I feel like there’s a concerted effort to delegitimize the entire concept of whistleblowing. They’re getting more common, more partisan, and less backed by physical evidence.
The blurred lines between accusation based on hearsay and whistleblowing is part of the problem. The Media is told the person is a whistleblower and mindlessly repeats it ad nauseam.
Or worse, repeats it knowing the short-term gains and ignoring the long-term consequences. If the Japanese balloon bombing of 1945 happened today, I am almost certain modern media orgs would choose profit over safety and refuse to save lives by keeping it secret.
The term media is now diffuse, and actual journalism sparse. And so unless you’re an avid critical consumer of diverse sources you have little idea of what model is approaching reality.
Most big players, with fox news showing the way to profit from it, have nearly abdicated their responsibility to judge truth claims.
Being breathlessly first in a way that’s pleasant to your demographic’s ear is more important than being right.
When the success of a media organization is bound to the rules of capitalism, it’s unsurprising that their objectives becomes capitalistic. The responsibilities of the 4th estate and the incentives of capitalism are misaligned.
The catch-22 is that the solution to this is regulation by the government. But the 4th estate is itself a check on government. So if the government is given regulatory control over the 4th estate, you open up the possibility of neutering that check.
Then again, that check has already been neutered by capitalism so…
Unless impartiality under other systems can be demonstrated I wouldn’t say that’s a feature of capitalism.
In fact it was under democratic capitalism that the idea of an independent and impartial 4th estate was created.
Concentration of powers seems to be a global phenomenon regardless of system - in fact the capitalist societies seem to be the last bastions of such journalism.
I don’t have any answers, just observations.
You can’t unroll the internet, mobile computing or bite sized info-entertainment.
You may be able to regulate algorithms that promote addictive behaviours.
Good journalism needs better protections and incentive structures, but it’s still trying to figure it out.
Let’s hope it does before we get entertained to death.
Of course the GQP whistleblower is a Chinese agent. Of course he is.
The chaos in this timeline is getting too predictable. We need to fire up the Large Hadron Collider and tear up space/time some more to keep things interesting. Throw a beach ball in there or something. Mix it up.
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