The handwringing in this article over how a few publishers now control almost all distribution is also odd to me. Certainly I'm not thrilled by that situation, but why the pretense that it's a novel situation?
People like Hearst and Murdoch have had massively outsize control over news distribution in the past. And before that, when the supposedly-outdated First Amendment was being written, control of publication largely accrued to whoever could get distribution into a given spot.
These are not unprecedented challenges, and seeing an article like this casually discard their historical context makes me worry that it is in fact criticizing free speech for all the usual reasons.
People like Hearst and Murdoch have had massively outsize control over news distribution in the past. And before that, when the supposedly-outdated First Amendment was being written, control of publication largely accrued to whoever could get distribution into a given spot.
These are not unprecedented challenges, and seeing an article like this casually discard their historical context makes me worry that it is in fact criticizing free speech for all the usual reasons.