That’s an article about how many Ukrainian athletes have died in the war. Absolute scum. I try to avoid “they should be fired” calls usually but whichever editor put that out should struggle to get another job in the industry. Absolute bottom rung scum “journalism”. Designed from top to bottom to mislead readers in the worst way possible.
Elsewhere - how depressing that we’re reduced to hoping James Murdoch gets control of Newscorp. Fuck me talk about lesser evils.
Apparently Rupert is trying to break an “irrevocable trust” that puts the company in all of his kids’ hands and instead vest it in Lachlan’s sole control. He’s arguing that it will be better for the business and therefore benefit the other kids financially. So they won’t lose their stake, just any say over its operation.
So you’re complaining about editors and journos producing content that attracts eyeballs - or clicks, as you put it - which brings in ad revenue that keeps media companies in business in a competitive industry.
There are still mastheads employing intelligent and talented reporters, like the Herald, Guardian, ABC, New York Times, just to name a few examples. If you want high quality reporting, you’ll generally need to pay for it, but it does exist.
Yes, there are scummy news outlets out there. There are scummy plumbers out there but that doesn’t mean the industry itself is scummy. I’m not sure why the whole media industry is always painted with the same brush.
The problem is there are a heap of “articles” that have blatantly misleading headlines in order to gain that click. The term “clickbait” certainly didn’t come from nowhere.
I otherwise agree that some good news organisations still exist.
That would be fine if the operation of these businesses wasn’t toxic to any common understanding of truth, and if they weren’t eroding the foundations of our democracies.
The press is called the fourth estate for a reason - it’s a key part of our democracy and there are outlets actively poisoning the discourse.
