Re: [NNagain] some compelling rhetoric

[rjmcmahon <rjmcmahon@rjmcmahon.com>]

Not sure of the goals with this, but it reads like misinformation and 
propaganda to me. The state of so-called "digital journalism" today is 
very sad. Hopefully, we'll find a way so quality journalism can rise to 
the top, created by journalists who get paid for publishing with 
integrity and aren't paid to produce propaganda (I know - wishful 
thinking - Elon Musk and all that.)

History suggests we may have to wait awhile. Let's hope not.

1436 Gutenberg press invented
1517 Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses
1687 Newton's Principia is published

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/Journalism/index7f0d.html?page_id=16

The fact of the matter is that democracy requires informed citizens. No 
governing body can be expected to operate well without knowledge of the 
issues on which it is to rule, and rule by the people entails that the 
people should be informed. In a representative democracy, the role of 
the press is twofold: it both informs citizens and sets up a feedback 
loop between the government and voters. The press makes the actions of 
the government known to the public, and voters who disapprove of current 
trends in policy can take corrective action in the next election. 
Without the press, the feedback loop is broken and the government is no 
longer accountable to the people. The press is therefore of the utmost 
importance in a representative democracy.

Another, related, function of the press is to expose people to opinions 
contrary to their own. This function is perhaps the most valuable in the 
Internet age; while people can in theory get information about the 
actions of their government from online sources, it is all too easy to 
find opinions online that match one’s own. Informed decision-making on 
the part of voters requires an awareness of multiple points of view, 
which is not likely to be obtained if voters bear the sole 
responsibility of seeking out information on relevant issues. The news 
media provide a forum for debates to take place, as well as moderating 
and curating the arguments presented by all sides. It is, of course, 
idealistic to suppose that media give equal, or even proportional, 
representation to all opinions, but the fact that many media outlets 
present themselves as nonpartisan sources of information makes them a 
better forum for debate than online sources such as blogs, which are 
typically maintained by one individual or a small group of people with 
similar opinions

Bob
> https://www.freepress.net/blog/what-net-neutrality
> 
> It also contains a link to the proposed NPRM.
> 
> I am however, under the impression that 2019-2022 bandwidths increased
> by a lot, coverage was extended to more folk, and cell phones
> subsidiezed by ACP kept a lot of people connected.