on receiving both the captive voter (blue tribe) and most of Grey-tribe, who hate Democrats less than Republicans. An out and out moral war leaves room for Republicans to pivot towards grey-tribe favored moderation. (Unlikely, but stranger things have happened). At the end of the day, the 'prestige' media still relies on the 'prestigious'(D.C. royalty) to bestow that prestige on them. They cannot run afoul of them entirely. IMO, the war is raging fiercer than ever. It is like two dogs who are leashed, stretching the limits of their freedom. The only reason blood hasn't been drawn, is because there are bigger masters holding the reigns (Tech - Profit motive and regulation threat. Media- Politicians and the appearance of fairness)

why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago

Good. 'Presstitutes' on one side versus sociopaths on the other. Mutual destruction would be a wonderful thing.

fmajid 6y ago

The media is critical of tech because tech has impaired journalists’ job security and careers. Nothing more than sour grapes, no conspiracy needed. That also avoids them having to introspect and see how much their deference and connivence with the George W. Bush and Obama presidencies cost them in credibility. If you are going to get crap fake journalism, you might as well get the free one served by Google et al rather than pay for it.