The Save Journalism Project has been launched by Laura Bassett, a former culture and political reporter at HuffPost, and John Stanton, a former BuzzFeed News Washington bureau chief. The Save Journalism Project web site claims, "High-quality journalism has been recognized since America's founding as fundamental to the functioning of our democracy. But now, journalism in America is facing an existential threat from the monopolistic control of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple. Big tech's dominance over the digital advertising market and their unrivaled capacity to monetize its platforms are having drastic effects on journalism as a whole." This is partially true, but as with journalism these days, not totally true.
The site says that "over the last 10 years, newspaper newsrooms have declined in size by 45%, and in 2019 so far media has shed more than 2,400 jobs." It puts the blame on big technology, "Google, Apple, and Facebook are using their tech muscles to monetize news for their own profit, but at the expense of journalists." The Save Journalism Project states that it
is "an effort to educate and activate journalists across the country to tell the story of big tech's threat to journalism. We are news publishers, news gatherers, journalists, content creators, media influencers, activists, advocates, and organizers. We are defending democracy, fighting to preserve free press, and working to save journalism in the age of big tech. If these are issues you care about too, become an ally."
The site claims that 75% of digital ad revenue is controlled by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, Microsoft, and Oath. It says that some 1,300 local communities have lost local news coverage. It says that fake news is created by the income disparity between those who can afford to pay for news digital content and those who can only afford free content that "incentivizes sensationalism and outrage over accuracy." Yes, big tech posing as free speech platforms and at the same time censoring speech that the corporate Marxists disagree with, is a huge threat to the free republic. But to claim that because big tech controls ad revenue is shifting the blame and crying foul because of capitalism. There is a deeper problem here.
So-called "journalists" are their own worse enemy. They are not the victims. They are the perpetrators. They are unable to put aside their political intolerance and ideological bigotry long enough to write a truthful and accurate account of the news without editorializing on their personal beliefs. This is what has caused people to flock to "click bait" headlines and seek out non-traditional news sources. The decade-plus landslide of advocacy journalism (antithetical as it is) is taking its toll on the industry and these little Marxists want to blame those who are making money at the expense of their jobs. As Christ said in Matthew 7:5, "
You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the speck out of your brother's eye." Saving journalism will entail cleaning up truth and accuracy not attacking capitalism.
