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Democracy Lives Behind Firewalls
Welcome to summer, 2024 style, as the age of anti-intellectualism is about to hit full bloom. Another election cycle is kicking off, and news outlets are gearing up to increase their subscription rates.
Consider this: According to a recent report from Neiman Lab, most people don’t want to pay anything for news.
Just a random question: Who’s up for another round of Sunday morning talk shows devoted to dissecting the mystery of America’s disengaged electorate?
The same news outlets that claim they are vital to democracy keep their information locked behind firewalls until a credit card is produced. Important content, for the most part, can’t be shared with nonsubscribers. Meanwhile, free content, whether credible or a highly orchestrated fake news campaign, is readily available for free, and easily shareable across the Internet.
So, who is actually damaging democracy?
These are the things I wonder.
We’ve had the subscription-based news model long enough to know it doesn’t pay the bills needed to keep news outlets afloat, and increasing fees is just angering subscribers. We’re left with an industry stuck in a scarcity mindset, which negatively impacts its content, and caught up in a vicious cycle of lowering today’s news standard slightly more than yesterday.
