A piece I wrote for The Progressive magazine earlier this summer--“How to Fight Media Oligarchy”--is now published online.
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A piece I wrote for The Progressive magazine earlier this summer--“How to Fight Media Oligarchy”--is now published online. In the essay I try to sketch several arguments: 1) big corporate media mergers are bad for everyone other than those few who stand to profit 2) this media oligarchy problem wasn't inevitable but rather caused by bad policy decisions, and 3) breaking up media conglomerates is both absolutely necessary & insufficient for reconstructing the media we need.https://progressive.org/magazine/how-to-fight-media-oligarchy-pickard-20260904/
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A piece I wrote for The Progressive magazine earlier this summer--“How to Fight Media Oligarchy”--is now published online. In the essay I try to sketch several arguments: 1) big corporate media mergers are bad for everyone other than those few who stand to profit 2) this media oligarchy problem wasn't inevitable but rather caused by bad policy decisions, and 3) breaking up media conglomerates is both absolutely necessary & insufficient for reconstructing the media we need.https://progressive.org/magazine/how-to-fight-media-oligarchy-pickard-20260904/
Every billionaire-owned media outlet is a profound threat to our democracy, but the solution isn't merely to trust-bust them into smaller pieces; we also must create true public alternatives from the ground up.
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A piece I wrote for The Progressive magazine earlier this summer--“How to Fight Media Oligarchy”--is now published online. In the essay I try to sketch several arguments: 1) big corporate media mergers are bad for everyone other than those few who stand to profit 2) this media oligarchy problem wasn't inevitable but rather caused by bad policy decisions, and 3) breaking up media conglomerates is both absolutely necessary & insufficient for reconstructing the media we need.https://progressive.org/magazine/how-to-fight-media-oligarchy-pickard-20260904/
my only disagreement is that there's no longer so much of a funneling of the public into a few corporate outlets and PBS and NPR. There are many more options and of course that funneling is now often done by corporate social platforms and it's why Elon bought Twitter etc.
But what if media reform groups created a movement around decentralized social media and related technologies? Direct and automatic funding of creators? Isn't that another option?
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my only disagreement is that there's no longer so much of a funneling of the public into a few corporate outlets and PBS and NPR. There are many more options and of course that funneling is now often done by corporate social platforms and it's why Elon bought Twitter etc.
But what if media reform groups created a movement around decentralized social media and related technologies? Direct and automatic funding of creators? Isn't that another option?
@wjmaggos Yeah, those are options. FWIW I am advocating for funding/rebuilding/reimagining an entire media ecosystem, not just PBS/NPR.
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@wjmaggos Yeah, those are options. FWIW I am advocating for funding/rebuilding/reimagining an entire media ecosystem, not just PBS/NPR.
I think I understand. I'm not really talking about PBS and NPR either. I'm also talking about the entire ecosystem.
That buying CBS and CNN could matter a lot less if when people sit down to watch the news, it's in any app they choose (like podcasting) and the content was recommended by people they follow via fedi boosts. Same with articles, podcasts, music etc. And they auto pay what they can afford directly to the creators. Developing these tools just needs money/visibility.
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I think I understand. I'm not really talking about PBS and NPR either. I'm also talking about the entire ecosystem.
That buying CBS and CNN could matter a lot less if when people sit down to watch the news, it's in any app they choose (like podcasting) and the content was recommended by people they follow via fedi boosts. Same with articles, podcasts, music etc. And they auto pay what they can afford directly to the creators. Developing these tools just needs money/visibility.
I just saw the #DemocracyNow documentary. It's not like good reporting doesn't exist. It's that the defaults for most people for decades has directed them to news that's biased by big money. While the web made the good stuff accessible, it didn't change the structural default for most Americans. That's what advocating for an embrace of decentralized social media and convenient decentralized media distribution systems can fix. Early twitter and podcasts were a first step for many.
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