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is it the media?

The treatment of journalism as a business like any other has proven to be a mistake. The interesting caveat is that government funded media like the CBC, TVO and NPR are under attack as being puppets for the administration.   Media are required by capitalists to be profitable. More small niche orgs like Canadaland, Betakit and the like are filling gaps created by neverending stream of cuts to traditional journalism outlets. The massive media conglomerates are falling all around us. 

The internet turned the cost of distributing information to near 0. which destroyed classifieds and other complimentary revenue streams. The ability to get news for free without a subscription was revolutionary like the guttenberg press. However the ROI on each reader was negligible. As google took the lionshare of the revenue newsrooms have been gutted. Mainly local newsrooms, at the cost of oversight.  It also brought the cost of disinformation to 0 as well. The signal to noise ratio has never been worse. The direct subscription citizen model seems like the only feasible model. Perhaps a special tax status would help those democratically sourced dollars go further but any type of government support would require some oversight or approval, which will be used to tarnish these orgs. What I don't see is how we as a society agree to start paying for a quality version of what was once free. Many are paying for opinion. People support their favorite influencers who just bloviate and opine on the news of the day. This is mainly just rage-bait that's a race to the bottom of the brain stem as Tristan Harris says. 

New drinking game on tech podcasts is how quickly the problem of the day is really a media bias and it doesn't require regulation, limiting profit-taking or monopolies. The silicon valley technocrats want to remain above any type of oversight, most are more than happy to see journalism die. They gleefully report on any opportunity to show up a paper that has dared criticized their innovation. This turn was 

A well-run media organization with the best of intentions will still make mistakes. The urge to be first is a problem brought on by twitter and the attention economy. Good journalists will still get stuff wrong, it doesn't mean there's a WEF conspiracy, but that we're all fallible. 

Objective truth underpins everthing,  when that is up for grabs, institutions, education society as a whole is on shaky ground. It feels like I should be making a call to action here, I guess support local news but I still don't know what the successful model is, I just know the one we've got is putting us on a dark path.

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