Post

I wrote about how the Trumplican court attack on net neutrality is about way more than just "net neutrality" It's about completely dismantling whatever's left of already feckless U.S. corporate oversight and consumer protection

I read about twenty mainstream news reports on this court ruling on net neutrality, and not ONE could be bothered to mention that U.S. broadband is an uncompetitive mess dominated by a bunch of shitty monopolies that bribe government to maintain power a rather central part of the story, guys

I learned this lesson the hard way covering telecom, but once you notice it it's all pervasive: corruption as a concept literally doesn't exist in most reporting despite its obvious impacts everywhere you look. just simply...not mentioned as a massive causation factor for most U.S. problems

Comcast and AT&T bribed state and federal lawmakers to protect their cozy regional monopolies so they could screw consumers and competitors alike in a wide variety of ways and in press stories LITERALLY ABOUT THE FUCKING BROADBAND INDUSTRY this just...isn't mentioned 90% of the time

pick any story about gun control, health care, air travel, whatever from the news wires and notice how they all operate in a sterile Fantasyland where these industries lobbyists haven't effectively purchased market domination to the detriment of consumers and healthy markets

I think this sort of thing has been so normalized in our failing, feckless media most journalists don't even notice it any more it's just an editorial standard to write wimpy stories about soggy U.S. health care or shitty broadband or gun control without mentioning corruption as THE obvious cause

I wonder what to make of the fact that the one story of the last decade that seemed to break through was Cambridge Analytica, which did have genuine social and political repercussions and we know Facebook thinks inflicted serious reputational damage. Why was that "able to be a story"?