February 16, 2021 ☼ media ☼ outrage ☼ extremism
Source: The Conversation - Link
Committee assignments are normally a blessing for new House members. But some of today’s newer members, like freshmen Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn, seem to be more interested in punditry than policy.
When Greene was stripped of her committee assignments on Feb. 4 for a series of past statements that included threats directed against her Democratic colleagues, she replied by tweeting that she woke up “literally laughing” that “a bunch of morons” had given her “free time” to promote her views in the media.
Meanwhile, Cawthorn, in a recent email to colleagues, noted that he built his staff “around comms [communications] rather than legislation.”
Depressing. Private-enterprise media need advertisers for revenue. Advertisers require eyeballs. Eyeballs like outrage. Media delivers outrage. The feedback loop gets worse.
How do we break this cycle? We used to have requirements for demonstrable truth in media. Reagan, then Gingrich, broke that governance.