Three weeks ago, I suggested it was time Google took responsibility for the news business, paying for links through a journalistic process that would turn the industry away from fake news, clickbait, and paywalls.
Like most of what I write, the piece was ignored. But the “newspaper industry” did make what it thinks is a move in the right direction, asking for permission to bargain as a group with Google and Facebook, unionizing so it could demand cash from the industry’s bosses.
Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. The papers don’t get to define what they write as true and take someone else’s money for it. As every working journalist knows, our industry follows the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. The papers’ suit shows they know Google has the gold. Thus, Google should make the rules.
Tim Worstall, one of Forbes’ right-wing asshats, laughed off the suit in a way that may make it seem (to others) that he agrees with me. He doesn’t.
Journalism is said to be a business, but journalism is also a political act. It always has been. In the absence of a business model supporting truth, journalism is only a political act. The Age of Trump has taken us back to the time of the Founders.
During the first decade of the Republic, James Callender took down both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson with truth bombs. He died soon after, unloved by either side. Thomas Paine, a much better writer, also died unloved, and while it’s commonly forgotten now, journalism as a business would not exist for some decades after their deaths.
The failure of the journalism business in the early 21st century has brought us back to Callender’s time. Journalism is no longer a business that purports to discover truth. Journalism is now a political act. Journalism is politics by other means.
Rupert Murdoch was the first to recognize this. But he has acolytes, like Robert Mercer and the Sinclair Company. These actors have been busy buying “journalism,” now including such papers as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, which will soon go into the stable of Sinclair, a fervently right-wing outlet.
Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post makes that a subsidized left-wing outlet. It’s a national outlet, which does good work, and it’s not overtly political. But there is no one arbitrating between the truth of what the Post does and the lies spun by Fox, Mercer, and Sinclair. Many cities, and many citizens, are getting nothing in local coverage beyond what their politicized media feed them.
There remains very little real estate in the industry that’s not being occupied by politicians working for political purposes. They don’t mind losing money, if they can maintain and retain political power.
So far, neither Google nor Facebook has responded to the papers’ suit. Amazon has done nothing although Bezos bought The Post.
The tech giants haven’t acted because they continue to make money. Since the Trump Inauguration Amazon is up 22% in value, Facebook is up 20% in value, and Google is up 14%, even while secondary companies in the tech sector roll over. Jeff Bezos’ net worth has risen $16 billion, and he’s now in striking distance of Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal net worth is up $13 billion, the fortunes of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin about $10 billion. Thanks to the end of corporate democracy endorsed by the last three Administrations, there is no way Zuck, Page or Brin can be taken down from their perch. They own the controlling shares, in addition to their fortunes. They are true oligarchs.
All should respond to the threat of losing money, however. When stock in Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet roll over, as I think will happen this fall, and when a real recession hits, something Zuckerberg has yet to experience and which Page and Brin barely noticed, I think they will get a wake-up call.
That’s because recessions raise political passions you won’t find in prosperity. They are opportunities for change, but also opportunities for tyrants. The Great Recession of 2008 gave us Barack Obama. The Great Depression of the 1930s gave us Adolf Hitler. A Hitler wannabe sits in the White House today, surrounded by a sycophantic party and oligarchs who own substantial portions of the media. He can, and will, spin whatever happens his own way, and we need arbiters of truth for Americans to know what is happening.
