"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter" Thomas Jefferson
Here we are, Tom, with a failure you never imagined of both newspapers and government within a single administration. The billionaire-class ownership of, essentially, all forms of media would test both your preference and patience.
The choice is a combination that suits them, ‘Fairytale News supporting Fascist Government.’
Like so many of the erosions Ben Franklin foretold in his “a republic, madam, if you can keep it” remark, they didn’t come quickly, but unremittingly over decades, much like watching your angel-child grow up to become a monster. You framers…yourself, and Ben, John Adams, George Washington, James Madison Alexander Hamilton, the names we remember today from that incredible brain trust we trusted, could hardly be blamed for seeing no further than horses and carriages.
All of us live within our personal lived history, and our vision shines no further down the road than our imagination—and dimly, at that.
A nation was born, and its 250th anniversary arrives this year, concurrently with its greatest threat.
This nation-child eased out of the womb with blemishes. Deals were required to clean it up and allow it to suck the teat of ‘all men created equal,’ a milk that was not pure, but offered life.
· There was no nation without Virginia, the heart of the colonies, and it was a slave state. Accommodations rose from that, scars we live with yet today.
· The three-fifths vote, awarded to slave owners for each slave, to ‘balance’ Virginia against an outside white majority.
· The Electoral College, established in the Constitution, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election by a popular vote of qualified citizens. Qualified meant literate, they didn’t trust the commonest of men.
And yet we moved forward as a nation, through adolescence and into adulthood, blemishes and all. What has changed, is newspapers as a sole source of communication.
This occurred, as so many movements from an agrarian to a technological society have, slowly, ever so slowly, and then all in a rush. Telegraph, telephone, radio, film, television, and then…whoosh, social media.
The one we were least prepared for was, of course, the tech side of social media. Telephones, those ancient instruments connected in our homes by a wire in the wall are, for all practical purposes, gone. The ubiquitous instrument we hold in our hand and call a cellphone, has (hold your breath) more computer power than the rooms full of machines that sent man to the Moon.
That, I submit, is as impossible to wrap your mind around as is the difference between millionaire and billionaire.
And yet, they are as connected as Siamese twins, Reagan and Thatcher, Abbot and Costello, Clint Eastwood and Westerns.
The cellphone allows grandma to reach her kids, the rushed businessman to explain why he’s late, and your kids to access pornography simply by clicking the ‘I’m over eighteen’ button.
Are those miracles, or what?
Actually, ‘or what’ is the correct answer. The technology thieves who run our lives, economics, and government don’t give a hoot about grandma or pornography. They want to know who we-as-a-society are connected to, what we buy, where we are at any time, and the degree of our affluence.
And…sadly…they know all of that and more. Take that, Mr. Jefferson, and your old, printed newspaper. Still trusting?
Past research has found that, by looking at what you’ve ‘liked’ on Facebook, machine learning algorithms can predict your personality traits better than your own friends, family, and spouse. That’s the real reason the tech bros chose to put all that power in our hands…so they could sell us stuff. And, way more importantly, so they could profit from sending our ‘likes’ on to other people who would sell us stuff.
They know which breakfast cereal grandma picks off the shelf, what porn site your kid favors, and where dad has lunch, what menu item he chooses, and how much he pays, including the tip. Your spouse, boss, or friends know none of these things about you. They certainly, don’t know which motel you checked into last Thursday afternoon, and with whom.
So, we’ve lost Jefferson’s choice and, possibly Franklin’s republic, to a technological miracle (or aberration) called ‘none of the above.’
We didn’t choose it. It chose us, and we had nothing to say about the contract. Now Michael Bloomberg, the richest billionaire in the media business, owns Bloomberg LP, which has more than 2,000 reporters around the world. In 2009, he bought Business Week magazine from McGraw Hill for a reported $5 million plus assumption of debt.
Rupert Murdoch, may well be the world’s most powerful media tycoon. He owns 21st Century Fox with his son Lachlan, is also chairman of News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal and other publications. Altogether, his family controls 120 newspapers across five countries.
Donald Newhouse and his brother Samuel inherited Advance Publications, a privately-held media company that controls a plethora of newspapers, magazine, cable TV and entertainment assets. from their father. Advance owns newspapers in 25 cities and towns across America and is the country’s largest privately-held newspaper chain. Conde Nast, a unit of Advance Publications, publishes magazines including Wired, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Vogue.
The Cox Family owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post, John Henry (not the steel drivin’ man) The Boston Globe…
…and on, and on, and on. But Thomas Jefferson believed in an independent press, and we actually had one at the time.
So, if fascist history dictates that, initially, control of all sources of media are primary, ours are now almost totally in the hands of right-wing billionaires.
Thank god I don’t have to inform Jefferson. He’s six feet under at Monticello.
But, I thought you might want to know.