A meme made the rounds last week. It included multiple billionaires buying news outlets.
We can’t verify exactly the financial numbers in the meme of billionaires buying news outlets. We can verify though that people with exponential amounts of money now hold more sway in what the rest of us will see, read or hear in the years ahead.
With Elon Musk taking up the Twitter mantle, we will have another billionaire using a platform to determine how and what we view of the world. Non-journalists purchasing into news isn’t necessarily new, as publishers of newspapers, for example, have always had to run a business and survive. That means making compromises sometimes in news coverage, even though a purist reporter would like to believe otherwise.
Still, the sheer scale of the money being pumped into these enterprises, and the nature of news entities are incredibly pricey. Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post. Marc Benioff buying Time. Lauren Powell Jobs purchasing The Atlantic. There are more.
Here’s the scary part to me. It’s not that a successful businessperson is in charge of a large news enterprise per se. It’s the size, scope and influence that comes with the responsibility of running a HUGE information processing machine that affects hundreds of millions of people.
How news is researched, developed and delivered has never been a perfect process. There are time and money constraints to many stories. There are also roadblocks in terms of gaining access to sources, data, individuals. And, then, there is bias from reporters and editors. None are perfect. All have limitations. But a true journalist is tasked with digging up solid information that paints a fuller picture of an event for the reader or viewer.
Yes, that perspective is a bit old fashioned in our time-bite, Tik Tok, quick hit world today. Snippets rule.
I don’t think Elon Musk has any idea what he is doing messing around with Twitter. As James Corden, the late-night host said, “It must be nice to be so rich you can decide to buy hell.”
Wouldn’t it be better for the uber rich to purchase the Chicago Public School system and pump money into making it first-rate with all the laptops necessary, rehabbing buildings, putting world class resources at the fingertips of those kids who typically get left behind? How about if the multi-billionaires chose to set up a scholastic entity, investing in the future of our youth, putting together cutting-edge programs and staff to help us address the many problems we face today and the years ahead?
You can’t stop a super-rich person from doing what they want with their money. It’s what a lot of money allows you to do – buy things, take over, impose your will.
It’s that last piece -- “impose your will” – that’s most concerning when it comes to news and journalism. When you are able through massive financial wealth to impose your will on the flow and direction of information, you wield massive amounts of power. It must be used wisely.
None of us are changing this trend anytime soon. Pay attention and understand where the words and images are
We can’t verify exactly the financial numbers in the meme of billionaires buying news outlets. We can verify though that people with exponential amounts of money now hold more sway in what the rest of us will see, read or hear in the years ahead.
With Elon Musk taking up the Twitter mantle, we will have another billionaire using a platform to determine how and what we view of the world. Non-journalists purchasing into news isn’t necessarily new, as publishers of newspapers, for example, have always had to run a business and survive. That means making compromises sometimes in news coverage, even though a purist reporter would like to believe otherwise.
Still, the sheer scale of the money being pumped into these enterprises, and the nature of news entities are incredibly pricey. Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post. Marc Benioff buying Time. Lauren Powell Jobs purchasing The Atlantic. There are more.
Here’s the scary part to me. It’s not that a successful businessperson is in charge of a large news enterprise per se. It’s the size, scope and influence that comes with the responsibility of running a HUGE information processing machine that affects hundreds of millions of people.
How news is researched, developed and delivered has never been a perfect process. There are time and money constraints to many stories. There are also roadblocks in terms of gaining access to sources, data, individuals. And, then, there is bias from reporters and editors. None are perfect. All have limitations. But a true journalist is tasked with digging up solid information that paints a fuller picture of an event for the reader or viewer.
Yes, that perspective is a bit old fashioned in our time-bite, Tik Tok, quick hit world today. Snippets rule.
I don’t think Elon Musk has any idea what he is doing messing around with Twitter. As James Corden, the late-night host said, “It must be nice to be so rich you can decide to buy hell.”
Wouldn’t it be better for the uber rich to purchase the Chicago Public School system and pump money into making it first-rate with all the laptops necessary, rehabbing buildings, putting world class resources at the fingertips of those kids who typically get left behind? How about if the multi-billionaires chose to set up a scholastic entity, investing in the future of our youth, putting together cutting-edge programs and staff to help us address the many problems we face today and the years ahead?
You can’t stop a super-rich person from doing what they want with their money. It’s what a lot of money allows you to do – buy things, take over, impose your will.
It’s that last piece -- “impose your will” – that’s most concerning when it comes to news and journalism. When you are able through massive financial wealth to impose your will on the flow and direction of information, you wield massive amounts of power. It must be used wisely.
None of us are changing this trend anytime soon. Pay attention and understand where the words and images are