According to the latest news, Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is going forward. I wish it were not. I have no particular animosity toward Musk – my animosity toward him is generalized. I resent, in general, fantastically wealthy individuals who believe their billions are a well-deserved reward for their personal awesomeness. I want them to be more realistic about how they got rich. I want them to admit that they are not exactly awesome, but instead are cunningly adept at gaming the economic system.
To say that Musk “deserves” his estimated 275-billion-dollar fortune is to say that his actions have, on average, benefited each American family to the tune of about 2,100 dollars. Given this, I believe every American should calculate how much they have benefited monetarily from Elon Musk and, if their household total is under $2,100, they should contact him and request a payment covering the difference!
Okay, I’m kidding. I do not advocate harassing billionaires. I only advocate remembering that their wealth is not “deserved” in that it is not a natural result of the generous benefits they have bestowed on the rest of us.
And now, my next point: our news sources should not be controlled by billionaires. Or anyone else who happens to have the money to purchase them.
Control of information is a tricky issue. A. J. Liebling, in a 1960 New Yorker essay wrote that “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” In other words, you can express yourself freely and unreservedly via the press only if you happen to own the press. The First Amendment does not force press owners to permit anyone to say anything through them. It only prevents the government from coercing the press. In today’s news environment, “the press,” includes by implication print media, network and cable news, and Internet sources generally. America’s constitutional restriction on government control of these sources is important. In places like Russia and the People’s Republic of China, government control of the press keeps people grossly ignorant on key issues. It’s different in America where Fox News keeps people grossly ignorant on key issues. More on this later.
But back to the dangers of government control. Just imagine if Donald Trump were president and we had no First Amendment press protections. Trump would most likely put someone like Rudy Giuliani in charge of shutting down unflattering news sources. Before long, our news would all read like press releases from Trump’s former doctor, the late Harold Bornstein. He was the one who wrote in 2016 that, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Just imagine the media under Trump’s control with no First Amendment protections: “The New York Times confidently reports that Donald Trump is unequivocally the greatest president America – nay, the World – has ever known!”
Doctor Bornstein, Peace Be upon Him
Of course we do have government-controlled news sources in the U.S. – PBS and NPR, for example – and I have no problem with them. In fact, I would give them a grade of “A” in terms of their level of accuracy and their sense of responsibility to honestly inform the public. I would give the majority of prominent commercially owned news sources (Washington Post, CNN, etc.) grades ranging from B to A- and in a few cases even a solid A.
Except for Fox. Fox gets an F. Because, by its own admission, it is a bullshit factory*.
In a September 2020 case, Fox’s attorneys argued that Karen McDougal’s suit against Fox’s Tucker Carlson for his slandering her should be dismissed because people ought to know that Carlson routinely peddles bullshit. In the words of the Trump-appointed judge in the case, “Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.” Furthermore, “Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson's statements as ‘exaggeration,’ ‘non-literal commentary,’ or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable.”
Translation: Only an idiot would believe Tucker Carlson.
The gross irresponsibility and dishonesty of Fox News and the damage it has done to our country concern me. Rupert Murdock, an unfettered, press-owning billionaire, has apparently decided that lying and stoking fear and bigotry are fine as long as he can make money doing it.
Which brings us back to Elon Musk and Twitter. Twitter has become, according to some, the de facto public square. To me it seems very dangerous to have the public square in the hands of a single individual whose accumulation of wealth and inflated self-regard do not suggest NPR levels of honesty and responsibility. Twitter under Elon Musk’s control might not be as bullshitty and bigoted as Fox, but who knows? It very well might.
The prospect of our news sources falling more and more into the hands of self-serving billionaires is frightening. I very much believe in the First Amendment, but I also believe in the public’s right to protection against oligarchs who profit by posturing as unbiased news sources while admitting in court that they blatantly and routinely peddle bullshit. So I continue to hope that the Musk-Twitter deal does not give birth to another Fox.
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*Bullshit factory phrase is stolen from CNN’s Jim Acosta.
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