From The Free Press mission statements: > Media Control > Powerful corporations want to decide what you’re able to watch, listen to, read and share. And runaway media consolidation among news organizations has squashed diverse, local and independent voices, leaving us in the dark about important developments in our communities.
With the recent alleged quid-pro-quo between Paramount and Pres Trump on the Skydance merger, and this merger - into an entity controlled by Larry Ellison - I’m not feeling to great about their ability to execute on that mission. Happy to be wrong though.
I'm not sure what level of confidence I have in any major media conglomerate to actually deliver anything resembling unbiased news at this point. The entirety "journalism" is entrenched by activists to begin with.
The best you can do is get a few of the same stories from sources that are biased in different directions to glean out something resembling a complete picture, and even then you should be skeptical.
> I'm not sure what level of confidence I have in any major media conglomerate to actually deliver anything resembling unbiased news at this point.
I'd go further: I'm not sure what level of confidence I have in any major conglomerate to deliver anything good.
OK, now:
> Free Speech > We’re facing a constitutional crisis as Donald Trump works to consolidate his power, carry out personal vendettas and ravage the federal government in illegal ways.
I sincerely don’t know how to read this; either Paramount/CBS is worried about their public perception wrt kowtowing to government pressure, or right-wing media is buying legitimacy via branding, or this is a personal “squash your enemies” favor between billionaires.
This is great. I feel like we need more of the heterodox and alt-center opinions that the Free Press brings.
Hail corporate
There's nothing "center" about Bari Weiss or the Free Press, she's just another right-wing grifter pretending to be a centrist.
She'll fit right in with the Ellison's takeover of CBS (which is not a compliment).
I’m sick of living in interesting times. ;-;
Most sectors of the American people have their heads constantly pumped full of barely different flavors of propaganda to manufacture consent to roll out the red carpet for billionaires. Thus, journalism has retreated to fits and starts of independent journalists and writers on substack who lack funding, distribution, promotion, or shared infrastructure to dispel lies and terrible ideas. And the left (excluding big D Democrats) has no funding or infrastructure either compared to the right, who have networks, PACs, and a whole support ecosystem. Every ordinary American should want relatively equally-matched spheres of influence to offer a more stable political tension through countervailing opposition rather than different flavors of wealth and ownership worship as the panacea while not doing much for ordinary people except screwing them.
The reporting from the Free Press has been good, if they bring CBS up to their standard it would be an improvement. This is a good thing.
I just had a look and there's a lot of pro Israel stuff. They seem generally pro democracy and anti tyranny and so a bit iffy about Trump.
Found the billionaire
[delayed]