> But that's not what happened here. The editors did their normal endorsement process, but the owner of the paper stepped in and personally overrode their process for this one particular endorsement.
He owns the paper, they just work there.
He owns the paper, they just work there.
I worked at a major daily newspaper 30 years ago and I personally know of two cases in my short tenure there where news stories were killed because they didn’t want to piss off important advertisers. I am also aware of a story involving a family member of one of the executives that was let’s say “barely” reported. Other local media organizations interestingly had much more detail than we carried.
News has always been and will always be first—a business.
There's definitely some very hard and frank questions we need to ask if free information decides to focus on profits over communication.
Plus in this day and age there is literally no restriction on the flow of public accessible information at least in the US. Even when it was tried recently (twitter, FB, YouTube) during the pandemic the public backlash to that attempts at information control was so great that it might literally sway this election.
like most of the 21st century: Nothing new, just getting more efficient and less subtle with it. 20th century corruption would have had this announced way back in 2023 to make the timing not so obvious at the bare minimium instead of having editorial waste its time on a story that was pulled last minute.
>the public backlash to that attempts at information control was so great that it might literally sway this election.
but nothing much changed. I don't know if public outcry vs output was always this poor, but that certainly seems to have changed over the decades. Too many people uncomfortable enough to complain but not enough to get up and get out.
Two of the three platforms (and the former CEO of one) have publicly admitted what was done at their companies was a mistake and the third has quietly reversed much of the topic controls around pandemic and vaccination content.
I’d say that is something.
Whenever people say stuff like this it reminds me why I'm wary whenever people mention things being business friendly or pro-market because it has a lot to do with protecting certain people who already have a good position over merely following market forces.