<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/10/la-times-billionaire-owner-hilariously-thinks-he-can-solve-media-bias-with-ai/>
"Academics have spent generations warning about what happens when you let
journalism and media consolidate in the hands of rich people and corporations.
As this season’s election coverage demonstrated, the end result is usually a
lazy simulacrum of journalism that looks like real reporting, but tends to
reflect ownership interests and (usually) lacks the courage to challenge wealth
and power.
The coverage tends to be feckless and shallow. It tends to hew toward false
ideological symmetry (what NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen calls the “view
from nowhere“). It tends to give short shrift to issues like labor and consumer
rights, and extra attention and credence to corporatist beliefs. It very often
demonstrates sexist, classist, and racist bias. It’s generally not subtle.
When white male billionaires jump into the news business they are conditioned
to see none of this. Most of the time, as we’ve seen with outlets like
Politico (run by German billionaire CEO Mathias Döpfner) they’ll generally
whine about “bias,” but believe most of the bias in journalism is coming from
“the left” end of the ideological spectrum (too much “divisive” coverage about
class and race issues).
To fix this incorrectly perceived bias they’ll generally shift news coverage
further rightward. We’ve seen it at
CNN,
CBS, and even “progressive”
Comcast-owned
MSNBC, which have responded to authoritarianism by becoming
even less critical of the right wing. That includes the
Los Angeles Times,
which, under the ownership of billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, is kissing up to
Trumpism and Elon Musk.
When guys like Soon-Shiong try to justify this, they’ll generally complain that
they believe news has become “too biased” and opinionated generally:
“Soon-Shiong said major publishers have so far failed to adequately separate
news and opinion, which he suggested “could be the downfall of what now
people call mainstream media.”
But again, their idea of “fixing” that bias (as we’ve also seen at
The
Messenger or
Semafor) usually involves kissing up to Republicans, and making
their coverage even more feckless in a way that doesn’t offend advertisers,
readers, or event sponsors. A lot of the eroded trust in media is because major
consolidated outlets don’t tell the truth, not because they’re “too
opinionated.”
And they don’t tell the truth because the truth is going to upset people. It
risks reducing ad engagement. It risks losing some readership. It risks
upsetting advertisers. It risks upsetting sources or event sponsors. But most
importantly the truth risks upsetting rich billionaires if the stories ask
questions like “why do billionaires exist” and “why don’t rich people pay
enough taxes.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
