The News

Nobody asked but …

There seems to be a considerable amount of agita about a merger in the local broadcast markets.  I have little or no interest in this.  The linked article outlines some of the issues understandably if not objectively.

Objectivity would require looking at the broader environment in which broadcast news competes for public attention.  The news isn’t fake; it’s just rarely whole and pure.  Look at any large organization (common management) or institution (consequential agglomeration) — how much competence or focus do you see there?

Why would we expect an agglomeration such as broadcast media, or an institution such as a broadcast corporation, to be any better?  But the main thing, that the FCC by its very nature misses, is that most of the old media instrumentalities are not in the driver’s seat of the news.

The paradigms have changed.  Many of us in the modern world now do not get our news through the old paradigms.  Who owns what local broadcast or publication media tells a rapidly shrinking part of the story.

— Kilgore Forelle