Over the last few months, there have been several stories about the sorry state of the Western press, especially in the United States.
While Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was good for large cable news networks and to a lesser extent national periodicals like The New York Times, consolidation driven by profit-seeking had already deeply harmed smaller outlets, from televised local news broadcasts to small market newspapers.
At the same time, the hope of the early days of the internet, that access to information and diverse viewpoints from around the world would lead to a more educated public, has arguably led to the opposite. Most people now get their news from dubious sources like random posts on social media and streaming services like TikTok, where disinformation and misinformation is rampant.
One hope that has been held out for larger papers until recently is that billionaire owners can save them and that such noble philanthropists will allow these outlets to operate freely without putting their thumbs on the scale in terms of their coverage. The news that the owners of both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times forced their editors to withhold endorsements during this year’s presidential election puts the lie to this.
It’s also been clear for quite some time that serious journalism, whatever its slant, will not be saved by online advertising; even well-funded outlets like Buzzfeed and, most recently, Messenger, that have attempted to mix news with content they hope will go viral haven’t found a way to survive using this already outdated model.
With help from Joe Rogan and others in the new media that increasingly has replaced journalism with (misinformed) opinion, American voters have returned Trump to The White House, hoping that a narcissistic billionaire will shake things up in Washington and improve their lives. Only time will tell if this will prove as lucrative for media of all stripes as it was last time around or if he will live up to his promise to go after those he has long called “enemies of the people.”
Derek Royden is a Canadian journalist.
