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Welcome back to Hackwatch! It’s been a minute, we missed you, and we’re excited to be back!
Everyone is tired of stressing about the election and the possibility that it might usher in the end of the American experiment, so I thought I’d provide a little change of pace as we head into the last full week before election day!
So, let’s talk about the state of the media. And the role it might usher in the end of American democracy. See? Better already!
On Monday October 21, New York magazine ran its yearly “Power Issue,” a deep dive into the influential people who shape our country from behind the scenes. Last year’s issue was about NYC insiders. This year’s issue centers on the future of the media. And it was… not a fun read.
From the start, New York avoids discussion of the many failures of the very sort of media titans interviewed for the issue, and how they contributed to the current (dire) state of media in the US. That problem is compounded because much of the discussion reveals an intent to double down on the same trends that have left us with an uninformed citizenry. Rather than discuss how to rebuild trust in the media, suspicion is treated more like an exogenous variable completely unmoored from media behavior.
The fact that Big Tech sold the news media down the river prompts hardly any introspection. Google didn’t wreck havoc on journalism by happenstance; they did what monopolistic behemoths always do: wrap their tentacles around entire industries and squeeze them for every last dime. If outlets didn’t blithely go along with it, maybe we wouldn’t be here. But they followed insidious advice like: “rely more on ads (using our adsense program)” and “make video and shorter content” and “focus on maximizing clicks.”
Instead everything in the piece was about revenue growth and how to expand business models. Perhaps most worryingly, the executives being quoted view The New York Times as the gold standard, not because of journalistic quality, but despite it.
Right after the section entitled “Everybody is Jealous of The New York Times,” NY Mag highlights that this is “Not Necessarily For Its Journalism.” They quote an anonymous executive as saying “I envy their business model; I don’t envy their newsroom. I think it’s bloated and kind of self-indulgent.” Of course “bloated” here means it has more than the bare minimum of writers and researchers and editors, but to an executive, these key factors in journalistic quality are wasteful expenditures.
If you want to read a deeper critique of the piece, I’d recommend this from The Nation’s Chris Lehman. In particular, Lehman’s piece does a great job of pointing out the total abandonment of civic values (I ctrl+f’ed and the word “civic” doesn’t appear once, nor does “ethic” or “informed,” while “citizen” only appears in a reference to Citizen Kane and “value” is only used in a monetary sense). Journalism has always had its flaws, but the abandonment of any commitment to a mission beyond business machinations still leaves a bitter taste.
I want to leave you with two last thoughts: one on the hidden economic messaging right below the surface and a second on why I’m telling you any of this.
First, it’s worth noting that this piece was run while New York is actively involved in a dispute with its staff union. Which adds a bit of color to why they slip in a lot of stray remarks quotes bashing unions and employees, such as:
- This from the piece’s author directly: “Perhaps unsurprisingly for a group of owners and managers, the rise of media unions over the past decade was treated mostly as a nuisance.” And this is probably the most positive example.
- From an anonymous executive: “I’ve always been supportive of unions, but I think the unions today are different and the guilds today are different” because they’re too activist-y now.
- Also anonymously: “It’s gone wrong over too many years. The unionization has made everything more expensive.”
This is why we have Hackwatch: to call out when the media and pundits have vested interests in what they are offering opinions on. Everyone who goes into reading this feature knows executives have a particular view, but most probably don’t know about the union dispute. Those quotes are a two-fer. They represent “insider” knowledge and can be offered as examples of why the company simply couldn’t meet workers’ demands. And that’s the second point.
Especially in an age where news media has cheapened itself to fit in better with digital brain rot, it’s necessary to think about what it could be. That’s why criticizing pundits and outlets has value. To draw attention to shortcomings. In an era of misinformation, there has to be an ideal to strive for that represents more than corporate bottom lines.
In other news:
What Harris Needs to Say About Hurricanes
In this piece our very own Kenny Stancil breaks down why insurance markets need to be a bigger issue in the campaign—and the public discourse. As home insurers leave markets wholesale, there’s a (insurance) title wave of issues heading straight for the people most at risk of climate disasters.
A Brief History Of Matt Yglesias Screwing Workers
Here, Julian and Max take a stroll through our old pal’s comments on labor and workers, including highlights like a moral issue with the minimum wage and arguing that it’s not so bad for workers in a developing country to die because of lax safety standards.
The Worst Milton Since Friedman
This one’s from me! I walk through why climate change is a serious risk to the financial system because of how it impacts businesses and why—because of shortfalls in insurance coverage and a lack of guidelines on appropriate risk management—policy makers, including the Fed, need to look at doing more.
Support for a Corporate Crackdown is the Norm
There’s new polling on just how popular cracking down on corporate ne’er do wells is. (Hint: it’s very popular) Henry’s got a little more info for you!
TD Bank Settlement Shows DOJ Needs To Go Even Bigger To Crack Down On Corporate Criminals
Even after Attorney General Merrick Garland has specifically discussed the importance of holding financial criminals liable for their crimes, all the upper echelons at TD Bank apparently had their get out of jail free cards handy, because none of them will face indictment for a massive amount of money laundering.