This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Do you think that the editorial integrity and independence of the Washington post has been compromised by the current owner, Jeff Bezos?”

Billionaires have compromised all news media. The Fourth Estate has long been corrupted and serves its primary function of informing the public only tangentially. Their mandate has been perverted by a profit-driven mentality that prioritizes the interests of capitalist owners over ensuring the public is aware of and informed about issues that can dramatically affect their lives.

This has been a long and slippery slope of degradation begun by Ronald Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and then the installation of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network.

Meanwhile, the American public participated in the destruction of its lifeline to crucial knowledge by choosing entertainment via rage porn than any objective analysis of issues that would help them make the best decisions for themselves and the nation.

Had this corruption not become so complete as to allow Fox to continue publicly referring to itself as a news organization while declaring themselves an entertainment organization in the courts, Donald Trump would not now be wreaking havoc on the nation.

The problem has been that the changes have been subtle and incremental over time, on such a level that the public merely shrugs its shoulders while remaining blissfully unaware of the long-term implications of allowing their lifeline to knowledge to become so polluted with noise.

Here’s an example of a non-issue that should have pissed off the public enough to be radically vocal but it was just another day and another shrug of the people’s collective shoulders while a significant proportion of the population has been so condition by this degradation that they see nothing fundamentally wrong with it in the same way that a Stockholm Syndrome sufferer sees nothing wrong with their abuser’s abusive behaviour.

Along with all the other numerous acts of restoration required for the nation, what needs to happen is the breaking up of big media into community-based and locally owned enterprises that can collectively function like the scientific community’s peer review system to ensure integrity is restored to the Fourth Estate.