Paradigm (formerly Agora) recently discussed dying media: specifically broadcast television (TV). The writer believes that 2024 may be the last gasp of broadcast media as Biden, Trump, and hundreds of candidates flood the old networks and local stations with billions of campaign dollars. He points out that the main spending will be in seven battleground states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Some of these seven morer than others because they are looking at open Senate and House and even governor’s races that are near toss-ups.

Paradigm makes some excellent points, both about the decline of broadcast media and this year’s “most important race in history” sort of nonsense. They explain that they call (accurately) “linear TV” as “older folks know it” is nearly gone.

Of course, many “older folks” that we know gave up on the horror of broadcast television a long time ago. We know a couple almost 70 that hasn’t owned a television in two decades except one connected to a VHS (now DVD) system on which to watch movies. They were early adopters of internet connectivity and the advantages of a truly free press not beholden, in the way linear TV is, to advertisers and network control. While they may still be in the minority, we don’t think that they are far from being in the majority of people concerned about liberty, political and economic freedom, and the fate of their children and grandchildren.

Why? Broadcast radio and television had a sadly important role to play in the rapid decline of the American federal republic beginning in the 1930s and really getting underway in the 1960’s. Its influence waxed with the growing corruption in elections, beginning in particular with the 1960 presidential election and fairly steadily growing since then. (Corruption in House and Senate races long pre-dated that – and is another topic.)

And it is media – dying newspapers, dying television, and probably dying radio – that push the idea of battleground States. Why? Gore sells. In a period where there isn’t enough actual blood and guts on a daily basis that can sizzle as the lead (or clickbait), then political conflict is even more important when it comes to getting people to listen, watch, and read. No, not the news, but the ADVERTISEMENTS!

So When there is blood in the water, and gunsmoke in the air, literal or figurative, the media is there feasting on it. And digesting and regurgitating it to cause fear and therefore sell screen time and therefore marketing. Not just the mainstream media, of course. The alternative media wants their slice of the pie as well: advertising revenue, to say nothing about selling their own books and pamphlets and recordings.

So the more hyper they can made the masses, the better. And so we have the various personalities hyped and trashed. We have the various protests and attacks and whatever some legislator pushes splashed on the lead screens. Look at Breitbart and CNN and The Blaze and WND and Newsweek online. You will see.

And honestly, they don’t know when to stop. The same motives that created and sustained the Yellow Press in the 1890s and 1910s still exist. Then, that odious segment of media dragged the States into the Spanish-American War. And then, far worse, into the Great War. And set the stage for being dragged into World War Two, the Cold War, and the War on Terrorism.

So we have to ask, are these same media types, lusting after money and power, going to push too far again? This time where the seven or ten political “battleground” States instead actually become real battleground States? When they make such a splash that society fragments and turns bloodily upon the other fragments? Or finds themselves in the crosshairs?

Something to think about.