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innerspaceboy · 05-28-2016, 07:37 PM

I had a riveting discussion this evening with my fiance about the journalistic landscape in the post-mass media internet age.

A dear friend had suggested that I explore HuffPost as a publishing resource. While I understand The Huffington Post is an excellent outlet for public exposure, a brief survey of their content has left me to firmly contest their journalistic integrity, as they primarily publish fluff pieces with sensationalist click bait headlines. And since their acquisition by AOL, their adoption of Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and Jenny McCarthy-supported anti-vaxxer garbage and holistic chicanery, they've lost any remaining credibility. Furthermore, their grand-sweeping aggregation net steals all content great and small without compensating (or validating) their sources, so I'll personally have no part of it.

This sparked a rousing discussion of what reputable sources remain. And when she educated me as to the recent folding of one of the few last standing sources - Al Jazeera America, closing due to lack of American readership, I was devastated and appalled by the apathetically low standards of the average American reader - skimming for little more than headlines in the positive feedback loop that is their social media "newsfeed". We are self-sabotaging our opportunity for a rich and active discourse by scrolling through articles proclaiming that "you won't believe this optical illusion!". Illusion indeed.

Mass media's replacement by a personalized media echo chamber devoid of voices to challenge one's perceptions is an Orwellian construct - prisoners who serve as guards themselves to their own invisible incarceration, (as was so prophetically described in My Dinner With Andre). And the matter is only worsened by the fact that there are so few credible news sources left outside of their cell walls which could ever hope to set them free.

These are desperate times. All the more reason for me to be grateful to have found a woman of sharp mind like my fiance.

/rant

Back to the music.