On Thursday evening, as rumors about the Brown University gunman swirled, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, but her words rang true to me. The network is one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and largely dependable reporting – especially in breaking news situations like the one that was developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
But CNN, now 45 years old, is in a precarious situation as two huge media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
Which has been an ongoing problem in the industry for quite some time.
Social media is so toxic, we should all get off it and just go back to relying on institutions like CNN for our perception of the world!
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The correct solution is to completely avoid TV news and social media. I realize Beehaw is social-media-adjacent, but it’s not the firehose of the big players.
TV news in the U.S. hasn’t been in the same fucking area code as “news” for decades. There are exceptions, such as PBS, but you otherwise need to leave the country for quality sourcing – such as DW, the BBC and Al-Jazeera.
The correct solution is to not have a moral panic about social media that plays into the hands of rich radical conservatives who own said social media platforms and are purposefully driving the moral panic and rightwing toxicity.
Two things can be bad at the same time. Social media is problematic because people are monetarily incentivized to get attention. Corporate news outlets are problematic because of the same reason.
The correct solution is improved media literacy and actual consequences for the harm that people do. And maybe a correction to the incentive structure for news while we’re at it.
Framing it as “moral panic” is disingenuous. It’s just people who love money more than community having found a way to exert control by distracting from what’s actually going on.
I agree in a sense buy I am not invested in framing it as a moral panic I am just pointing out the fact that it is clearly a moral panic.
According to whom? If this is “clearly” the case, how am I unaware of it?
Have you heard of a place called Australia before?
Mate, I’ve been to Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide.