On July 4th, journalist Heather Bryant published an important article on Medium that I think everyone should read and think about. Her story should make all of us uncomfortable, not just about the state of journalism, but also about how each of us thinks about class and the people around us doing under-appreciated, but vital work.
Below are some excerpts from the piece, but it’s worth reading the entire thing.
I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?
Dangerous consolidation of the media is a trend that has been discussed by many people on many occasions, and many of us by now have heard the stat that in the U.S. just six media giants control 90% of all TV, news, radio and film. Now that Comcast is set to buy Time Warner, the situation is about to get that much worse.
