The News We Lost

I read an entry by Joel Chrono recently titled “The Web We Lost”, and some of it (most of it, actually) is true, as well as the suggested response to it (run ones own site/server, participate in Web rings, blogrolls, etc) but I also think about the news, journalism we lost over the years. So many sponsored posts, journalism articles that are supposed to be a/the source for actual news, but it's a fancy way of dressing up a series of links to a product or number of products.

Is that journalism?

So the large and small publications, what are they spending their time addressing? What are their priorities (:spoiler: money, but the ethos of the media is supposed to be more than that)!

Journalism in the Western World used to be merely a middleman, a medium between government, business and the readers. The citizens. Trusting and caring about good reporting is what one needed, and wanted, from a publication. Defense (through words) against condescension from the government, as well as any overzealous companies who may be aiming at becoming a monopoly – the media was to discover, discertain (facts from BS) and report back in an unbiased fashion what was/is happening.

Some would say “too late for all of the above” and that is fairly true, too. But rolling over and splicing the articles with ads and status quo complacency in the age of dominant browsers, ad-blockers (soon be done away with on Chrome), Tweet-sized sound bites and AI summaries, it ensures one thing: things will remain the same. And nothing good will come of the things mentioned, nor the media itself.