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Six corporations control 90% of America media

299 points by mgh2 5y ago

analyst74 5y ago
This is not news for anyone paying attention to the media space. The big question is ... is there a way out? Or are we destined to have a small number of powerful organizations controlling world's information and in extension, our thought?
- kube-system 5y ago
  I’m sure there’s a way out, considering that I already consume the minority of my media from those sources. The internet is still a lot bigger than what’s listed here, and with cord-cutting, that has extended to my TV as well. The turn of the century was probably the rock-bottom as far as choice in media is concerned. It has been getting better over the past 20 years.
- thayne 5y ago
  Probably not without government intervention. Antitrust or antimonopoly (or anti-oligopoly) enforcement would probably help. Perhaps copyright reform would help, although that is less obvious.
  - teslafire124 5y ago
    That would help but there seems to be no incentive to push anti-trust efforts. Otherwise these mega corporations wouldn't exist in their current behemoth forms. I think public outcry would need to be strong enough to pressure antitrust action, but people tend to be fine with it since less companies makes access to their media more simple and streamlined
    - thayne 5y ago
      I also think a lot of people aren't aware of the situation, since each company has a multiple of different brands under their umbrella. And it doesn't hurt that since these companies control so much of the media they can, at least in theory, suppress any press that might result in such public outry.
      - teslafire124 5y ago
        I guess we have the OP's article as something available in public media. The infographics are useful for giving a basic idea of how many media companies are under each corporate umbrella. There needs to be more of an understanding about why trusts and near monopolies like these are going to just get worse as they continue to merge to compete against each other's super Chimera. The fact that these companies own intellectual properties that the public wants to consume may make them more willing to turn a blind eye though. There would need to be an event that causes significant anger in the public to inspire outcry. Not just knowledge.
- yogthos 5y ago
  Open source platforms provide an alternative to corporate social media. These platforms are developed on a non-profit basis and are hosted by volunteers across the globe. A growing number of such platforms are available today and millions of people are using them already. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter, and it’s currently home to over two million users. This was the first open platform to get serious traction, and has been growing steadily since its debut. While Mastodon retains a similar user experience to Twitter, there is one major difference — it is a federated platform. Instead of all users having accounts on the same server, there are many Mastodon servers that all talk to each other to create the Mastodon network. If you have the technical expertise, it’s even possible to run your own. Mastodon is built around an open standard allowing other platforms to integrate with it. This led to a number of open platforms being created and joining the network. Collectively these platforms are referred to as the Fediverse. One important aspect of the Fediverse is that it’s much harder to censor and manipulate content than it is with centralized networks such as Facebook. There is no single company deciding what content can go on the network, and servers are hosted by regular people across many different countries and jurisdictions. Some of the other platforms of interest are Pixelfed, PeerTube, Plume, and Lemmy. Pixelfed is an alternative to Instagram that caters to artists and photographers. PeerTube is a YouTube alternative, Plume is a blogging platform akin to Medium, and Lemmy is a news aggregator forum inspired by Reddit. All these platforms are developed in the open, and the developers themselves are often left-wing activists (as is the case with Mastodon and Lemmy). These platforms explicitly avoid tracking users and collecting their data. Not only are these platforms better at respecting user privacy, they also tend to provide a better user experience without annoying ads and popups. Another interesting aspect of the Fediverse is that it promotes collaboration. Traditional commercial platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have no incentive to allow users to move data between them. They directly compete for users in a zero sum game and go out of their way to make it difficult to share content across them. This is the reason we often see screenshots from one site being posted on another. On the other hand, a federated network that’s developed in the open and largely hosted non-profit results in a positive-sum game environment. Users joining any of the platforms on the network help grow the entire network. Having many different sites hosted by individuals was the way the internet was intended to work in the first place, it’s actually quite impressive how corporations took the open network of the internet and managed to turn it into a series of walled gardens. Marxist theory states that in order to be free, the workers must own the means of production. This idea is directly applicable in the context of social media. Only when we own the platforms that we use will we be free to post our thoughts and ideas without having to worry about them being censored by corporate interests. No matter how great a commercial platform might be, sooner or later it’s going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn’t suit you because companies must constantly chase profit in order to survive. This is a bad situation to be in as a user since you have little control over the evolution of a platform. On the other hand, open source has a very different dynamic. Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they’re developed by people who themselves benefit from their work. Projects can also be easily forked and taken in different directions by different groups of users if there is a disagreement regarding the direction of the platform. Even when projects become abandoned, they can be picked up again by new teams as long as there is an interested community of users around them.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  It's always news for someone, though. Good to remind people about this now and then. It's like the depressing version the "Lucky 10,000" XKCD.
Grakel 5y ago
Not really, considering many people spend a majority of their time consuming "indie" content on Instagram or YouTube and it's never been easier to create and release content of any kind. The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers.
- briefcomment 5y ago
  Yup, I've weaned myself from all of the brands they listed, except for when I consume certain news via an aggregator like HN.
paulpauper 5y ago
I feel like I have more choice than ever. if you don't watch TV this is not so much of a problem.
chrismcb 5y ago
But does your average person use more than six sources for news? You'll hear people talk about CNN, MSNBC, nyt, wsj, maybe la times. Most people also have three or four local news and maybe a paper. If you stick with main stream media, I don't think most people look to more than a handful of places.
- harry8 5y ago
  WSJ is fox. Edit: As in owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox. "is" for the purposes of number of corps who control media. Murdoch is the poster child for influencing media he owns to get deals out of politicians generating outsized returns. For masthead newspapers they don't even need to make a profit. I believe the Australian newspaper never has in decades of history while Murdoch made a ton of money in Australia. It seems Bezos watched, learned and bought the wapo.
- rgbrenner 5y ago
  For 2018, 20% of people regularly got their news from social media.[0] That number has increased. Maybe the claim was true in like the 90s... but it's certainly not true anymore and the article is irresponsible for repeating out of date information. 0. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/social-media-outpaces-print-newspapers-in-the-u-s-as-a-news-source/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/social-medi...
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > But does your average person use more than six sources for news? The average person might rely on 2 or 3 sources of news. But it's a different world when they have to choose those sources from 6 that are running the same line, compared to a world in which hundreds of diverse viewpoints are ready and waiting to shine a light on any issue.
prostoalex 5y ago
Skeptical about the 90% claim. Is time spent on YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, The New York Times and Spotify (with Joe Rogan specifically) so insignificant as to be relegated to the "miscellaneous" 10%?
- kfarr 5y ago
  Or Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc? Media consolidation is concerning but agreed this 90% claim seems to be for attention grabbing headline purposes.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    Think of it as institutional media that other institutions pay attention to. Sure CNN and MSNBC viewing numbers might not be as high as PewDiePie, but the type of people that watch it will be more valuable to influence.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are social media platforms. They may be the primary mechanism by which the media’s products (articles, videos, podcasts) are shared, but they are not the media.
    - fridif 5y ago
      Which is why they "moderate the content on the platform", right? People get banned for posting their political opinions but media companies
      - Aunche 5y ago
        They moderate their content because if they don't, an angry mob will demand that companies pull ads from the platforms. Ironically, by prioritizing revenue over an agenda, it's actually the most democratic form of censorship.
pessimizer 5y ago
It's always important to remember how shocking it was when Ben Bagdikian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian was writing about only 50 corporations controlling US media. How could you have a functioning democracy with only 50 companies controlling the media?
doctor_eval 5y ago
I didn’t understand this at first as Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” discussed media consolidation many years ago. But of course the problem is that we’ve gone from a small number of companies controlling _the news_ to a small number of companies controlling _all media_. It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell. As Neil Postman pointed out, it's less Orwell and more Huxley. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.""
  - pfarrell 5y ago
    Here’s that same sentiment in webcomic form. https://biblioklept.org/2010/12/14/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic/ https://biblioklept.org/2010/12/14/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webc...
  - dwd 5y ago
    Simply substitute Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc for soma and you're there. Also in the end we didn't need eugenics, the lack of social mobility has achieved that stratification it set out to achieve.
  - alexeldeib 5y ago
    > it's less Orwell and more Huxley. This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?
berniemadoff69 5y ago
will we live to see an AmazonDisney conglomerate in our lifetime
- shakezula 5y ago
  If it was announced tomorrow I wouldn't even blink an eye. American antitrust and monopoly enforcement is at a comical all time low.
gillytech 5y ago
I think one way to help give the people back some control over the information flow is to educate as many people as possible in the skill of data evaluation. There are definite "outpoints" and "pluspoints" in any piece of information portrayed, and when you give someone the power to differentiate and evaluate the relative importance of individual data points, the controllers of said data become much less powerful. I guess this could be also likened to "critical thinking"? There will always be huge megacorp "mass media" and we need to learn the skills necessary to immunize ourselves to the negative effects of it.
cblconfederate 5y ago
where's google and facebook and twitter? are they not media companies?
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Companies with shitty media algorithms designed to maximize ad revenues while keeping consumer hooked on their platform through content curated to exploit their tendencies and vulnerabilities.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  They mean the media companies who actually product content. The users (and the media companies the OP refers to) are the ones who do that on the platforms that you mentioned.
thayne 5y ago
That's actually more companies than I would have guessed.
putlake 5y ago
Examples for what happens when media ownership is concentrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI And this one I'm not sure if it's just good PR by Amazon or laziness by media outlets or both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI
DSingularity 5y ago
In communist countries the party controls the media. In dictatorships the secret police control the media. In liberal democracies the rich control the media.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Since in "communist" countries, the party heads are rich and likewise in other dictatorships, I think we can just settle on the rich always control the media.
  - DSingularity 5y ago
    Yeah but there is a massive difference between money controlling the media because of their money and - for example - a dictator controlling the media because he’s got the guns. The media will have a totally different tint: glorifying leader/ideology in the case of dictatorship/communism. What about our profit-oriented media? Remember how it beats the drums of war every single time? Who knows what interests they represent or whose agenda they are working for.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      > Yeah but there is a massive difference between money controlling the media because of their money and - for example - a dictator controlling the media because he’s got the guns. The consequences are the same: the media is used to enrich the rich and empower the powerful.
lend000 5y ago
I suppose that's better than 2 political parties controlling 99% of Congress.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  It's not an alternative it's a consequence.
motohagiography 5y ago
Should we be concerned about them using their media properties to push narratives designed to consolidate their influence, or ask whether some of the things we believe might be artifacts of that influence, or maybe what the sources and motives of those narratives might be? Kidding. This isn't the 90's. The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now. Plus, big tech is finally being responsible and working on the right side of history, so we can all get aligned on fighting climate change, and finally force the assholes to pay everyone back for their empty status symbols like all the air they polluted with their SUVs, unpaid emotional labor, meat, and tax breaks they took from us, and finally give it to people who deserve it. We can even replace small thinking regional governments with better international collaboration and cooperation so that everyone will be equal no matter where they live, and we can end the privileged western lifestyle once and for all. Kidding, not kidding. We should really look at what these companies are pushing.
- starkd 5y ago
  << the right side of history << what does that even mean? There is a name for government-corporate collaboration. Even if you think it's going well "for now", it probably isn't.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    History is written by the winners. The right side is the one they write for themselves. So just always be on the side that is in the majority and has all of the power. Ezpz
    - forcry 5y ago
      >So just always be on the side that is in the majority and has all of the power Until you find yourselves on the other side, by definition..
      - bilbo0s 5y ago
berniemadoff69 5y ago
funny this article says six companies, but lists cbs and viacom separately. they merged, the title should say five
- bGriz 5y ago
  The article was written based on older memes about those corporations. I agree with the sentiment of it, but it's unfortunately stale info. The article is a year old, the merger was a year before that, and the graphics are sourced enough to probably track down. From the article itself: "Of note, this infographic is dated and does not reflect the current media owners of some of the news outlets." This is a writer who found something controversial and refreshed the topic, but added a disclaimer that it's based on older pieces of information. All that said, I'd be wondering if it's a placement piece for YouTube's NowThisWorld user/channel. Or if it's young editors at the website just stirring things up for traffic and/or relevant content for their audience.
rgbrenner 5y ago
"Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to." Where's the evidence for the 90% number here? Every media mentioned is legacy media. People now spend more time consuming digital media than legacy media.[0] So I don't see how this claim can be true. https://www.statista.com/statistics/565628/time-spent-digital-traditional-media-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/565628/time-spent-digita...
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Like facebook, instagram, youtube twitter? Now things are owned by two companies google and facebook but you can still get uncensored content on twitter? Not anymore. Things are more controlled in the digital world. Soon Apple will buy one of the major legacy companies, followed by Amazon, Microsoft which will allow Google to do the same.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Exactly right. The 90% number is nonsense. Customers have more choice than ever. I could start a media company tomorrow and everyone could watch/read/listen to it. Creating content has never been easier than it is today. Distributing content has never been easier than it is today. Creating a big audience has never been easier than it is today. The idea that these companies have "control" is laughable. note I'm not suggesting creating great content or building an audience is easy per se. I'm just saying it's never been easier for a random person. About the only people for who the media business has become more difficult is... existing large media companies who used to control distribution via cable, tv licenses etc.
waynesonfire 5y ago
Is hackernews owned by any one these?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- forcry 5y ago
  It does not have to be. If the mainstream media set consensus, everything will have to fall in line. So in HN, the readers will do the job of censoring info if they are very out of line with the mainstream narrative. Look at this submission of mine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27941820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27941820 It was flagged promptly and removed from view in a little while.. Although, I ll have to admit that this site holds up better than most similar places, and that is probably because it is not very well known... But on the otherside, you can buy a high karma HN account on some sites, so everything is in place to poison this site as well. I think it's just a matter of getting upto some threshold of popularity..
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  HN is a leftist organ at this point, based on both the posts and downvotes in the past year. I've been called brave just for using the word "Republican" in a post. We only have 2 national parties, guys.
SapporoChris 5y ago
>Back in 2018, Jim Morrison, a singer, songwriter, and poet, who served as the lead vocalist of the rock band, once said: “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” Jim Morrison Born: December 8, 1943. Died:July 3, 1971. It is difficult for me to take an article seriously when there are glaringly obvious mistakes.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Also sloppy to have written "the band" here when in fact no band has been introduced.
  - dwd 5y ago
    Was this article generated by AI?
    - grawprog 5y ago
      It kind of reads like it. The whole article reminds me of something produced by GPT-3. Just the paragraph structure and wording alone.
      - Orou 5y ago
        Agreed. I'll admit I didn't notice it on first pass and just thought the Jim Morrison bit was sloppy writing, but reading it again it has all the hallmarks of GPT-generated text. It even talks about the etymology of the word "elite" for no reason! If it isn't GPT-3, then it's writing at a high school level at best and shouldn't be on the front page.
    - thewebcount 5y ago
      Yeah, that was my first thought, too. It certainly makes me wonder about the rest of the article. I did a quick search to see if there was any Jim Morrison-related news from 2018, but other than some other people with the same name dying, there wasn’t anything. Even that movie with Val Kilmer was like 20-30 years ago. Very bizarre.
longwick 5y ago
I wrote an article exactly on this and how mass media have their own agenda in their programs https://apurva-shukla.me/blog/media-and-propaganda/ https://apurva-shukla.me/blog/media-and-propaganda/
wdr1 5y ago
This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excludes giants like Netflix? There may be issues here, but this article wasn't very good.
- mtnGoat 5y ago
  YouTube/IG/etc are not media creators per se, just aggregators. Thus, not including them on that list makes perfect sense to me.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Well, when you say "american media" then don't include all "media" sources, it just looks like clickbait.
    - fitzie 5y ago
      from the article it says "Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to.". there is a heavy handed content moderation policy on all major social media platforms. it is a rare day when I don't see or hear of blocked suspended or banned content on social media.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        And? I'm just pointing out that "90% of what we read, watch, or listen to" is wholly inaccurate.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    They are not just aggregators, but also publishers. They ban/censor certain content, they create algorithms to shape the exposure of information, they control monetization, etc. they have far more influence on “American media” than the six listed here.
_nicelaris_ 5y ago
Doubtless the knee jerk response will be to advocate for increased corporate regulation, which is precisely what has stifled competition in the market and created this oligopoly in the first place.
amyjess 5y ago
Honestly the first two paragraphs of this article alone indicate that this article is a polemic intended to stir up a pogrom against so-called elites. This isn't intellectually gratifying: it's an angry political screed. Furthermore, as a Jewish person myself something else jumped out at me: there is a long, long, long history of the word "elites" being associated with control over the media as an antisemitic dogwhistle. Any Jewish person will read this, see "the media is controlled by elites", and immediately understand that this is a restatement of antisemitic conspiracy theories that are over a century old. This article is wildly irresponsible.
- jwond 5y ago
  I’m getting really fed up with people lobbing accusations of bigotry to try and dismiss others’ concerns and criticisms without actually providing any substantial counter-argument.
- superflit 5y ago
  Not being anti-semitic. But is the article false?
  - longtimegoogler 5y ago
    I would say it jumps to unsupported conclusions. It is true that few companies own most of the mainstream media produced in this country. As someone else who worked at one of these companies stated, that these companies are just pedaling propaganda to serve elites or oligarchs needs much more evidence to substantiate such claims. Most of these are public companies whose primary motives are just to make a profit. These companies have millions of employees with diverse opinions and diverse sources of content production. So, I think the article oversteps its claims that the mdeia in this country just serves the interest of some set of elites.
- eli_gottlieb 5y ago
  I gotta say, if you always read "elites" as being Jewish, then you're not just a priori ruling out any sort of class analysis, you're missing how antisemitic many of the non-Jewish elites actually are!
Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
What's the right ratio though? I try not to get angry about "the bottom 20% eats 90% of the cheeseburgers" stats until I have a reasonable benchmark, or I have a really deep understanding of the "why" and "how" of a given disparity. Two children raised in the same house with the same parents never have equal outcomes - I don't expect it anywhere else either (as a default assumption).
627467 5y ago
I supposed the title is implying the 6 corps is a low number. What is the _right_ number?
vaxman 5y ago
Blame Sean Fanning for causing software companies to incur liability for misuse of peer to peer technology at a rather pivotal point in the development of the Internet. If not for those court rulings, there would have been background info servers running on everyone’s home router long ago. (Ask me how I know )
alfor 5y ago
At the same time they are all becoming irrelevant, those are old people news.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  What is "old people news"? What is your unique news that is immune from that. Hell, most social media reposting is from one of those sources.
throwaway277 5y ago
Long time employee of one of those companies, here. To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. Yes, some corporate-synergy exists to cross-promote, especially on morning shows, but when it comes to news, we are usually pushing so close to deadline there's no way to even allow for corporate control. That said, there is a need to meet an ever decreasing budget. That's the parent co's real bias; to be cheap.
- longtimegoogler 5y ago
  Agree, but it doesn't fit the narrative.
- xrd 5y ago
  My concern is not how things are covered, but what is covered. The article states that certain things (like the owner's dalliances outside his marriage) will never be covered at all. Chomsky and others talk about constraining the topics for discussion, and this seems the most concerning.
- aahortwwy 5y ago
  "I'm not saying you're self-censoring; I'm sure you believe everything you're saying. What I'm saying is that if you believed something different you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    This is basic. It either calls into question GP's long experience, or completely proves Chomsky's point. They only hire people with no self-awareness.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. I'm pretty sure there are smoking gun memos and insider reports of dictates from the top at News Corp. or at least within Fox News, which they own. Is News Corp. / Fox just a special case?
longtimegoogler 5y ago
The article doesn't really show how this situation has evolved over time. Before cable didn't we essentially only have CBS, NBC, and ABC? When I see other sources like OANN, or the disinformation being peddled from some corners, I am not sure what is a better alternative. These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. To suggest that a small group of elites are controlling the output of these companies is far fetched. For some reason, a certain segment of Americans, have lost trust in these institutions that have been there all along. I fear the alternative.
- 6f8986c3 5y ago
  > These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. Oh no they don't. If you work in media, you either bow to leftist orthodoxy, or you get fired. See Bari Weiss, etc.
  - longtimegoogler 5y ago
    And on the right, Fox let go some of longtime staffers who were not sympathetic to the networks coverage of the 2020 elections. ESPN fired Jemele Hill for calling Trump a white supremacist. If you want to claim that the NY Times is left-leaning than I would agree. It's a newspaper in one of the most liberal cities in the country. Its ethos are probably more reflective of that than any elite orthodoxy.
    - 6f8986c3 5y ago
      Fox is garbage. What's your point? Every media organization sacrificed their credibility wholesale over the past five years. The federal government accomplished the same for themselves over 2020. Americans now live in a world where the institutions underpinning public life have lost all of their credibility with the public itself, outside of Blue enclaves. We don't know where this goes. We really don't. Historically, nowhere good.
- blazespin 5y ago
  I suppose an argument could be made that google has undermined newspapers which has resulted in consolidation and “official” narratives that forces people to turn to social media for (mis)information. But I think the problem is too much of media is written by journalists who by and large are really bad at math, logic, and science so all to often what they end up writing isn’t much better than the alternative. Witness the random hysteria around covid and vaccines. It almost seems like every article is concluding something different and the only consistent theme is that they really have no clue. When was the last time you read a well reasoned argument based on per capita hospitalizations ordered by state and vaccine rates? Never, and I’ve looked. Journalists are incapable of reasoning about these problems because they lack basic math skills. All they can say is vaccine good and anti vaccine bad. Since they can’t coherently say why that is true, too many people just dismiss them.
blazespin 5y ago
Lol hardly. The problem is no one controls the media so it can get very random. The crazy crap people believe isn’t coming from “corporate” media. You think they are writing about Qanon?
- longtimegoogler 5y ago
  It's funny that you are being downvoted and that HN thinks mainstream media is a bigger problem than Qanon.
- username90 5y ago
  The crazy shit people believe from corporate media isn't called crazy since so many believe them. And the reason so many believe them is because all corporate media spreads it. Also I am significantly more afraid of crazy shit that people don't call crazy than crazy shit everyone calls crazy.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
40four 5y ago
This is not a surprise is it? My gut tells me the large majority of us here at HN already knew this either empirically or intuitively. I’m not mad about this fact being publicized though. It definitely not obvious to everyone. The super sad and disheartening part of this is even in a ‘free market’, capitalistic environment, in the long run this state of propaganda is still what we are reduced to.
wolverine876 5y ago
While this article is covering reports about traditional media, a few companies such as Facebook and Google control much of the online media landscape, and even what seem like scrappy challengers such as Clubhouse have businesses such as Andreessen Horowitz as investors (and after unfavorable reports by the likes of the NY Times, a16z is also making other efforts to create its own alternate media). Unless you choose principle, high-quality journalism, you won't get it. For example, who wrote this report? Why do you trust them?

299 points by mgh2 5y ago

This is not news for anyone paying attention to the media space. The big question is ... is there a way out? Or are we destined to have a small number of powerful organizations controlling world's information and in extension, our thought?

kube-system 5y ago
I’m sure there’s a way out, considering that I already consume the minority of my media from those sources. The internet is still a lot bigger than what’s listed here, and with cord-cutting, that has extended to my TV as well. The turn of the century was probably the rock-bottom as far as choice in media is concerned. It has been getting better over the past 20 years.
thayne 5y ago
Probably not without government intervention. Antitrust or antimonopoly (or anti-oligopoly) enforcement would probably help. Perhaps copyright reform would help, although that is less obvious.
- teslafire124 5y ago
  That would help but there seems to be no incentive to push anti-trust efforts. Otherwise these mega corporations wouldn't exist in their current behemoth forms. I think public outcry would need to be strong enough to pressure antitrust action, but people tend to be fine with it since less companies makes access to their media more simple and streamlined
  - thayne 5y ago
    I also think a lot of people aren't aware of the situation, since each company has a multiple of different brands under their umbrella. And it doesn't hurt that since these companies control so much of the media they can, at least in theory, suppress any press that might result in such public outry.
    - teslafire124 5y ago
      I guess we have the OP's article as something available in public media. The infographics are useful for giving a basic idea of how many media companies are under each corporate umbrella. There needs to be more of an understanding about why trusts and near monopolies like these are going to just get worse as they continue to merge to compete against each other's super Chimera. The fact that these companies own intellectual properties that the public wants to consume may make them more willing to turn a blind eye though. There would need to be an event that causes significant anger in the public to inspire outcry. Not just knowledge.
yogthos 5y ago
Open source platforms provide an alternative to corporate social media. These platforms are developed on a non-profit basis and are hosted by volunteers across the globe. A growing number of such platforms are available today and millions of people are using them already. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter, and it’s currently home to over two million users. This was the first open platform to get serious traction, and has been growing steadily since its debut. While Mastodon retains a similar user experience to Twitter, there is one major difference — it is a federated platform. Instead of all users having accounts on the same server, there are many Mastodon servers that all talk to each other to create the Mastodon network. If you have the technical expertise, it’s even possible to run your own. Mastodon is built around an open standard allowing other platforms to integrate with it. This led to a number of open platforms being created and joining the network. Collectively these platforms are referred to as the Fediverse. One important aspect of the Fediverse is that it’s much harder to censor and manipulate content than it is with centralized networks such as Facebook. There is no single company deciding what content can go on the network, and servers are hosted by regular people across many different countries and jurisdictions. Some of the other platforms of interest are Pixelfed, PeerTube, Plume, and Lemmy. Pixelfed is an alternative to Instagram that caters to artists and photographers. PeerTube is a YouTube alternative, Plume is a blogging platform akin to Medium, and Lemmy is a news aggregator forum inspired by Reddit. All these platforms are developed in the open, and the developers themselves are often left-wing activists (as is the case with Mastodon and Lemmy). These platforms explicitly avoid tracking users and collecting their data. Not only are these platforms better at respecting user privacy, they also tend to provide a better user experience without annoying ads and popups. Another interesting aspect of the Fediverse is that it promotes collaboration. Traditional commercial platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have no incentive to allow users to move data between them. They directly compete for users in a zero sum game and go out of their way to make it difficult to share content across them. This is the reason we often see screenshots from one site being posted on another. On the other hand, a federated network that’s developed in the open and largely hosted non-profit results in a positive-sum game environment. Users joining any of the platforms on the network help grow the entire network. Having many different sites hosted by individuals was the way the internet was intended to work in the first place, it’s actually quite impressive how corporations took the open network of the internet and managed to turn it into a series of walled gardens. Marxist theory states that in order to be free, the workers must own the means of production. This idea is directly applicable in the context of social media. Only when we own the platforms that we use will we be free to post our thoughts and ideas without having to worry about them being censored by corporate interests. No matter how great a commercial platform might be, sooner or later it’s going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn’t suit you because companies must constantly chase profit in order to survive. This is a bad situation to be in as a user since you have little control over the evolution of a platform. On the other hand, open source has a very different dynamic. Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they’re developed by people who themselves benefit from their work. Projects can also be easily forked and taken in different directions by different groups of users if there is a disagreement regarding the direction of the platform. Even when projects become abandoned, they can be picked up again by new teams as long as there is an interested community of users around them.
egypturnash 5y ago
It's always news for someone, though. Good to remind people about this now and then. It's like the depressing version the "Lucky 10,000" XKCD.

Grakel 5y ago

Not really, considering many people spend a majority of their time consuming "indie" content on Instagram or YouTube and it's never been easier to create and release content of any kind. The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers.

briefcomment 5y ago
Yup, I've weaned myself from all of the brands they listed, except for when I consume certain news via an aggregator like HN.

paulpauper 5y ago

I feel like I have more choice than ever. if you don't watch TV this is not so much of a problem.

chrismcb 5y ago

But does your average person use more than six sources for news? You'll hear people talk about CNN, MSNBC, nyt, wsj, maybe la times. Most people also have three or four local news and maybe a paper. If you stick with main stream media, I don't think most people look to more than a handful of places.

harry8 5y ago
WSJ is fox. Edit: As in owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox. "is" for the purposes of number of corps who control media. Murdoch is the poster child for influencing media he owns to get deals out of politicians generating outsized returns. For masthead newspapers they don't even need to make a profit. I believe the Australian newspaper never has in decades of history while Murdoch made a ton of money in Australia. It seems Bezos watched, learned and bought the wapo.
rgbrenner 5y ago
For 2018, 20% of people regularly got their news from social media.[0] That number has increased. Maybe the claim was true in like the 90s... but it's certainly not true anymore and the article is irresponsible for repeating out of date information. 0. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/social-media-outpaces-print-newspapers-in-the-u-s-as-a-news-source/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/social-medi...
wombatmobile 5y ago
> But does your average person use more than six sources for news? The average person might rely on 2 or 3 sources of news. But it's a different world when they have to choose those sources from 6 that are running the same line, compared to a world in which hundreds of diverse viewpoints are ready and waiting to shine a light on any issue.

prostoalex 5y ago

Skeptical about the 90% claim. Is time spent on YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, The New York Times and Spotify (with Joe Rogan specifically) so insignificant as to be relegated to the "miscellaneous" 10%?

kfarr 5y ago
Or Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc? Media consolidation is concerning but agreed this 90% claim seems to be for attention grabbing headline purposes.
- andreilys 5y ago
  Think of it as institutional media that other institutions pay attention to. Sure CNN and MSNBC viewing numbers might not be as high as PewDiePie, but the type of people that watch it will be more valuable to influence.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- marcusverus 5y ago
  Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are social media platforms. They may be the primary mechanism by which the media’s products (articles, videos, podcasts) are shared, but they are not the media.
  - fridif 5y ago
    Which is why they "moderate the content on the platform", right? People get banned for posting their political opinions but media companies
    - Aunche 5y ago
      They moderate their content because if they don't, an angry mob will demand that companies pull ads from the platforms. Ironically, by prioritizing revenue over an agenda, it's actually the most democratic form of censorship.

pessimizer 5y ago

It's always important to remember how shocking it was when Ben Bagdikian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian was writing about only 50 corporations controlling US media. How could you have a functioning democracy with only 50 companies controlling the media?

doctor_eval 5y ago

I didn’t understand this at first as Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” discussed media consolidation many years ago. But of course the problem is that we’ve gone from a small number of companies controlling _the news_ to a small number of companies controlling _all media_. It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell.

wombatmobile 5y ago
> It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell. As Neil Postman pointed out, it's less Orwell and more Huxley. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.""
- pfarrell 5y ago
  Here’s that same sentiment in webcomic form. https://biblioklept.org/2010/12/14/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic/ https://biblioklept.org/2010/12/14/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webc...
- dwd 5y ago
  Simply substitute Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc for soma and you're there. Also in the end we didn't need eugenics, the lack of social mobility has achieved that stratification it set out to achieve.
- alexeldeib 5y ago
  > it's less Orwell and more Huxley. This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?

berniemadoff69 5y ago

will we live to see an AmazonDisney conglomerate in our lifetime

shakezula 5y ago
If it was announced tomorrow I wouldn't even blink an eye. American antitrust and monopoly enforcement is at a comical all time low.

gillytech 5y ago

I think one way to help give the people back some control over the information flow is to educate as many people as possible in the skill of data evaluation. There are definite "outpoints" and "pluspoints" in any piece of information portrayed, and when you give someone the power to differentiate and evaluate the relative importance of individual data points, the controllers of said data become much less powerful. I guess this could be also likened to "critical thinking"? There will always be huge megacorp "mass media" and we need to learn the skills necessary to immunize ourselves to the negative effects of it.

cblconfederate 5y ago

where's google and facebook and twitter? are they not media companies?

DSingularity 5y ago
Companies with shitty media algorithms designed to maximize ad revenues while keeping consumer hooked on their platform through content curated to exploit their tendencies and vulnerabilities.
guerrilla 5y ago
They mean the media companies who actually product content. The users (and the media companies the OP refers to) are the ones who do that on the platforms that you mentioned.

thayne 5y ago

That's actually more companies than I would have guessed.

putlake 5y ago

Examples for what happens when media ownership is concentrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI And this one I'm not sure if it's just good PR by Amazon or laziness by media outlets or both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI

DSingularity 5y ago

In communist countries the party controls the media. In dictatorships the secret police control the media. In liberal democracies the rich control the media.

guerrilla 5y ago
Since in "communist" countries, the party heads are rich and likewise in other dictatorships, I think we can just settle on the rich always control the media.
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Yeah but there is a massive difference between money controlling the media because of their money and - for example - a dictator controlling the media because he’s got the guns. The media will have a totally different tint: glorifying leader/ideology in the case of dictatorship/communism. What about our profit-oriented media? Remember how it beats the drums of war every single time? Who knows what interests they represent or whose agenda they are working for.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > Yeah but there is a massive difference between money controlling the media because of their money and - for example - a dictator controlling the media because he’s got the guns. The consequences are the same: the media is used to enrich the rich and empower the powerful.

lend000 5y ago

I suppose that's better than 2 political parties controlling 99% of Congress.

wombatmobile 5y ago
It's not an alternative it's a consequence.

motohagiography 5y ago

Should we be concerned about them using their media properties to push narratives designed to consolidate their influence, or ask whether some of the things we believe might be artifacts of that influence, or maybe what the sources and motives of those narratives might be? Kidding. This isn't the 90's. The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now. Plus, big tech is finally being responsible and working on the right side of history, so we can all get aligned on fighting climate change, and finally force the assholes to pay everyone back for their empty status symbols like all the air they polluted with their SUVs, unpaid emotional labor, meat, and tax breaks they took from us, and finally give it to people who deserve it. We can even replace small thinking regional governments with better international collaboration and cooperation so that everyone will be equal no matter where they live, and we can end the privileged western lifestyle once and for all. Kidding, not kidding. We should really look at what these companies are pushing.

starkd 5y ago
<< the right side of history << what does that even mean? There is a name for government-corporate collaboration. Even if you think it's going well "for now", it probably isn't.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  History is written by the winners. The right side is the one they write for themselves. So just always be on the side that is in the majority and has all of the power. Ezpz
  - forcry 5y ago
    >So just always be on the side that is in the majority and has all of the power Until you find yourselves on the other side, by definition..
    - bilbo0s 5y ago

berniemadoff69 5y ago

funny this article says six companies, but lists cbs and viacom separately. they merged, the title should say five

bGriz 5y ago
The article was written based on older memes about those corporations. I agree with the sentiment of it, but it's unfortunately stale info. The article is a year old, the merger was a year before that, and the graphics are sourced enough to probably track down. From the article itself: "Of note, this infographic is dated and does not reflect the current media owners of some of the news outlets." This is a writer who found something controversial and refreshed the topic, but added a disclaimer that it's based on older pieces of information. All that said, I'd be wondering if it's a placement piece for YouTube's NowThisWorld user/channel. Or if it's young editors at the website just stirring things up for traffic and/or relevant content for their audience.

rgbrenner 5y ago

"Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to." Where's the evidence for the 90% number here? Every media mentioned is legacy media. People now spend more time consuming digital media than legacy media.[0] So I don't see how this claim can be true. https://www.statista.com/statistics/565628/time-spent-digital-traditional-media-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/565628/time-spent-digita...

ipaddr 5y ago
Like facebook, instagram, youtube twitter? Now things are owned by two companies google and facebook but you can still get uncensored content on twitter? Not anymore. Things are more controlled in the digital world. Soon Apple will buy one of the major legacy companies, followed by Amazon, Microsoft which will allow Google to do the same.
danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Exactly right. The 90% number is nonsense. Customers have more choice than ever. I could start a media company tomorrow and everyone could watch/read/listen to it. Creating content has never been easier than it is today. Distributing content has never been easier than it is today. Creating a big audience has never been easier than it is today. The idea that these companies have "control" is laughable. note I'm not suggesting creating great content or building an audience is easy per se. I'm just saying it's never been easier for a random person. About the only people for who the media business has become more difficult is... existing large media companies who used to control distribution via cable, tv licenses etc.

waynesonfire 5y ago

Is hackernews owned by any one these?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
forcry 5y ago
It does not have to be. If the mainstream media set consensus, everything will have to fall in line. So in HN, the readers will do the job of censoring info if they are very out of line with the mainstream narrative. Look at this submission of mine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27941820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27941820 It was flagged promptly and removed from view in a little while.. Although, I ll have to admit that this site holds up better than most similar places, and that is probably because it is not very well known... But on the otherside, you can buy a high karma HN account on some sites, so everything is in place to poison this site as well. I think it's just a matter of getting upto some threshold of popularity..
redis_mlc 5y ago
HN is a leftist organ at this point, based on both the posts and downvotes in the past year. I've been called brave just for using the word "Republican" in a post. We only have 2 national parties, guys.

SapporoChris 5y ago

>Back in 2018, Jim Morrison, a singer, songwriter, and poet, who served as the lead vocalist of the rock band, once said: “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” Jim Morrison Born: December 8, 1943. Died:July 3, 1971. It is difficult for me to take an article seriously when there are glaringly obvious mistakes.

emodendroket 5y ago
Also sloppy to have written "the band" here when in fact no band has been introduced.
- dwd 5y ago
  Was this article generated by AI?
  - grawprog 5y ago
    It kind of reads like it. The whole article reminds me of something produced by GPT-3. Just the paragraph structure and wording alone.
    - Orou 5y ago
      Agreed. I'll admit I didn't notice it on first pass and just thought the Jim Morrison bit was sloppy writing, but reading it again it has all the hallmarks of GPT-generated text. It even talks about the etymology of the word "elite" for no reason! If it isn't GPT-3, then it's writing at a high school level at best and shouldn't be on the front page.
  - thewebcount 5y ago
    Yeah, that was my first thought, too. It certainly makes me wonder about the rest of the article. I did a quick search to see if there was any Jim Morrison-related news from 2018, but other than some other people with the same name dying, there wasn’t anything. Even that movie with Val Kilmer was like 20-30 years ago. Very bizarre.

longwick 5y ago

I wrote an article exactly on this and how mass media have their own agenda in their programs https://apurva-shukla.me/blog/media-and-propaganda/ https://apurva-shukla.me/blog/media-and-propaganda/

wdr1 5y ago

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excludes giants like Netflix? There may be issues here, but this article wasn't very good.

mtnGoat 5y ago
YouTube/IG/etc are not media creators per se, just aggregators. Thus, not including them on that list makes perfect sense to me.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Well, when you say "american media" then don't include all "media" sources, it just looks like clickbait.
  - fitzie 5y ago
    from the article it says "Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to.". there is a heavy handed content moderation policy on all major social media platforms. it is a rare day when I don't see or hear of blocked suspended or banned content on social media.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      And? I'm just pointing out that "90% of what we read, watch, or listen to" is wholly inaccurate.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  They are not just aggregators, but also publishers. They ban/censor certain content, they create algorithms to shape the exposure of information, they control monetization, etc. they have far more influence on “American media” than the six listed here.

_nicelaris_ 5y ago

Doubtless the knee jerk response will be to advocate for increased corporate regulation, which is precisely what has stifled competition in the market and created this oligopoly in the first place.

amyjess 5y ago

Honestly the first two paragraphs of this article alone indicate that this article is a polemic intended to stir up a pogrom against so-called elites. This isn't intellectually gratifying: it's an angry political screed. Furthermore, as a Jewish person myself something else jumped out at me: there is a long, long, long history of the word "elites" being associated with control over the media as an antisemitic dogwhistle. Any Jewish person will read this, see "the media is controlled by elites", and immediately understand that this is a restatement of antisemitic conspiracy theories that are over a century old. This article is wildly irresponsible.

jwond 5y ago
I’m getting really fed up with people lobbing accusations of bigotry to try and dismiss others’ concerns and criticisms without actually providing any substantial counter-argument.
superflit 5y ago
Not being anti-semitic. But is the article false?
- longtimegoogler 5y ago
  I would say it jumps to unsupported conclusions. It is true that few companies own most of the mainstream media produced in this country. As someone else who worked at one of these companies stated, that these companies are just pedaling propaganda to serve elites or oligarchs needs much more evidence to substantiate such claims. Most of these are public companies whose primary motives are just to make a profit. These companies have millions of employees with diverse opinions and diverse sources of content production. So, I think the article oversteps its claims that the mdeia in this country just serves the interest of some set of elites.
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
I gotta say, if you always read "elites" as being Jewish, then you're not just a priori ruling out any sort of class analysis, you're missing how antisemitic many of the non-Jewish elites actually are!

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago

What's the right ratio though? I try not to get angry about "the bottom 20% eats 90% of the cheeseburgers" stats until I have a reasonable benchmark, or I have a really deep understanding of the "why" and "how" of a given disparity. Two children raised in the same house with the same parents never have equal outcomes - I don't expect it anywhere else either (as a default assumption).

627467 5y ago

I supposed the title is implying the 6 corps is a low number. What is the _right_ number?

vaxman 5y ago

Blame Sean Fanning for causing software companies to incur liability for misuse of peer to peer technology at a rather pivotal point in the development of the Internet. If not for those court rulings, there would have been background info servers running on everyone’s home router long ago. (Ask me how I know )

alfor 5y ago

At the same time they are all becoming irrelevant, those are old people news.

HWR_14 5y ago
What is "old people news"? What is your unique news that is immune from that. Hell, most social media reposting is from one of those sources.

throwaway277 5y ago

Long time employee of one of those companies, here. To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. Yes, some corporate-synergy exists to cross-promote, especially on morning shows, but when it comes to news, we are usually pushing so close to deadline there's no way to even allow for corporate control. That said, there is a need to meet an ever decreasing budget. That's the parent co's real bias; to be cheap.

longtimegoogler 5y ago
Agree, but it doesn't fit the narrative.
xrd 5y ago
My concern is not how things are covered, but what is covered. The article states that certain things (like the owner's dalliances outside his marriage) will never be covered at all. Chomsky and others talk about constraining the topics for discussion, and this seems the most concerning.
aahortwwy 5y ago
"I'm not saying you're self-censoring; I'm sure you believe everything you're saying. What I'm saying is that if you believed something different you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
- jessaustin 5y ago
  This is basic. It either calls into question GP's long experience, or completely proves Chomsky's point. They only hire people with no self-awareness.
wolverine876 5y ago
> To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. I'm pretty sure there are smoking gun memos and insider reports of dictates from the top at News Corp. or at least within Fox News, which they own. Is News Corp. / Fox just a special case?

longtimegoogler 5y ago

The article doesn't really show how this situation has evolved over time. Before cable didn't we essentially only have CBS, NBC, and ABC? When I see other sources like OANN, or the disinformation being peddled from some corners, I am not sure what is a better alternative. These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. To suggest that a small group of elites are controlling the output of these companies is far fetched. For some reason, a certain segment of Americans, have lost trust in these institutions that have been there all along. I fear the alternative.

6f8986c3 5y ago
> These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. Oh no they don't. If you work in media, you either bow to leftist orthodoxy, or you get fired. See Bari Weiss, etc.
- longtimegoogler 5y ago
  And on the right, Fox let go some of longtime staffers who were not sympathetic to the networks coverage of the 2020 elections. ESPN fired Jemele Hill for calling Trump a white supremacist. If you want to claim that the NY Times is left-leaning than I would agree. It's a newspaper in one of the most liberal cities in the country. Its ethos are probably more reflective of that than any elite orthodoxy.
  - 6f8986c3 5y ago
    Fox is garbage. What's your point? Every media organization sacrificed their credibility wholesale over the past five years. The federal government accomplished the same for themselves over 2020. Americans now live in a world where the institutions underpinning public life have lost all of their credibility with the public itself, outside of Blue enclaves. We don't know where this goes. We really don't. Historically, nowhere good.
blazespin 5y ago
I suppose an argument could be made that google has undermined newspapers which has resulted in consolidation and “official” narratives that forces people to turn to social media for (mis)information. But I think the problem is too much of media is written by journalists who by and large are really bad at math, logic, and science so all to often what they end up writing isn’t much better than the alternative. Witness the random hysteria around covid and vaccines. It almost seems like every article is concluding something different and the only consistent theme is that they really have no clue. When was the last time you read a well reasoned argument based on per capita hospitalizations ordered by state and vaccine rates? Never, and I’ve looked. Journalists are incapable of reasoning about these problems because they lack basic math skills. All they can say is vaccine good and anti vaccine bad. Since they can’t coherently say why that is true, too many people just dismiss them.

blazespin 5y ago

Lol hardly. The problem is no one controls the media so it can get very random. The crazy crap people believe isn’t coming from “corporate” media. You think they are writing about Qanon?

longtimegoogler 5y ago
It's funny that you are being downvoted and that HN thinks mainstream media is a bigger problem than Qanon.
username90 5y ago
The crazy shit people believe from corporate media isn't called crazy since so many believe them. And the reason so many believe them is because all corporate media spreads it. Also I am significantly more afraid of crazy shit that people don't call crazy than crazy shit everyone calls crazy.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

40four 5y ago

This is not a surprise is it? My gut tells me the large majority of us here at HN already knew this either empirically or intuitively. I’m not mad about this fact being publicized though. It definitely not obvious to everyone. The super sad and disheartening part of this is even in a ‘free market’, capitalistic environment, in the long run this state of propaganda is still what we are reduced to.

wolverine876 5y ago

While this article is covering reports about traditional media, a few companies such as Facebook and Google control much of the online media landscape, and even what seem like scrappy challengers such as Clubhouse have businesses such as Andreessen Horowitz as investors (and after unfavorable reports by the likes of the NY Times, a16z is also making other efforts to create its own alternate media). Unless you choose principle, high-quality journalism, you won't get it. For example, who wrote this report? Why do you trust them?