Kinda serious, but self centred. TLDR journalism is expensive. Accurate journalism even more so, investigative 10 x that. if its only for rich people, then onl

Kinda serious, but self centred. TLDR journalism is expensive. Accurate journalism even more so, investigative 10 x that. if its only for rich people, then only rich people problems will get exposed. Longer: As you know journalism costs, "journalism" is cheaper, and often more popular. What do I mean? Big paid for news systems have the budget to let people investigate stuff, peer in, check sources and generally have specialists in different areas (transport, health, science, trade, business, environment, law , etc). This means that its harder to sneak bullshit past them, and use that platform as a free advertiser. What does this mean in practice? Well, lets look at tech coverage. the free sites are basically a thin veneer over tech company's PR. Certain sites will be given exclusive access if they are nice and well behaved. Tech companies are almost never tackled on their bullshit. Thats down to financial news sites or the like. Theranos was obviously pulling some bullshit, but it wasn't until the WSJ put some effort in before consequences actually happened. but how could that be? because up until the finance news papers got involved, Theranos was operating in a pull model, sending invites to tech journalists who know that if they say bad things, they won't be called back. Apple and Tesla do this as well, along with others. This means that if you want eyeballs, you need to be nice to the tech companies and print bullshit. So what does that mean? It means that rich people's news sources are doing the majority of investigative journalism, which means there are scandals that affect the average person, going unpunished. For the UK that means things like the collapse of the NHS, Adult and social care, the halfing of all local council budgets, along with education for kids with any kind of extra need. Most of that is known, but its never a front of centre by the news sources. Which means the government can ignore it. (see the post office scandal, it was known about, but never front page. it took a fucking drama to shame the state into action.)