Are you a free luncher?
How much apparently free media are you consuming? I want to start a movement that promotes the consumption of transparently paid-for journalism and exposes other's biases and maliferous objectives.
Fellow Grumps
Home alone drinking a glass/bottle of gonzo wine (Retirement@65, 2019 Blank Bottle) and reflecting on my media consumption today. It has been dominated by 9/11 and its aftermath. Probably the most thought-provoking was the Economist’s cover picture, Sam Harris’ podcast ‘The Second Plane: Reflections on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11’ and the BBC documentary ‘9/11: Inside the President's War Room’.
Sam Harris made a point that 9/11 occurred prior to social media becoming mainstream and he wondered how the conspiracy theories and counter conspiracy theories, that emerged after 9/11, would have played out in the era of social media.
The point Sam Harris is trying to make is that there are no free lunches. He was implying that Trumpism, Brexitism, populist movements in general, antiscience cults and anti-expert campaigns are catalysed and accelerated by the free and ubiquitous consumption of ‘apparently free media’ via these platforms. However, are they free?
Facebook’s revenue in 2020 was $86 billion, Twitter’s $3.7 billion, Google’s $147 billion, LinkedIn >$10 billion, etc. Almost all of this revenue is paid for by click-through advertising. So next time you read a Tweet, or something on a Facebook/Instagram feed or watch anything on YouTube, do realise that it is being paid for by someone else. These social media platforms have created enormous wealth for a handful of tech moguls but at the expense of brilliant, creative and balanced journalism. The closure of many traditional media outlets saddens me, which is today’s grump!
Several years ago I made a decision to only read things I pay for. The trigger was when the Evening Standard (ES), a London evening newspaper, became free. On moving to London I used to buy the ES to read on my commute home. Although the ES was not highbrow journalism there were some very good columnists who I read daily and who provided a reasonable insight into politics in London and Britain. However, shortly after it was taken over in 2009 by Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny Lebedev, Russian oligarchs, it became free. This changed its content and emphasis. No longer were the individual columnists important, but rather the messages the proprietors of the ES were peddling.
The ES is now a very low-brow daily and instead of being neutral, it has become a right-wing rag. It was no surprise when in July 2020, Lebedev was nominated for a life peerage by Boris Johnson. So who then is really paying for the crap journalism and messages the ES spews out every day?
I am aware that I am in a very privileged position to be able to afford subscriptions, including voluntary ones, for example to Wikipedia. The reason? As nothing is really for free you have to ask yourself when consuming free content ‘who is paying for it?’, and therein lies the problem and the solution.
A Tweet or Instagram post from a celebrity influencer is being paid for by a particular brand. An anti-vax article will be paid for by a well-oiled propaganda machine or maybe a malicious government determined to create confusion and to undermine the current political system.
Although the internet and the web have meant to democratise knowledge it has now become a very distorted dystopian knowledge environment, which is being manipulated by big business in the form of advertising and political, often anti-establishment, movements.
So fellow grumps, I want us to start our own movement that promotes the consumption of transparently paid-for journalism and exposes other's biases and maliferous objectives. This is not only about protecting our minds and those of our childrens’ but it is about supporting and protecting one of the most important pillars of modern democracy: an independent, free and trustworthy press.
Gavin
P.S. I am also a paid-up subscriber to Sam Harris’ ‘Making Sense’ podcasts.