Post by @futurebird@sauropods.win

Tell the news.

It's nice to link to an article, or do more in depth analysis, but I really appreciate it when people who I trust and who are knowledgeable (especially in areas I know less about) summarize news and events.

Even if it's very local stuff. Especially the local stuff.

Big newsrooms are dying. The editor of the paper or producer of a "news hour" used to do this job, and it a powerful job with tremendous responsibility.

Social media is taking the place of editorial control.

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myrmepropagandist

@futurebird@sauropods.win 6 mo. ago

This is why powerful people have been striving to capture social media networks. Why Musk bought twitter, it's why Russia has blocked the internet, why China has a firewall.

It's doesn't matter if reporters are reporting your propaganda, somehow you need people to think those stories are important.

Social media suggests an organic and wildly democratic way of doing this and I think it scares some powerful people to death.

They have been mostly successful retaining control.

myrmepropagandist

@futurebird@sauropods.win 6 mo. ago

But, at the same time I see reason for hope. The fact that Russia has basically decided that it just can't deal with people having access to the internet anymore means that even the deeply propaganda filled and regulated internet was *still* having a destabilizing impact on the centralization of information and ideas.

This also applies to US media. And there was a time when many would scoff at this comparison. But I think people see what's happening to networks and they get it.

myrmepropagandist

@futurebird@sauropods.win 6 mo. ago

The nightmare of the powerful is a media landscape that is entirely organic. Where what is news is decided in the way that ants make decisions, every ant makes her own choice and the decisions are emergent.

Emergent editorial control.

So, it's important to me what articles you choose to share and what you have to say about them. It's helpful when you explain who the big actors in your local news are, who you identify, how you identify them.

myrmepropagandist

@futurebird@sauropods.win 6 mo. ago

I do still think there is a role for pundits, but now all pundits are freelance.

This is why so much money and power focused on Joe Rogan. He's essentially a kind of pundit and the hope is that here is one place where it's possible to centrally control what is and isn't "the news" -- but, even Rogan faces backlash if he can't keep it feeling authentic.

Sometimes my liberal friends say it makes them sad that in the US we don't all watch NBC and CBS news hour anymore. The chaos is scary.

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