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Thread: MSM "bloodbath" underway

  1. #1

    MSM "bloodbath" underway

    https://twitter.com/disclosetv/statu...47228380430852


    Mainstream media bloodbath: News outlets slash jobs as business suffers
    https://www.axios.com/2024/01/26/med...urnalism-dying
    {Sara Fischer | 26 January 2024}

    Nearly a dozen mainstream media companies are gutting staff and scrambling to rescue their struggling businesses.

    Why it matters: The media business is shrinking at the national, state and local levels — a scary, stark new reality for thousands of journalists.

    The big picture: Media cuts were so severe last year that most industry observers weren't expecting such intense cutbacks in 2024. But an ongoing bloodbath is decimating news outlets nationwide.

    • It's also fueling a new round of conflict between unions and management as tensions run high.

    Driving the news: Forbes' newsroom union began a three-day walkout Thursday arguing management was union busting. Its CEO announced layoffs later that afternoon hitting roughly 3% of the company.

    • Insider announced it was eliminating 8% of its workforce, months after a union strike over a contract impasse with management.
    • The New York Daily News editorial union walked off the job Thursday to protest "chronic cuts" by its owner, private equity firm Alden Capital.
    • Paramount CEO Bob Bakish warned employees Thursday that the company is planning a fresh round of layoffs.
    • The Los Angeles Times planned a one-day, multicity walkout in protest of plans for 115 job cuts. Two top editors resigned, less than two weeks after executive editor Kevin Merida stepped down.
    • Condé Nast saw hundreds of union workers walk off the job Tuesday to protest hundreds of previously announced layoffs impacting approximately 5% of staff, or roughly 300 people.
    • Sports Illustrated's newsroom was gutted by sweeping layoffs after its parent company, The Arena Group, failed to make a $3.75 million quarterly payment to the group from which it licenses the Sports Illustrated brand.



    Several media companies are also trying to sell some of their most recognized brands in an effort to free up cash:


    How we got here: Ad growth in the 2010s was unsustainably high, and publishers acted like it would last forever.

    • It didn't. Now high interest rates are preventing them from taking on new debt to try to buy themselves time to figure it out.

    What we're watching: Heading into 2024, analysts predicted that digital advertising will only grow in the mid-single digits for the foreseeable future.

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      -- The Law (p. 54)
    • "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
      -- Government (p. 99)
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      -- Economic Sophisms - Second Series (p. 312)
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  3. #2
    https://twitter.com/ChayaRaichik10/s...27323156881499


    News industry off to brutal 2024 start as mass layoffs devastate publishers, raising questions about the future of journalism
    https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/media...ure/index.html
    {Oliver Darcy & Jon Passantino | 25 January 2024}

    The news industry is enduring a brutal start to the new year, with outlets large and small across the country hemorrhaging reporting staff as legacy business models that kept much of the industry afloat for decades collapse in plain sight.

    The rapid contraction, coming even as the presidential election cycle heats up and public attention and revenues historically mount, has been on full display this month, with the first few weeks of 2024 ushering in a spate of painful layoffs at news organizations from coast-to-coast.

    The Los Angeles Times slashed its newsroom by more than 20% earlier this week; TIME cut dozens of staffers; and Business Insider said it would trim its workforce by 8%. Meanwhile, hundreds of staffers at Condé Nast, Forbes, The New York Daily News, and others staged historic walkouts to protest planned cuts at the outlets.

    The recent round of layoffs, while pronounced, are part of a much larger and unrelenting storm battering the journalism industry. Over the past 18 months, most news organizations have been forced to make difficult decisions to reduce their workforces.

    At the national level, CNN, The Washington Post, NPR, Vice Media, Sports Illustrated, Vox Media, NBC News, CNBC, and other organizations have cut swaths of their reporting staff. At the local level, layoffs have been nearly constant, with newspaper giant Gannett cutting hundreds of employees, and small outlets carving out already lean operations.

    The latest round of layoffs come after 2023 marked the worst year for job cuts in the journalism sector since Covid-19 upended the world in 2020, with roughly 2,700 jobs eliminated.

    While each outlet is struggling with its own unique challenges, they all are facing brutal industry headwinds ushered in by the internet revolution and other technological advances that have fundamentally changed the way the public consumes news and entertainment.

    Audiences that once reliably surfed traditional cable channels and consumed news websites or newspapers are instead absorbing content and spending time on platforms such as TikTok and Netflix, leading to massive declines in ratings and traffic. That shift in behavior has led brands to spend their marketing in emerging digital arenas, particularly given their ability to offer advertisers powerful tools to target audiences with precision.

    Making matters worse, news outlets have seen their online advertising businesses vanish as social media and search giants devour much of the industry’s dollars. Research produced by Columbia University in October estimated that technology titans Google and Meta should pay news outlets $14 billion per year in revenue for their search traffic and content, a figure it described as “conservative.” But technology companies have resisted paying publishers for their content and launched high-profile fights to block legislation intended to recoup some of the lost revenue.

    “The ad industry doesn’t need the news industry when there are so many other ways to purchase attention, and so many better ways to target users,” Jay Rosen, an associate professor of journalism at New York University, told CNN.

    The change in behavior has also meant news consumers are canceling subscriptions to newspapers and cable providers, cutting precious revenues even further.

    “I am sorry to say that I do not see turning around most legacy outlets,” Jeff Jarvis, the Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, told CNN. “Their proprietors, with few exceptions, did not adapt to the internet. They held onto their old business models — advertising, subscription, and the attention economy.”

    “Many of them are now controlled by hedge funds, which will not invest or innovate,” Jarvis said, adding that cost-cutting is the “predictable response to a worsening downward business spiral,” which “will make the products of these publications only worse, which will accelerate the spiral.”

    “The death of newspapers — and magazines and linear TV — has been oft-foretold and has not yet occurred,” Jarvis said. “The fall might be coming now.”

    The hollowing out of large news institutions comes at a perilous time for America. Antidemocratic candidates have intentionally worked to undermine faith in news outlets as they look to seize power in election contests from coast to coast, attacking those tasked with the duty of holding public officials accountable.

    “To say that trust in the news media has declined is correct, but too vague,” Rosen said. “The reality is that destroying confidence in the practice and products of journalism is a potent and successful political strategy, as with Steve Bannon’s ‘flood the zone.’”

    That lack of accountability means dishonest figures seeking higher office, and those in positions of power, could avoid crucial scrutiny, leaving the electorate less informed about the vital decisions it will have to make in November at the ballot box.

    Margaret Sullivan, a columnist at The Guardian who previously wrote about media for The Washington Post and The New York Times, told CNN in December that she is worried about the larger consequences the deeper cuts in the news business will have on the country. Sullivan said that it is not only “heartbreaking to see the loss of these jobs,” but warned the action will do “damage to society.”

    “The loss of journalists contributes to the exponential growth of news deserts in large swaths of the nation — and that’s disastrous when misinformation is rampant,” Sullivan said. “Democracy needs an informed electorate in order to function and that is tragically dwindling in many regions.”

    For a time, there had been hope that billionaire ownership of news publications could offer stability to the industry as it wears off legacy business models. Recent months, however, have cast doubt on that optimism, with Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s Los Angeles Times making significant cuts to their newsrooms.

    But despite the widespread gloom, there are some encouraging signs popping up across the industry. Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, noted some local news outlets have found financial sustainability.

    “Billionaire newspaper ownership is coming under fire lately because of Soon-Shiong’s fecklessness and because Jeff Bezos has hit a few bumps with the Post, although I think that will prove to be temporary,” Kennedy told CNN, pointing to recent successes at The Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Boston Globe newspapers.

    “There are reasons to be optimistic given the hundreds of independent local news organizations that have sprouted up in recent years,” he said. “The challenge is that coverage at the hyperlocal level is hit or miss, as some communities are well-served and others — especially in rural areas and in urban communities of color — tend to be overlooked.”

    But Rosen cautioned against the reliance on deep-pocketed philanthropists to sustain journalistic enterprises in the long-term.

    “Journalists have to take it upon themselves to treat sustainability as their problem, but this is not what they signed up for,” he said. “They signed up to do stories.”

  4. #3
    Media bias has existed since I started consuming media in the 70s. These last few years, however, with the jab-pushing and all the bull$#@! that came with that, these $#@!ers have blood on their hands. They have my full permission to burn, or at least lose their jobs like I did... $#@! 'em.
    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    H.L. Mencken

  5. #4
    Lord, watch them maintain the arrogant condescension that is killing them right down to their last breath.

    Why it matters: It doesn't.

    The big picture: Go woke, go broke.

  6. #5
    CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #216:

    Mass Media Layoffs Expose Their Utter Fraud
    https://rumble.com/v49h68f-mass-medi...ter-fraud.html
    {Glenn Greenwald | 26 January 2024}


    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    Massive Media Layoffs Expose Collapse in Public Trust, w/ Hannah Cox. PLUS: New Video Deepens Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Mystery, w/ Darren Beattie | SYSTEM UPDATE #216
    https://rumble.com/v49acfb-system-update-show-216.html
    {Glenn Greenwald | 25 January 2024}


  7. #6
    https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/stat...54028800913592


    CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #216:

    WATCH: Taylor Lorenz’s Pathological Take on Mass Media Collapse
    https://rumble.com/v49hgjc-watch-tay...-failures.html
    {Glenn Greenwald | 26 January 2024}

    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 01-27-2024 at 03:02 PM.

  8. #7
    The question isn't why they're toast, it's why are they now being allowed to flounder? Have their masters so destroyed their reputations that they're now useless, or are they simply no longer needed for the next phase of the psyop?

  9. #8
    https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/sta...24221795577924
    NEW - In a Stunning Admission, WSJ Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker Says They Are Now the Legacy Media & No Longer the 'Gatekeepers' of the News

    "I think there's a very specific challenge for the legacy brands, like the New York Times and like the Wall Street Journal...If you go back really not that long ago, as I say, we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well. If it said it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, then that was a fact. Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news and they're much more questioning about what we're saying."





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  11. #9
    I'm devastated for them, especially for that hateful, evil shrew Taylor Lorenz. But I'm sure allthose out of work "journalists" will be able to say "would you like fries with that?" in a sufficiently personable manner to keep their next jobs.
    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    The hollowing out of large news institutions comes at a perilous time for America. Antidemocratic candidates have intentionally worked to undermine faith in news outlets as they look to seize power in election contests from coast to coast, attacking those tasked with the duty of holding public officials accountable.

    “To say that trust in the news media has declined is correct, but too vague,” Rosen said. “The reality is that destroying confidence in the practice and products of journalism is a potent and successful political strategy, as with Steve Bannon’s ‘flood the zone.’”

    That lack of accountability means dishonest figures seeking higher office, and those in positions of power, could avoid crucial scrutiny, leaving the electorate less informed about the vital decisions it will have to make in November at the ballot box.

    Margaret Sullivan, a columnist at The Guardian who previously wrote about media for The Washington Post and The New York Times, told CNN in December that she is worried about the larger consequences the deeper cuts in the news business will have on the country. Sullivan said that it is not only “heartbreaking to see the loss of these jobs,” but warned the action will do “damage to society.”

    “The loss of journalists contributes to the exponential growth of news deserts in large swaths of the nation — and that’s disastrous when misinformation is rampant,” Sullivan said. “Democracy needs an informed electorate in order to function and that is tragically dwindling in many regions.”
    No, sorry. You are the ones who did all those things, $#@!s.

    You spit in the faces of your audience.

    You demonized them as pernicious bigots ...

    ... you denounced them as "anti-ScienceTM" plague rats ...

    ... and on and on and on.

    And now the chickens you so gleefully let loose are coming home to roost.

    So go to hell and cry harder, bitches!

  13. #11

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by CCTelander View Post
    I'm sure all those out of work "journalists" will be able to say "would you like fries with that?" in a sufficiently personable manner to keep their next jobs.
    https://twitter.com/RyFons/status/1750578927901511820
    & https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...24498251255857


    https://twitter.com/RyFons/status/1750634589809447310


    https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...31620175257618


    Malice has been on a savage troll-spree for the past few days.

    https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...18329788878928

  15. #13

    So, the best and the brightest?

    No surprise to me. I've dealt with these parasites a few times, as well as the "cancel culture" types in their early days. They aren't very bright, but they very definitely can be shrewd and cunning. It's as much of a mistake to underestimate them as to overestimate them. Best to simply shun them completely and move on with your life.
    Chris

    "Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon

    "...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    The question isn't why they're toast, it's why are they now being allowed to flounder? Have their masters so destroyed their reputations that they're now useless, or are they simply no longer needed for the next phase of the psyop?
    Things change gradually, until they change suddenly - and "being allowed" might not have much if anything to do with it.

    They are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, no matter how inclined they or others are to imagine otherwise.

    "The white pill is in realizing that they are in fact sending their best." -- Michael Malice

    "To be black-pilled is to regard these buffoons as unstoppable foes." -- Michael Malice
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 01-27-2024 at 04:47 PM.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by CCTelander View Post
    SIt's as much of a mistake to underestimate them as to overestimate them. Best to simply shun them completely and move on with your life.
    The Soviet Union is Exhibit A in what can happen when they are underestimated.

    The United States is Exhibit A in what can happen when they are overestimated.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    Things change gradually, until they change suddenly - and "being allowed" might not have anything to do with it.
    So you figure they merely used the MSM's reputations while they lasted, and now they're used up and discarded. Likely. I doubt they had any control over the timing; they were probably as curious how long the legacy crap could skate on their reputations as anyone.

    It certainly has been a step in the demolition of all the societal mores that went before.



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  20. #17
    My emphasis:

    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    So you figure they merely used the MSM's reputations while they lasted, and now they're used up and discarded. Likely. I doubt they had any control over the timing; they were probably as curious how long the legacy crap could skate on their reputations as anyone.

    It certainly has been a step in the demolition of all the societal mores that went before.
    You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to acptulsa again.

    That analysis is a best-fit for my understanding of TPTB and how the public world works.
    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    H.L. Mencken

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    So you figure they merely used the MSM's reputations while they lasted, and now they're used up and discarded.
    Pretty much, yes.

    The MSM isn't quite "discarded" yet. It will still be around for the foreseeable future, and will still be a venue they make use of.

    But its utility has greatly diminished from what it once was, and it no longer offers the same "return on investment", so to speak.

    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    Likely. I doubt they had any control over the timing; they were probably as curious how long the legacy crap could skate on their reputations as anyone.

    It certainly has been a step in the demolition of all the societal mores that went before.
    I'm skeptical that "they"" (or anyone else) has the degree of competence and insight necessary to accurately plan for or control such things on anything but a relatively crude and rudimentary level (if even that). Like economic central planners, one way or another, they always always end up being stymied by unanticipated (and unanticipatable) factors - such as what Mises referred to as "human action". The more sophisticated and/or far-reaching the plan, the more prone it is to being stymied.

    As I said before, they are not omnipotent - but they are potent, and there is much damage they can do. That is primarily due to the raw power they posses and can (crudely) wield, not the finely-calculated sophistication of any plans they might have. As potent as they may be, they are not as potent as they like (or want others) to think. In this particular case, I doubt they tried to exercise (or even had) any control over the timing of events. It seems much more likely they just used and took for granted what they already had - and the more impaired it becomes, the more they'll simply resort to other avenues on a catch-as-catch-can basis (and not as the long-expected and/or well-timed next step in some pre-existing plan).
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 01-27-2024 at 05:38 PM.

  22. #19
    There is perhaps no other "industry" more suited to be taken over almost entirely by AI than the media. AI can write it, and AI CGI can read it to the audience. No more need for human writers, editors or talking heads.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  23. #20

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    There is perhaps no other "industry" more suited to be taken over almost entirely by AI than the media. AI can write it, and AI CGI can read it to the audience. No more need for human writers, editors or talking heads.
    I used HuggingChat to generate the following news blurb in about 10 seconds.

    Prompt: "Write a brief, heart-warming news story about the local fire department rescuing a neighborhood cat, along with lessons about how taxes are essential for funding the fire department and go towards the common good."

    Response:

    MAPLEWOOD, MN -- On a sunny afternoon, as children played on the verdant lawns and neighbors exchanged pleasantries over freshly brewed coffee, whispers began to circulate amongst the residents - their beloved feline mascot had gone missing. The enchantingly named Mr. Whiskers was known throughout the area for his playful antics and penchant for basking in the adoration of passersby. As concern mounted, there was one group who remained steadfast and prepared: the noble members of the Maplewood Fire Department (MFD).

    With the sun dipping below the horizon, casting elongated shadows across manicured gardens, MFD Captain Jane Thompson received word that Mr. Whiskers had been spotted atop a towering oak tree, unable to find his way down. Without hesitation, she rallied her team – brave men and women trained in far more than just fighting fires – and they sprung into action. With practiced ease, they set up their equipment and began the delicate process of coaxing the frightened feline from its precarious perch some forty feet above ground level. After what felt like hours, amidst hushed breaths and silent prayers, Lieutenant Mark Johnson scaled the ladder with deft agility and gently cradled Mr. Whiskers against his chest before descending safely back to solid earth. A collective sigh of relief washed through the crowd gathered around the base of the tree; the day had been saved thanks to the tireless efforts of those sworn to serve and protect.

    This tale of courage and compassion brings forth a vital message often overlooked or taken for granted by many: our hard-earned tax dollars contribute significantly towards the common good. Organizations such as the MFD rely heavily upon these funds to maintain operational readiness and ensure ongoing training for personnel. It is because of this financial support that heroes like Captain Thompson, Lieutenant Johnson, and their dedicated comrades can respond swiftly when called upon, providing crucial assistance during times of need and crisis.

    In essence, every dollar allocated towards public services represents an investment in the safety, security, and wellbeing of our communities. Whether it's ensuring the availability of emergency medical care, maintaining critical infrastructure, preserving natural resources, or safeguarding vulnerable populations, we all benefit from the collective power of our shared contributions.

    So let us celebrate the triumph of Mr. Whiskers and express gratitude for the unsung champions within our own neighborhoods – the teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, librarians, and countless others whose daily sacrifices make our lives immeasurably better. Together, we form a tapestry of interconnectedness woven together by threads of mutual respect, understanding, and appreciation for the role each plays in cultivating a thriving society.
    I generated this one with an open-source LLM running locally. (It took about two minutes to generate but it's running on my laptop. The desktop is about as fast as online.)

    Prompt: "Write a brief, heart-warming news story about the local fire department rescuing a neighborhood cat, along with lessons about how taxes are essential for funding the fire department and go towards the common good."

    Response:

    Title: Fire Department Saves Neighborhood Cat; Reminds Public of Tax Benefits

    The local fire department showcased its heroic spirit once again by rescuing a beloved neighborhood cat stuck in a tree over the weekend. The feline, aptly named Smokey, had been stranded for two days before someone finally called for help. Firefighters arrived on scene and promptly retrieved the frightened kitty from its precarious perch, much to the relief of the surrounding neighbors.

    The incident serves as a poignant reminder that our fire departments are not only responsible for extinguishing fires but also for protecting our communities in various ways. In addition to these heroics, taxes play an essential role in funding fire departments and ensuring their continued ability to respond to emergencies like this one.

    Tax revenue helps pay for the specialized equipment, training, and staff necessary for firefighters to carry out their duties safely and effectively. By supporting these services through taxation, residents contribute not only to their own safety but also to that of their fellow community members – whether it's rescuing a cat from a tree or responding to life-threatening emergencies at all hours of the day.

    As Smokey was returned safely to its grateful owner, the fire department reminded onlookers about the importance of taxes in funding essential services and maintaining a strong sense of community. This heartwarming tale underscores how our collective support for public institutions can make a real difference in people's lives – one purr at a time.

    In conclusion, remember that your tax dollars are going towards the common good when you see firefighters helping others, and appreciate their efforts to keep us all safe and sound.
    Yeah, we can replace journo NPCs with AI. Remember that, in 1984, all the news is generated by machines.

    Prompt: "Describe the versificator from the novel 1984 by George Orwell, and how it was used to generate news articles."

    In George Orwell's novel "1984," the Versificator is a machine that is used by the ruling party, The Party, to automatically generate poetry and other forms of literature. It is described as being able to produce works that are indistinguishable from those written by human authors, and is one of the many tools used by The Party to control and manipulate the thoughts and emotions of its citizens.

    The Versificator is operated by feeding it a set of input parameters, such as the desired topic, tone, and meter. Based on these inputs, the machine then generates a piece of writing that conforms to the specified criteria. This allows The Party to create propaganda in the form of poetry or songs that can be easily memorized and repeated by the citizenry, helping to reinforce the ideology and messages of The Party.

    In addition to generating new works, the Versificator can also analyze existing pieces of literature and determine their political alignment. By doing so, The Party is able to identify any subversive or counter-revolutionary ideas and eliminate them before they have a chance to spread.

    Overall, the Versificator is an example of how technology can be used to control and manipulate society, and highlights the dangers of allowing a single entity to have complete control over information and culture.
    How probable do you think it is that ChatGPT was NOT developed before 2022, i.e. did not exist in any way, shape or form, before 2022? Questions worth pondering...
    Last edited by ClaytonB; 01-28-2024 at 03:04 AM.
    Jer. 11:18-20. "The Kingdom of God has come upon you." -- Matthew 12:28

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by ClaytonB View Post
    ...
    Yeah, we can replace journo NPCs with AI. Remember that, in 1984, all the news is generated by machines.

    Prompt: "Describe the versificator from the novel 1984 by George Orwell, and how it was used to generate news articles."
    ...
    Exactly. I had forgotten about that being in 1984, but that is what I was thinking. No more need to hire and fire humans. Just adjust the AI...

    Sports Illustrated already had AI writing stories...
    Last edited by Brian4Liberty; 01-28-2024 at 11:46 AM.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  26. #23
    https://twitter.com/jackshafer/statu...55672128156004


    The News Business Really Is Cratering
    The state of the industry is more dire than ever.
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-here-00138187
    {Jack Shafer | 27 January 2024}

    Journalists across the country burst into flames of panic this week, as bad news for the news business crested and erupted everywhere all at once.

    Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire publisher of the Los Angeles Times, laid off 20 percent of his newsroom. Over at Time magazine, its billionaire owners, Marc and Lynne Benioff, did the same for 15 percent of their unionized editorial employees. This latest conflagration had ignited at Sports Illustrated the previous week as catastrophic layoffs were dispensed via email to most staffers. Business Insider (whose parent company Axel Springer also owns POLITICO) jettisoned 8 percent of its staff while workers at Condé Nast, Forbes, the New York Daily News and elsewhere walked out to protest forthcoming cuts at their shops.

    The news business has always been cyclical, dipping during economic downturns and then improving on the upswing. But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late. Nearly everywhere you look — the Washington Post, NPR, Vice, Vox, NBC News, Texas Tribune, WNYC, Barstool Sports, just to name a few — companies have axed huge swathes of staff. Newsroom employment is down more than 26 percent since 2008. Buzzfeed News is dead. The magazine business has atrophied, too, as newsstand revenues have fallen from $6.8 billion in 2006 to $1 billion in 2022. Looking on as the media business bleeds out, journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, a man who once evangelized for the industry’s electronic future, folded his hands in his lap like a mortician and asked in his blog if it was time to give up on old news. Citing the dark layoff news, Jarvis tidied the corpse-in-the-making. Trust in journalism has melted, he noted, and private equity shops like Alden Global Capital are cannibalizing their newspapers.

    It would be far too dramatic to extrapolate from the disastrous week that journalism itself is dying. The New York Times is healthy. Thanks to good management and demographically vigorous readerships, the Boston Globe and Minneapolis Star Tribune carry on. Cable, network and local TV news still toss off profits. But no matter how many heroic nonprofit newsrooms like the Baltimore Banner and Daily Memphian take root, no matter how many Substack-like newsletters blossom or creators emerge to drop their videos on YouTube, you can’t deny the journalism business’ decline.

    The cause of the business’ decline is simple. As tech analyst Benedict Evans succinctly put it in a post this week, “There’s very little you can say about the finances of the newspaper industry that you couldn’t have said 15 or 20 years ago. The old model went away: you had an oligopoly over both advertisers & readers, and real-estate agents and car dealers paid for your social purpose. Now they don’t need you.” Targeted advertising on the web has diminished the old advertisers’ complaint that 50 percent of their ad budgets are wasted and they just didn’t know which half. Now they do, and they avoid newspapers and magazines. Unless a publisher creates something so essential that readers are willing to pay for it — like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or POLITICO, which gets more than half of its revenue from paid subscribers — the sledding will be more than rough. It will be ruinous.

    As journalism falls into eclipse but does not completely vanish, newsrooms will continue to contract. This is terrible for the workers who will be discarded. But worse still, it sends a market signal to aspiring journalists that they should avoid the profession because there are no vacancies to fill.

    With fewer entry-level jobs and fewer outlets for freelancers, the pipeline of talent that has long watered larger publications with experienced journalists might dry up. Where will aspiring nonfiction book authors learn their trade? The alternative weeklies realm, from which I hail and which trampolined many young journalists into larger, more prestigious news organizations, are a much diminished force. Once healthy papers folded in places like New York, San Francisco, Boston and Minneapolis; suspended printing in cities like Washington; went biweekly, as in Chicago and Seattle; or otherwise trimmed their page counts down from the early 21st century boom days.

    Isn’t there any optimism out there? Certainly not from Harvard’s Nieman Reports, which published Katherine Reynolds Lewis’ obituary in October titled “Hey Journalists, Nobody Is Coming to Save Us.”

    There has been no shortage of commentary about the harm that will befall democracy as the watchdogs get sacked, but should we believe them? Writing in the 1880s, Ambrose Bierce pierced this pretention. “From whom, my friends, do you hear all this talk about the great good wrought by the press, its vigilant guardianship of the public interest, its conservation of the public morals? From the newspapers, and from those who accept their word without analysis,” he wrote. No matter which side you stand on the democracy-requires-a-free-and-vigorous-press proposition, we’re about to test it.

    The ongoing flood obviously won’t sweep all journalism away. But except for a few big players, will it become more of a cottage industry than an economic and cultural force? If great cities like Los Angeles, with its many prosperous, educated and engaged citizens, can’t support a decent daily newspaper, what hope is there for the rest of the country? Are we belatedly learning that the great journalism empires — the Times-Mirror chain, Knight Ridder, Gannett, Scripps-Howard, Tribune, McClatchy, Advance Publications, Hearst, Freedom Communications and the rest — weren’t journalism empires as much as they were advertising colossuses, and that they became doomed when they lost status as the best advertising vehicle?

    Journalism will survive, of course, even if the business falters as the advertising subsidy that made it viable erodes. Publications for readers who depend on market-moving news like you find in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and other business titles will endure. So will the aforementioned New York Times, which provides news that moves political markets and has established itself as a national voice worth paying for. So, too, will the gossip and lifestyle magazines remain, as will publications like the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker, which serve, boutique-style, a loyal, educated readership. But like the animals that persisted after the great comet struck the earth, most publications will be tiny and eke out an existence in the shadows. Perhaps organized labor and political parties will step forward to sponsor news. But could you trust either to produce real news? That would be like expecting General Motors or Citibank to give you the honest lowdown on the automotive and financial goings-on.

    Will journalism become a hobby like scrapbooking or street busking, done on the cheap or for donations, but one without much of a career path? Will we become increasingly dependent on solo, opinionated practitioners on Substack like Matthew Yglesias and Glenn Greenwald and city newsletters like the ones from Axios to keep abreast of news not produced by the giants?

    The journalism party might not be completely over. It’s human nature to interpret any bad news as the coming apocalypse. But let’s get drunk anyway and then sober up for what’s to come next.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/stat...54028800913592
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."



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  30. #26
    MSM "bloodbath" underway
    Totally-not-ironic-in-any-way bump

    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    https://twitter.com/disclosetv/statu...47228380430852


    Mainstream media bloodbath: News outlets slash jobs as business suffers
    https://www.axios.com/2024/01/26/med...urnalism-dying
    {Sara Fischer | 26 January 2024}

    [...]
    https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmith/s...99051623457016
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 03-18-2024 at 04:08 PM.

  31. #27

  32. #28

  33. #29

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