Thomas Frank, Salon - Plutocrats have always been a self-regarding bunch, but it is obvious
that the species of zillionaire that subsidizes magazine journalism
today suffer from a form of upper-class delusion that was unknown just
50 years ago. This is because they now know that they are not merely
people who got lucky; they are geniuses—everyone tells them so. Chris
Hughes, breaker of the New Republic, earned his millions by being Mark
Zuckerberg’s college roommate, but nevertheless he was one of the most celebrated figures
in publishing a short while ago. When he and his handpicked CEO lapse
into indecipherable management talk, they apparently mean it. That’s not
a Dilbert joke; that’s the language of genius. (According to a recent story by
Chris Lehmann, the same sort of thing goes on at First Look, a troubled
journalistic project launched by a different Internet mogul.)
What’s
more, unlike media barons of the recent past, our modern zillionaires
don’t refrain from direct meddling in the production of ideas and
opinions. Not only are the new press lords blithely steamrolling the old
ethical wall that used to separate journalism’s owning elite from the
news gathering process; they are repurposing the act of reporting into
something much closer to PR. If you are tempted to dismiss this as
populist hyperbole, allow me to direct you to the vast sponsored content portal known as Vox Media.
The
new press lord’s deeds are all made possible by the shrinking
significance of everyone else. Compared to the patois of power, the
language of journalism is but meaningless babble. Compared to once
having been a friend of Zuckerberg, no form of literary genius matters
any more.
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