"But it’s also true. When people don’t know the facts, a government of the people is impossible.
So then why do the Post and many other legacy news publishers leave so many Americans in the dark?
See, if you want to read a Post article, including
this one about how they came up with the tagline back in 2017, you might be blocked by a paywall.... I often refer to people who don’t pay for news as 'passive' news consumers.... [T]hey’re... consuming the news that comes to them through their daily scrolling of social media feeds, email inboxes and conversations with people they trust.... Passive consumers may have faith that good, accurate news about the world and their own communities will somehow find them. But with few exceptions, they’re wrong about that. Increasingly, the fact-based news that’s necessary for a pro-democracy citizenry is behind a paywall. On social media, passive consumers are more likely to see propaganda that capitalizes on the ways information is distributed there. Biased algorithms reward salacious and emotionally charged content — often favoring right-leaning messaging that is outright false....With a major political party upholding the Big Lie and sowing mistrust in our incredibly secure elections, we have no more time to waste on out-of-touch debates. News organizations must instead seize the opportunity before us to once again serve as the bulwark of our democracy and get factual information to the people...."
There are more kinds of passivity — and propaganda — than McGowan acknowledges, and she's — ironically — doing propaganda of her own. But, yeah, paywalls are gumming up the works.
In case you're wondering what was in that 2017 WaPo article about its ominous slogan, I crossed the paywall for you:
The paper’s owner, Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, used the phrase in an interview [in 2016].... Bezos apparently heard the phrase from legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward....Woodward’s source appears to be Judge Damon J. Keith....
[A] small group of Post employees... began meeting last year to develop a slogan. One planning document for the group suggested finding a “positive” variation on the early contender “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”...
The group brainstormed more than 500 would-be slogans. The choices ranged from the heroic (“Dauntless Defenders of the Truth”) to the clunky (“American democracy lives down the street. No one keeps closer watch.”) to the Zen-like (“Yes. Know.”).
The group ultimately ended up where it started — with “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Ha ha. Everything else was worse. But they had 500! It's like that vast array of photos from your family trip to Hawaii. They're all bad!
४८ टिप्पण्या:
fact-based news that’s necessary for a pro-democrat party citizenry...
Fify
The Russian Collusion lie was spread far and wide by pro-democrat party news outlets.
Including the false Alfa bank story and more...
Fake news? it's mostly pro-democratic party "news"
Democracy also dies when the remaining few profitable newspapers are all whacked out progressives. I view everything from the NYT and WaPo with great skepticism.
The Omaha newspaper is now worthless. Crime and Big Red is all that they do.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/deborah-birxs-guide-destroying-country-within
why do the Post and many other legacy news publishers leave so many Americans in the dark? See, if you want to read a Post article...you might be blocked by a paywall
The bigger problem is that the stories behind the paywall leave people even MORE in the dark because they are distorted, misleading narrative propaganda - either intentionally and knowingly or because of the Post's own psychopathy.
Part of the reason that this country is so screwed up is that the Post and NYT, et al. are so FOS, but people who read them actually buy the crap they are shoveling out.
It's not the paywall, it's their curation of the news.
Tara McGowan is right about paywalls, but wrong about passive v active news consumers. A person reading the Washington Post or sitting in front of the TV watching CNN is a passive consumer of the news. All they see is what the editors put in front of them. Meanwhile, on social media, people have chosen who to follow or friend, they know these people and their biases and they get to see arguments for and against various propositions. That is active consumption of the news.
The slogan of a far, far better than the WaPo could be "Daylight from every direction."
it's a Cookbook!!!
The beauty of the paywall is that it acts as a natural filter. One is not going to subscribe to something that they deem to be less than accurate, or not in their interest. I subscribe to a number of news sources and blogs. I do not, however, send money to the Washington Post.
I read the author's comment... "Passive consumers may have faith that good, accurate news about the world and their own communities will somehow find them. But with few exceptions, they’re wrong about that." ...and I wonder how she squares that with the Post's coverage of much of the news of the past 4-5 years. Say their coverage and perpetuation of the easily dismissible Russia Collusion fiction? Why would anyone look at that fiasco, and the major media perpetrating it, and think to themselves- "Yep- I want to send them money to keep telling me lies, to distort the truth with the intent of moving my vote."
When 'journalists' decided to leave the reporting to those in the 60s and move to activism instead, they lost the right to claim their spot as the source of news. Today we have unlimited sources of information, of 'news'. Much of it is crap. I'm sure it's painful to those working at Poynter, believing they are the arbiter of truth, and having to come to grips with a populace wanting to make their own choices, based on their own life experience with the news.
Rush Limbaugh used to use a line that was among his most significant was when the media and others screamed that he was too biased and radio networks should not have him on the air, that he destroyed the balance in the news. He replied that he was the balance. He was the balance to offset the left barrage from the NY Times, WaPo, ABCNBCCBSMSNBCCNNPBS, and all of your local news papers. And he was, of course, correct. He paved the way so that there was another view being aired, or written about. Still off in the corners, still having to be sought out, but it was there and it grew. And the foundational media companies who always had the monopoly on information have always fought to keep their control over what the public could be offered up.
Poynter is supposed to be a guide light for journalism. A source for ethics in journalism. Over the last number of years they've shown themselves to be a protector of the status-quo in journalism. So that news is to be funneled, separated, and filtered out in a manner determined, not by the facts, but by how the facts relate to the acceptable party or narratives.
I'll take a paywall choice over spoon-fed news any day of the week.
Why would I pay money to the Wash Post, NYTs, or Milwaukee Journal to read lies and propaganda?
The reason the charge is because they can’t make it on ad revenue, because people aren’t buying the bullshit.
“Fact based journalism”. What a joke.
What's behind the paywall is the same junk that isn't behind a paywall. Soap opera for the dedicated fans.
No market for hard news is even worse for paid news.
The news biz sells eyeballs to advertisers, paywall or not.
You're not going to find the truth behind a WaPo paywall either.
"'Democracy Dies in Darkness'.... It’s harsh, foreboding and alarming. But it’s also true"
I always assumed that the slogan meant WaPo aimed to spread darkness, to make democracy die so that progs could prevail. Was I wrong?
What does history teach us about why democracies die?
Does history teach us that democracies die because of "darkness"?
It seems to me that they die most often because of revolutions, invasions and wars.
I like the combat news from Ukraine, where a story that makes no sense at all is given in English using all the wrong words. There are so many rules of English that you can't really articulate that can be violated on the way from Ukranian to English.
I'm not even sure it makes sense in Ukranian, it may just be random lines selected by AI, but it's definitely translated.
From the Washington Post's style book:
* If a Democrat says something false, then it is a "inaccuracy", a "misstatement" or a "misunderstanding".
* If a Republican says something false, then it is a "lie".
Archive.is your friend.
I've always interpreted the phrase as a gloat on the Post's part, and imagine them saying it in Emperor Palpatine's voice. They want people stupid, uninformed, and malleable to their propaganda.
Increasingly, the fact-based news that’s necessary for a pro-democracy citizenry is behind a paywall.
There was a time when the "fact-based news" required a subscription or a walk to the newsstand (how quaint) where it was bought one day at a time. Sort of a pre-historic paywall.
The remaining local news "papers" are hollowed out institutions which seem to get their "news" from PR handouts and watching local TV. Maybe they're good for sports but there they're being crushed by cable.
When will we stop calling the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post News Papers?
Increasingly, the fact-based news that’s necessary for a pro-democracy citizenry is behind a paywall.
There was a time when the "fact-based news" required a subscription or a walk to the newsstand (how quaint) where it was bought one day at a time. Sort of a pre-historic paywall.
The remaining local news "papers" are hollowed out institutions which seem to get their "news" from PR handouts and watching local TV. Maybe they're good for sports but there they're being crushed by cable.
When will we stop calling the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post News Papers?
Gee, how on earth did we read the Washington Post before the internet? Oh,that's right. We went to the public library where there were a bunch of newspapers on sticks. If you don't want to pay for an online subscription,the same trick still works, and you don't even have to deal with the wooden poles any more.
The Post deliberately has chosen to present only half of any story it covers. Presenting only half the story, "because we know the truth and the truth is all anyone needs" is the way democracy dies in darkness in our time. It's "the closing of the gate"; it's the paradoxical "darkness at noon." It leads to disregarding farmers' opinions because farmers are a small minority in relation to city populations. But they are the largest minority providing a city's food. Is it smart to just disregard them? What if the farmers are trying to say that a sudden disruption in the way they farm caused by social policies will cause crop failure and famine? as happened in China 1959, Cambodia 1975, Sri Lanka 2021. The energy producing sector - miners, refiners, hydroelectric and nuclear experts, power company owners and gas station owners - is a small minority. But what if that minority were trying to say that heating power for the majority of the big Northern cities will be inadequate in winter due to social policies supported by majorities in the big cities? Wouldn't Post disregard what was said by the small minority in the energy sector (many of whom are wealthy and all of whom have a financial interest in selling energy.) But would the WaPo gatekeeping really deliver the truth the majority needs to know? Again, truckers are a small minority who deliver the majority of what the majorities in the big cities eat and wear. What if Truckers were trying to say that social policies are phasing them out without a replacement? Should we listen to this minority? In short, some minorities supply a vital function to a majority who, regardless, are disinclined to listen to them. And the Post in its reporting goes along with this trend. But if we try to live on solar power in the northern half of the US, majorities will freeze to death in the dark. Even if the energy sector is just a minority, the sun and the clouds don't know that. Similarly, if we force greenie reform on the farmers without listening to them, we'll condemn people overseas to death by famine. We and they will die from the darkness of our half-knowledge, the half of the story that our half-wit elites thought was the whole.
"Biased algorithms reward salacious and emotionally charged content — often favoring right-leaning messaging that is outright false....With a major political party upholding the Big Lie and sowing mistrust in our incredibly secure elections," This made me laugh out loud.
Our brilliant Founding Fathers knew that news reporting and journalistic.opinion is biased. That’s why they saw freedom of speech as essential to a functioning democracy - so people see all views and form their own judgments. Who is against freedom of speech? The likes of WAPO and every others Democrat source from corporate media to big tech to Democrats in government. The disinformation movement all comes from the left. Those that consume only leftist media have no idea just how much information there is to show the 2020 election was stolen. The are in the dark, kept there purposely by the likes of WAPO.
This is ridiculous. Paywalls are almost always the purview of democrat propaganda sheets. WashPost, NYTimes. Wall Street journal as well except for the opinion section.
The blogs/journalists I trust ( this one for example ) provide me what I consider semi-biased or unbiased.
Glen Greenwald,Matt Tabibi, Althouse, Instapundit. They may run left or right, but they are honest.
Of course I do partake of the periodic Tucker monologue because he is becoming the best in the business.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
That's actually a pretty good description for what newspapers are supposed to do.
Shine a light on the bad and make the roaches scatter.
One major problem is that newspapers like the WaPo are so ideological now, they can't serve this very basic function.
They have abandoned their craft. They have picked the party they want to win -- overwhelmingly the Democrat party -- and do propaganda for that party.
Abortion is an obvious example.
49 years of abortion doctors aborting 10-year-old girls (apparently). Zero coverage in the media about this appalling state of affairs. No investigation of the abortion industry, ever.
The media's done no undercover work in abortion clinics. California has convicted a reporter for doing undercover work on the abortion industry. He's the criminal!
Which side are you on, WaPo? Tell the truth! You want the reporter to go to jail, right? The abortion industry can't look bad, ever. Right?!
The only reason we're hearing about 10-year-old pregnant abortion seekers now is because it suits the narrative, now. Roe v. Wade is overruled and suddenly we start hearing ugly truths about fourth graders getting abortions.
"With a major political party upholding the Big Lie and sowing mistrust in our incredibly secure elections, we have no more time to waste on out-of-touch debates. News organizations must instead seize the opportunity before us to once again serve as the bulwark of our democracy and get factual information to the people...."
People who write the above nonsense, are so far down the rabbit hole that they think 1984 was an instruction manual.
To be this out of touch, and this arrogant, takes someone who has completely embraced the role of party apparatchik.
These fools really do see themselves as bringing truth to the masses, and they see the the masses as stupid, religious, and racist.
It's not Orwellian as much as it is pure insanity.
Legacy media is dying. Good riddance.
The group ultimately ended up where it started — with “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Better than nothing continues to be too high a bar.
"A little more than half of the journalists surveyed (55%) say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage in the news."
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/
Read the Post, you will be kept in the dark.
With a major political party upholding the Big Lie
Has anyone been fired yet for the Trump/Russia collusion lie?
Or is that being chained within the darkness?
gilbar said...
it's a Cookbook!!!
Don't get on the ship!
How much investigation has the media done into illegal immigration, and all the women and girls who are raped in that illegal trade?
The media serve as flacks for the Democrat party. What do Democrats call illegal immigrants? Dreamers!
How many people have died in illegal immigration?
How many rapists -- these fuckers call themselves "coyotes" -- how many coyotes have raped women who are illegal?
How many of these "Dreamers" have been forced into prostitution?
That 10-year-old pregnant girl is a mirror that we all should hold up to the media, and what they choose to report and what they hide.
What goes on in abortion clinics?
Media does not know and does not care.
Multiple women allege that an abortion doctor assaulted them and this is what the NYT writes.
It's "believe all women" versus "believe one abortion doctor" and guess who wins in the NYT?
Here is some real journalism into Dr. Finkel. No agenda. The reporter goes in there with an open mind.
I know! An open mind! Shocking!
I wonder who got closer to the truth? The narrative-pushing NYT journalist -- who obviously never left New York City -- or the local reporter who did an interview with him in the "Vagina Vault."
That abortion doctor, by the way, is in prison now. Convicted of sexually assaulting multiple women in his abortion clinic.
The AP finally notices.
One of the interesting dynamics of this blog is that Althouse is a daily reader and subscriber to “fact based news”. I assume she knows it’s not fact based and she recognizes the propaganda, but still considers them the center of National discourse. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Madison, WI thing.
I don’t have to subscribe to the Washington Post or NYTs. I come to the Althouse blog to see what crap those rags are slinging.
If you really want to read some low level biased bullshit, check out the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal. Now we have the RNC coming to Milwaukee in 2024. Milwaukee and it shit propaganda newspaper will both be on fire.
The Washington Post is the darkness. And in their lies...Democracy dies.
They’re projecting their agenda right out in the open. Only fools believe the tag line.
Gusty Winds said...
"The Washington Post is the darkness. And in their lies...Democracy dies."
But, still. It is this nations High School Newspaper of record!
Why? You ask. So that Jeff Bezos would be the popular kid in Washington.
When she said "our incredibly secure elections" I got the feeling she really does not believe what she is saying.
So WAPO is the darkness??
Should have read the comments first!! Sorry Gusty Winds!!
Rush Limbaugh used to use a line that was among his most significant was when the media and others screamed that he was too biased and radio networks should not have him on the air, that he destroyed the balance in the news. He replied that he was the balance. He was the balance to offset the left barrage from the NY Times, WaPo, ABCNBCCBSMSNBCCNNPBS, and all of your local news papers.
Yes. Tucker Carlson seems to have inherited that role. The other developing source is substack. That has grown because it has real news and honest opinion. It is ironic that several of my substack subscriptions are to writers that were formerly considered on the left. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are two. Doctor Malone is one. I was suspended from Facebook for linking to his column.
Isn't it more like "The Big Hypothesis"?
High-end Leftwing news is behind a paywall. The mistake is to assume they're doing it for business and monetary reasons. No. They don't want the contamination of deplorables on their site. It's the same old elitist game of keeping the nerds out of Delta Gamma. They're all Greek snobs.
From the Washington Post's style book:
* If a Democrat says something false, then it is a "inaccuracy", a "misstatement" or a "misunderstanding".
Wrong. It's "If a Democrat says anything, than it's the truth, you racist!"
I crossed the pay wall for you.
And made it back alive?
Nothing captures the mentality of the Democrat Party more perfectly than John Podesta's response to Manchin's rejection of some climate provisions in a spending bill: "It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity."
All I can hear is Corky St. Clair: "I just hate you...and I hate your ass face!
Liberty dies amid statism.
If the Post decides to come out into the light, I hope they leave Taylor Lorenz and Jennifer Rubin in the darkness, behind a big, expensive paywall.
I stopped reading big media 35 years ago, because they couldn't keep their opinions out of their news articles. The only time I encounter their stuff anymore is on this blog. Once our hostess gives up blogging they will be dead to me completely.
Was a dime for a paper copy of a newspaper a paywall, too? Newspapers are advertising with words and pictures to make you look at the pages. Websites for newspapers are the same thing.
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