On Wednesday, following last week’s Tom Cotton kerfuffle at the New York Times, Ezra Klein published a piece on Vox analyzing the changes in today’s media, what about those changes is new, and what about those changes is old—ever-present in the industry. It’s a rather academic look at things, and if you’re someone interested in the media landscape itself, I’d guess you’ll find it worth five or ten minutes of your Friday.
Among the best segments:
…The nationalization of news has changed the nature of the audience. The local business model was predicated on dominating coverage of a certain place; the national business model is about securing the loyalties of a certain kind of person.
The news media likes to pretend that it simply holds up a mirror to America as it is. We don’t want to be seen as actors crafting the political debate, agents who make decisions that shape the boundaries of the national discourse. We are, of course. We always have been.
Here’s a link to the full piece: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-cotton-media-liberal-conservative-black-lives-matter
