All the while that news media is driven by a need to make money to afford to exist, we're going to see that media chasing viewers -- and, unfortunately, the vast majority of viewers want news that has drama and outrage, which will continue to drive this "race to the bottom" in news media quality I suspect.
Those of us who want to consume high-quality journalism are increasingly in a minority these days and our options will probably continue to dwindle. I used to hold up the BBC as an example of high-quality media that didn't need to make money but it has taken some strange and unfortunate paths over the last decade or so. I still point to NPR as a good example but that's really pretty niche.
Anecdote: we tried to encourage some of my partner's family to incorporate NPR into their media diet (since the family is right-leaning in general and some members are full-on Trump/QAnon) -- they complained that NPR "wasn't interesting" and so they only listened for a couple of days... because they were used to "news" that involved drama and outrage. Argh!
The fact that Zucker also boosted Rogan's career, as well as Trump's, is just perfect. Rogan was scuffling around, trying to find another job after "NewsRadio" ended (I was today years old when I discovered that Ray Romano was supposed to do the part originally, but he was "was let go from the cast after one rehearsal," hmmmm, and Rogan got the part instead). He was doing MMA commentary until "Fear Factor" basically re-started his career. And now, here we are, with Rogan his way to becoming the next Rush Limbaugh.
I thought of this when I saw this picture you posted of Trump's Holiday Inn Express tweet. Did we really need to know every single thing he did? Goodbye and good riddance, Zucker.
All the while that news media is driven by a need to make money to afford to exist, we're going to see that media chasing viewers -- and, unfortunately, the vast majority of viewers want news that has drama and outrage, which will continue to drive this "race to the bottom" in news media quality I suspect.
Those of us who want to consume high-quality journalism are increasingly in a minority these days and our options will probably continue to dwindle. I used to hold up the BBC as an example of high-quality media that didn't need to make money but it has taken some strange and unfortunate paths over the last decade or so. I still point to NPR as a good example but that's really pretty niche.
Anecdote: we tried to encourage some of my partner's family to incorporate NPR into their media diet (since the family is right-leaning in general and some members are full-on Trump/QAnon) -- they complained that NPR "wasn't interesting" and so they only listened for a couple of days... because they were used to "news" that involved drama and outrage. Argh!
The fact that Zucker also boosted Rogan's career, as well as Trump's, is just perfect. Rogan was scuffling around, trying to find another job after "NewsRadio" ended (I was today years old when I discovered that Ray Romano was supposed to do the part originally, but he was "was let go from the cast after one rehearsal," hmmmm, and Rogan got the part instead). He was doing MMA commentary until "Fear Factor" basically re-started his career. And now, here we are, with Rogan his way to becoming the next Rush Limbaugh.
I thought of this when I saw this picture you posted of Trump's Holiday Inn Express tweet. Did we really need to know every single thing he did? Goodbye and good riddance, Zucker.