My research also delved into the financial disaster that has befallen the newspaper and on-line news organizations in recent decades.
One reason the Knight Foundation’s endowment swelled in recent years was that the owners of the newspaper group sold out at the right time. In 2006, Knight Rider sold its 32 daily newspapers to the McClatchy Company. The deal was worth $$6.5 billion, $4 billion of which was in stock. At the time, Knight Ridder had a total circulation of 3.3 million.
How did the former Knight Ridder newspapers fare under the new ownership? In February of 2020, McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s news properties were later sold at auction for $312 million (bought by a hedge fund of course). The average weekly circulation of all McClatchy papers is now below 1.6 million, according to Wikipedia.
So McClatchy lost $6.2 billion on the acquisition and its circulation declined by 1.7 million.
Still, the Knight Foundation wants to send members of the public to the newspapers still operating to get their “trusted” news.
In America, the number of journalists working at newspapers has declined from 70,000 to 31,000 in the last 16 years. That is, 59 percent of the newspaper journalists’ jobs have disappeared.
Vanity Fair Magazine, which is probably hanging on by a thread itself, did a good job of painting a picture of the newsrooms at America’s dwindling number of newspapers in a story published in August.
“It’s no secret that publishing conglomerates like Gannett and McClatchy have faced serious financial pressures since the dawn of the internet. The latest round of staffing reductions, which seemed to largely target smaller Gannett papers, reflected how little is left to cut; newsrooms that had already been reduced to four people were now down to two, or in some cases, none."
“… A frequent point of skepticism is how effectively a team of two or three people can cover a metropolis—or whether they even intend to.”
Regarding those journalists at newspapers we are supposed to “trust” for accurate news, 1) All the journalists think alike so you’re not going to get any “balance” and 2) the vast majority of these news organizations don’t have enough journalists to do any real investigative journalism even if they wanted to.
Many of these “trusted” news sources don’t even have enough reporters to send anyone to cove school board meetings or city council meetings. They certainly can’t competently cover all the behind-the-scenes activities at the CDC, NIH or FDA.
Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 17, 2022Liked by Bill Rice, Jr.
Misinfo and the fight to label opposing information "disinformation" are extremely fascinating topics that are difficult to write about.
These topics cut to the core of whether we, fallible but good human beings, are allowed to think and communicate our thoughts, or are we "human assets" to be managed and shaped.
there seems to be a lot of empty blurb these Knights put out, covering for the fact that fewer and fewer people read long texts. do they actually understand how some of the (non-commercial) internet platforms work?
Lot to take in. Bookmarking to read later tonight.
In the meantime I noticed you haven't subscribed to Paul Thacker, he has done some great work you should check out. He's pay walling a lot now, but trust me, worth the paid sub.
Good analysis and Interesting accumulation of the characters involved who then go on to accuse people of spreading conspiracy theories. By happenstance, earlier today I posted this tweet:
"When I state X or Y or Z and you say I'm a conspiracy theorist, my reply is "how can I trust a government that after 60 years of denials now admits to more than one shooter involved in JFK's assassination"".
And then there is this regarding the Artemis space flight: "mannequins wearing the First-Generation Orion Crew Survival System spacesuit, which the real astronauts will wear on Artemis 2 and 3. Sensors have been placed all over the moonikins to provide data on what human crew members may experience in flight." May experience? Weren't there 6 astronauts landings on the moon 50 years ago? Isn't it already known what astronauts experience in flight? Or is it we do not because they did not?
The current sponsoring by foundations to refute so-called dis/mis/mal information underlies the same basic issue that Rene Wormser pointed out in his book "Foundations: Their Power and Influence", which dates their actions back to the early 20th century that being, foundation's actions compared to stated mission, interlocking nature, and influence, along with the aid of major media to cover it all up. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I’ve found you can usually check for “when did this start to become an issue?” in the bilderberg meeting agenda. One of the topics from the 2017 meeting was “the war on information”. Keep in mind that the first use of the term “fake news” came from Hillary Clinton, and then Trump successfully weaponized the term to the extent the MSM was begging people to stop using it (right around 2017). https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meetings/meetings-overview/2010
My research also delved into the financial disaster that has befallen the newspaper and on-line news organizations in recent decades.
One reason the Knight Foundation’s endowment swelled in recent years was that the owners of the newspaper group sold out at the right time. In 2006, Knight Rider sold its 32 daily newspapers to the McClatchy Company. The deal was worth $$6.5 billion, $4 billion of which was in stock. At the time, Knight Ridder had a total circulation of 3.3 million.
How did the former Knight Ridder newspapers fare under the new ownership? In February of 2020, McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s news properties were later sold at auction for $312 million (bought by a hedge fund of course). The average weekly circulation of all McClatchy papers is now below 1.6 million, according to Wikipedia.
So McClatchy lost $6.2 billion on the acquisition and its circulation declined by 1.7 million.
Still, the Knight Foundation wants to send members of the public to the newspapers still operating to get their “trusted” news.
In America, the number of journalists working at newspapers has declined from 70,000 to 31,000 in the last 16 years. That is, 59 percent of the newspaper journalists’ jobs have disappeared.
Vanity Fair Magazine, which is probably hanging on by a thread itself, did a good job of painting a picture of the newsrooms at America’s dwindling number of newspapers in a story published in August.
“It’s no secret that publishing conglomerates like Gannett and McClatchy have faced serious financial pressures since the dawn of the internet. The latest round of staffing reductions, which seemed to largely target smaller Gannett papers, reflected how little is left to cut; newsrooms that had already been reduced to four people were now down to two, or in some cases, none."
“… A frequent point of skepticism is how effectively a team of two or three people can cover a metropolis—or whether they even intend to.”
Regarding those journalists at newspapers we are supposed to “trust” for accurate news, 1) All the journalists think alike so you’re not going to get any “balance” and 2) the vast majority of these news organizations don’t have enough journalists to do any real investigative journalism even if they wanted to.
Many of these “trusted” news sources don’t even have enough reporters to send anyone to cove school board meetings or city council meetings. They certainly can’t competently cover all the behind-the-scenes activities at the CDC, NIH or FDA.
Misinfo and the fight to label opposing information "disinformation" are extremely fascinating topics that are difficult to write about.
These topics cut to the core of whether we, fallible but good human beings, are allowed to think and communicate our thoughts, or are we "human assets" to be managed and shaped.
there seems to be a lot of empty blurb these Knights put out, covering for the fact that fewer and fewer people read long texts. do they actually understand how some of the (non-commercial) internet platforms work?
The Knight Foundation
Is being scammed.
Boondoggles and fake studies.
Lot to take in. Bookmarking to read later tonight.
In the meantime I noticed you haven't subscribed to Paul Thacker, he has done some great work you should check out. He's pay walling a lot now, but trust me, worth the paid sub.
https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/archive
Great post.
"Build trust" is the new way of saying "manufacture consent."
Good analysis and Interesting accumulation of the characters involved who then go on to accuse people of spreading conspiracy theories. By happenstance, earlier today I posted this tweet:
"When I state X or Y or Z and you say I'm a conspiracy theorist, my reply is "how can I trust a government that after 60 years of denials now admits to more than one shooter involved in JFK's assassination"".
And then there is this regarding the Artemis space flight: "mannequins wearing the First-Generation Orion Crew Survival System spacesuit, which the real astronauts will wear on Artemis 2 and 3. Sensors have been placed all over the moonikins to provide data on what human crew members may experience in flight." May experience? Weren't there 6 astronauts landings on the moon 50 years ago? Isn't it already known what astronauts experience in flight? Or is it we do not because they did not?
The current sponsoring by foundations to refute so-called dis/mis/mal information underlies the same basic issue that Rene Wormser pointed out in his book "Foundations: Their Power and Influence", which dates their actions back to the early 20th century that being, foundation's actions compared to stated mission, interlocking nature, and influence, along with the aid of major media to cover it all up. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I’ve found you can usually check for “when did this start to become an issue?” in the bilderberg meeting agenda. One of the topics from the 2017 meeting was “the war on information”. Keep in mind that the first use of the term “fake news” came from Hillary Clinton, and then Trump successfully weaponized the term to the extent the MSM was begging people to stop using it (right around 2017). https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meetings/meetings-overview/2010
Good article Bill, will be linking it today @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/