The slow assassination of the free press.
From the essay, posted 5 Jan 2025:
The private equity goons did not eviscerate [Gawker Media] because of their political beliefs. They did it because they only valued making money. This is the standard incentive in most industries, but in journalism, it has the effect of turning a publication into shit.
Journalism is not a business that responds well to the usual American capitalist imperative to treat your customers as victims to be tricked and sucked dry. The overall health of the free press is therefore a handy barometer to tell how the balance of power between humanism and cutthroat capitalism stands at any given moment in history.
Right now, that balance is tilting in the bad direction. In the past few months, the billionaire owners of both the LA Times and the Washington Post quashed anti-Trump presidential endorsements. In LA, Patrick Soon-Shiong has made it clear he intends to meddle in, at least, the opinion section to make it more right wing. Jeff Bezos must be a bit more circumspect with the Washington Post because of its institutional heft, but it is equally clear that he has concluded that nothing about his newspaper is worth pissing off Trump, who could retaliate against Bezosâ other, real business. Yesterday the Postâs longtime editorial cartoonist Ana Telnaes resigned after a cartoon mocking Bezos and other billionaires was killed by her editor. The editor, David Shipley, claimed the cartoon was just too repetitive, but Telnaes, who has been at the paper long enough to know, said it was the first time in her career that sheâd had a piece rejected âbecause of the point of view inherent in the cartoonâs commentary.â
Weâre not really on the slippery slope at this point. Weâre sliding.
The only choice is when to jump off. What Telnaes did was heroic. Most journalists, regular people who need jobs to live, would (for good reason) think long and hard about quitting their jobs when they are unlikely to be able to land a comparable one.
The important takeaway here, though, is: This is how it happens. This is how nations decline. You donât always turn into Nazi Germany. You turn into Russia, or Hungary, or other creaky and corrupt strongman states where everything is kind of a scam and everyone is hustling to please the gangster in charge. That, my friends, is the path we are on here.
Americaâs basic problem is that we have an economic system that concentrates great wealth in few hands and we have a political system in which money is allowed to buy political power in a straightforward way and now, on top of that, we have a President who fully embracesâwho lives forâthe opportunity to make the world bow to him by exploiting those systems.
Itâs a bit surreal watching this all unfold right in front of us. This is the script of imperial downfall, of a mighty nation that has been teeing itself up to crumble by having no moral scruples finally jumping onto the garbage chute with both feet. Watching all of the highly respected CEOs of Americaâs most powerful and respectable and, according to a widespread characterization, âliberalâ companies donate millions of dollars to the Trump inauguration, unalloyed bribes paid for political protection, is justâitâs not subtle. Detecting the grand direction of America has never required less insight.
I mean, 40 years ago, looking at Carter and Reagan deregulate industries and cut taxes, watching union power slowly decline, watching the publicâs embrace of celebrity over substance, if you looked ahead and said, âHey, over the next few decades, this is really going to eat away our shared prosperity and cause an inequality crisis that will ultimately obliterate the very legitimacy of Americaâs leading institutionsââwell, that would be a canny call. That would require some real analytical foresight. But analyzing what is happening right now requires nothing but the ability to describe events accurately without succumbing to delusion.
We have a dozen people in this country who are worth more than $100 billion each and the richest one of all has teamed up with a gutter con man to buy the White House and now everyone who does not kiss the ring will be targeted for retaliation. This is the final form of unregulated capitalism, where fantastically rich and often childlike titans run the worldâs most powerful nation for their own pleasure, and what was once thought of as âcivil societyâ cowers in the corner in an effort to avoid provoking the beast..
Even though I have spent years writing about all the ways that the mainstream press has failed and all the reasons why the New York Times sucks, I retain my sentimentality about the press. Where else, in this scam-ridden country, can you bring down the rich and powerful and corrupt with nothing but words?
Journalism, for all the flaws in the way it is practiced, is a great thing. To see high quality publications bought and broken by rich people is like watching a drunk hedge fund dickhead throwing up on a Picasso that he hung in his yacht. Itâs just a fucking shame.
As you watch this all accelerate over the next four years, just remember that the slow decline of the publicâs belief in journalism was not an accident. It was an assassination. I hope we all make it out the other side.
