![]() Twitter has enabled journalists to build personal brands in an era when traditional media is struggling for financial survival. Some have characterized Twitter as the assignment editor for modern journalism. Twitter is where journalists look for leads. Users love Twitter because it creates the illusion of direct access to VIPs to whom they would normally have no access. Some communities that are normally excluded from the political process depend on Twitter to get their message out. As such, it has become the platform of choice for politicians, celebrities, and journalists. ![]() Twitter is a platform for unmediated broadcasting to roughly a quarter billion active users. They can only win by doing their job, by standing up to the powerful in the public interest. Journalists cannot win by appeasing Musk. Even if he gives up the CEO title-as he may do following a user poll-he will pick his successor and still control Twitter. Twitter is Musk’s toy and he is having fun with it. It is a private business where he can set the rules and change them whenever he wants. Twitter is a soap opera where Musk is the star, the only actor in the spotlight. The simple fact is that there is no logic to what Musk is doing.Įlon Musk craves attention. They are trying to discern new rules when they should be focused on the bigger picture. Instead, journalists are enabling Musk to do exactly what Trump did. They might have learned from the serial humiliations that characterized press briefings in the Trump White House, from the never-ending lies and blatant attempts to control the story by giving access to a privileged few who were willing to play along or be manipulated. One might have expected journalists to learn a lesson from their experience with Trump. Read More: Elon Musk Has Lost Sight of What Matters Gone was any acknowledgment that journalism has a duty to stand up to power and to hold a lens up to society, not just broadcast the circus. As former CBS executive Les Moonves famously stated about Trump’s antics: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Moonves was acknowledging something that should disturb us all: in the age of Trump, media executives chose to prioritize profits over the protection of democracy and the pursuit of truth. Donald Trump demonstrated that spectacle is good for media profitability.
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