> but where are the front page Vice pieces, Washington Post articles, or NYT exposés when Johnson and Johnson sells 33,000 bottles of baby power with asbestos in them?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/433jdg/johnson-and-johnson-l...
I think there is a difference in the tone and and style of media coverage that large tech companies attract. I very much agree that there are a lot of terrible things happening in the world but I think it is fair to question whether or not the bias that journalist bring apportions our outrage appropriately.
But on your point on boycotts, yes they did[0] and on congressional hearings, also yes they did [1].
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/activists-call-bo...
[1] https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/oversight-su...
https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/oversight-su...
edit: three people frantically googling in unison. A beautiful sight.
But they do spend a lot of time on Facebook, so media spends more time writing about Facebook because they know their audience will understand it (and click on it).
The reality is most people don’t care to understand how social media is at the heart of everything, even journalism. The news sites you mentioned above are prominent sources and participants on Twitter. What does not get traction there, doesn’t make money for them, and so we are stuck in this feedback loop in which something trends and we get clickbait headlines while the world burns.
It’s actually surprising news media can step back and see who their real publishers and modern day printing presses are. Perhaps they can appreciate how tangled up they are in the feedback cycle of getting clicks because fewer and fewer people actually subscribe and passively read via social media, which nets … Meta … more money than the journal.
That is the tragedy of news media today. It’s the death of the local journal and consolidation of large media operations which are increasingly at the whim of Twitter trends and ad revenue.
So let’s keep talking about social media until we can prise control, regulate, and have healthy discussions about things other than lifestyle choices and top 10 lists.
No, no, no. J&J is a good American company. Family values. Takes care of it's employees like family. Good for the economy. Ma & Pa Values.
They're nothing like free-and-footloose wild Facebook.
/s
Of course, that's the image they want everyone to believe, and old money companies work very, very hard to continue that.
Will this Third Life be so addictive, people will let their children shit themselves and use no baby powder?
The only injection of adrenaline into the veins of investigative journalism were the four years of shockingly incompetent, corrupt, and vile Trump administration.
Investigative journalism requires resources and talent, and this arena is bleeding both. And when they do dig into something, they suddenly become "main stream narratives" and "fake news".
Charlie Sykes actually had a devastating episode on the Bulwark podcast about this yesterday. Gutting of local news is leading to rampant corruption on the local level, because no one is watching. And the "small government" crowd, you know, the misguided libertarians on this very site, clamor for less oversight. Because that's what it's all about.
Here is a great episode of Citations Needed about the term "whataboutism": https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-66-whatabouti...
You just did the same thing.
As a site dominated by tech industry employees, it's time that people working in tech stop simply nodding their heads when people shift the cultural spotlight on corporate malfeasance onto tech's bully target of the year/decade, over and over and over again. We get it, social media is fucked up. Great. Now, where are the Frances Haugen's of BigChemical or BigCPG? Why aren't they household names? Why aren't we collectively outraged they aren't at congressional hearings?
This piece by Vice absolutely embodies the snide tone, the absolute derision with which we decided it's OK to paint Facebook. That's well and good, Facebook isn't great, but doing so while turning a blind eye to far greater crimes is a crime that itself ought to be castigated. A journalists mission is in part to embody the Fourth Estate - to be a watchdog. When all journalism does is stand around the classroom and pat each other on the back and point at the dunce-hat wearing stooge of the decade making obvious mistakes in an echo chamber while ignoring the subtle crimes of the popular kid, it's worthy of the same snide comments itself.