The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism

For the most part I agree. Some version of this has been discussed for years: basically a non-profit, non-commercial, bipartisan, transparent, independent, professional journalism organization(s) using an endowment or donation-based funding model seems to be one of the best options at the moment.

The cynics and trolls will attack the idea that it's impossible. Ignore them of course, it is possible but it will not be perfect, and it must be open about it not being perfect. The pragmatists have the more valid pushback: implementing such a solution is still too difficult, too expensive, it will take too long and it may crowd-out remaining journalists who are still in business while discouraging other solutions coming forward.

I think it can start small. It has to. But the seeds how this could work can be seen in organizations like C-SPAN, National Public Radio and Wikipedia (Yes, Wikipedia is also not perfect but it's pretty damn good and arguably better than for-profit journalism right now in terms accuracy and staying close to the center on stories). Expanding on those models has potential if support for doing so can be rallied and the idea can be paid for.

Who knows, this could turn into a US version of Pravda, if it even gets off the ground. Maybe. But when current journalism is already a biased disaster still going out of business, what's the harm in trying a little experiment and giving other options like this a try?

The last observation in that interview is still current.

> The president, irrespective of who he is, today, is so powerful that the temptations of the office for good or evil are too great for any one man. I think we ought to begin to dismantle the office. I think we ought to have a head of state symbolizing the country around whom the natural feeling of patriotism and reverence accrue and separate him from the head of the government.

A number of comparative studies were performed during the primaries regarding the electibility of various candidates against their counterparts on the other side. Sanders performed very well against Trump on those metrics.

There are a number of people advancing the 'we have no evidence' banner in this thread, which is strange because studies of electibility were commonly discussed here during the primaries.

Not at all. You're describing a real problem, but it is in no way a conspiracy, in no way is it new, and in now way is it uniquely related to Hillary Clinton. The media has a problem with "horserace" coverage, which is the subject of your Shorenstein Center study. The problem, which is structural rather than conspiratorial, is that the media is obsessed with covering which candidates are winning and by how much, with projecting who they think will actually win, and then focusing on those candidates. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and creates an enormous barrier to entry for outsider candidates. As the Shorenstein Center study concludes:

"The problems associated with press coverage of the 2016 nominating campaign are rooted in the mismatch of journalism values and the structure of the nominating process. There is little question that the nature of the 2016 campaign—Trump’s presence, particularly—brought the mismatch into sharp relief. But the broad tendencies in press coverage of the 2016 coverage are ones that exhibit themselves every four years."

The truth is that Sanders was considered by everyone to be a long shot candidate, so he got less coverage. The coverage he did get was much more positive than the coverage of Clinton. They both got radically less coverage than Trump. So, no act laid bare by statistical analysis, just a long-standing bias in favor of covering the most famous candidates with the most celebrity status.

The relationships between candidates and reporters is totally public and was in no way revealed by any leaks. It's an obvious part of doing the job of political reporter that only people who had never closely followed a campaign were surprised by, and that was willfully misrepresented by the likes of Breitbart and Fox News as somehow nefarious. Remember, there was no corresponding RNC leak, which would of course show that reporters were talking to politicians there constantly too. There is nothing in the DNC leaks that proves reporters working in concert with the DNC to influence the outcome of the election in Hillary's favor, only that the two groups were attempting to influence each other in service of their own goals (to get new information and to win the election, respectively). So, no relationships between actors mapped out.

Anyway, if there were a scheme to use frequent mentions to favor a candidate, it's clearly Trump, not Clinton. It's well documented that Trump stories drove the most clicks, which is why news outlets focused so much on him. Was there a massive conspiracy between all the Republicans, including Trump himself, who spoke to reporters every day, clearly tilted the general election in favor of Trump, and had a direct incentive to get a scandal-prone celebrity into office?

Most people who follow politics closely know that Clinton has a famously bad relationship with the media and has earned incredibly negative coverage as a result. She's very famous and so she gets covered but there is definitely no giant multi-company conspiracy to support her.

[Citation needed]

Your hypothesis has been debunked in the provided sources, as well as elsewhere.

Even when viewer intent is controlled for in models, Sanders was consistently substantially underrepresented in coverage, while Hillary was substantially over-represented. Additionally, pole results correlated poorly with coverage volume.

If you read the leaks, you will note that contrary to your statement that "There is nothing in the DNC leaks that proves reporters working in concert", there is substantial evidence that key, impactful information was provided to the Clinton campaign and that Clinton's campaign desires aligned with reporting in fact.

Clinton wanted Trump to be a frontrunner because she thought she could eviscerate him. This is contained in the leak.

That she did not, in fact, do so, doesn't indicate that there was no conformity between her campaign strategy and the media coverage in fact. Most media narratives leading up to the election indicated that Hillary was substantially ahead.

Your argument that 'the two groups were attempting to influence each other in service of their own goals' doesn't indicate that there wasn't an improper collusion. If you and I own companies, and we agree in service of our own goals to raise prices and reduce competition, in most jurisdictions we would be thrown in jail. Which is why the conversations in which these agreements happen (and they do) are not. written. down.