Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power

She said: "Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition when, every day, Americans are still losing their lives?"

Did he answer the question? Or did he look at an Asian woman and immediately start attacking China?

And this is just ridiculous:

"Weirdly, some, who feared Trump being a true Hitler-like fascist 2-3 years ago, were upset that Trump wasn't being fascist enough and shutting the whole country down and overruling state governors on local policies."

There's nothing fascist about instituting a national healthcare policy during a national healthcare crisis. That's not what the word means. Fascism is far-right authoritarianism.

Marshalling private militias to attack people is fascism, however, and it's a practice Trump shares with both Hitler and Mussolini.

> Maybe if they were more interesting, more people would read them?

This is what caused the existing problem.

We had a media where people mostly believed them because they mostly cared about telling the truth, issued corrections when they were wrong, were critical of both political parties etc.

That media discovered that if they published outrage bait they got more clicks, because if something is outrageous and true then people are very interested. But things that are outrageous and true aren't all that common, so to keep the mill running they started publishing things that were outrageous and false.

That works until people figure out that they are no longer the media they were thought to be. Because things that are outrageous and false are boring. Anybody can write outrageous fiction. That's how we got into this. But the more readers who figure that out, the less credibility they have, and the less anybody wants to read their made up accounts.

Their existing solution seems to be to turn the dial up to eleven. So then everything is an existential threat and a hot war and literally Hitler. That whips up the frenzy for the people who still think what they're hearing bears some resemblance to the truth, but increases the number of people who realize it doesn't.

Eventually you get a critical mass of people no longer interested in hearing fantastical conspiracies about everything and somebody realizes there is a market for objective journalism and makes a name for themselves. Then, with any luck, the others follow. One can hope.

> There's nothing fascist about instituting a national healthcare policy during a national healthcare crisis. That's not what the word means. Fascism is far-right authoritarianism.

When the “national healthcare policy” you wanted him to institute is an authoritarian policy that overrules local governments and implements central economic planning, then yes, its fascism. Using different words to describe the same thing might work for the soundbite but people know the truth.

Start acting more like investigators of truth rather than as promoters of ideology, start acting more like free thinkers and less like thought police, start speaking truth to power more and being in bed with power less, and maybe more people will trust you.

> As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know, and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good. And that is all true, for what it’s worth. But this is about power. We need to take some back, lest the rich and powerful run away from one of the last forces restraining them.

I don't want the same arrogant, self-unaware journalist that pushes pernicious narratives to the public and doxxes people for blogging to come and tell me how rich people are evil and their newspaper is a defender of the public good.

Just look in the mirror for a moment and realize that you are the problem.