"…
We are quoting anonymously those who did respond, to allow them the freedom to give us their most candid answers. These have been edited for length and clarity. Some have previously been reported by Fortune.
**Personal responses to the killing **
— “The disconnect between public perception and personal humanity has been striking, with some commentary bordering on dehumanizing. This highlights the critical need to humanize leadership and address the pressures faced in high-visibility roles.”
— “My challenge is keeping employees engaged. How do you maintain a sense of purpose if you think your customers hate you?”
— “I have to wonder if the demonization of corporate America and the wealthy over the last four years planted a mind virus in the assassin’s mind.”
— “If you walk by the place where it happened, it’s business as usual, which gives me some perspective. This was a random killing by a mentally ill person. Let’s not turn a tragic incident into a trend. Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.”
…"
Wow. ‘demonization’, ‘need to humanize leadership’… Are these human people that were interviewed? Did these human persons speak anyone outside their immediate circle in the last three decades? I can hardly believe that, this is so out of touch that these folk may have never been touched by anything in their lives. I wasn’t prepared for this speedrun worldrecord to definitively prove total lack of empathy and understanding.
Did these human persons speak anyone outside their immediate circle in the last three decades?
After late 90s and early 00s it seems that this has become rare.
First “speaking outside your immediate circle” has moved into interwebs. Second the interwebs have changed to no longer inconvenience those who don’t want to see contradicting worldviews.
Just saying. CEOs are, of course, more isolated than many people. But their delusions are not unique by any measure.
The woke mind virus lmao
The limit of 4 years is what’s making me laugh.
Because of course everything is tied to who the president is, in their mind. Democrats bad for business, mmm-kay?
Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about [that the CEOs created for them to distract them].
In this current discussion, people are trying to open each others eyes about that silent part.
Also: Most people don’t hate CEOs. But we do think CEOs have no right to be making more than a thousand times what an honest working person should make, actually sacrificing lives for their profit. And when that kind of stealing and mass murder is sanctioned by the law, then what are the options?
I think its possible most people hate CEOs. Sort of like hating politicians, surely theres some good ones but on the whole, awful people.
If most people hated CEOs, that would mean most people were capable of hating, which means we’re even more fucked in this world than I thought we were. I don’t hate. I see that some people are a threat to society and need to be kept from harming the latter - but I recognize that for people to be capable of atrocities, something in their brain development has gone terribly wrong at some point in the past. So I don’t hate them, in the same way I don’t hate a virus that kills people - while still recognizing the need for a cure / vaccine.
Hate is just an emotion. Emotions aren’t permanent, they are tied to moments. Surely theres situations you can think of that would at least cause a fleeting sensation of hate. Everyone has to deal with their emotions and thoughts, and we dont always get to pick which emotions and thoughts present themselves.
The only expectation we should have is that people at least try to improve their reactions to thoughts and emotions they would rather not have.
I dont believe for a second you are truly without hate all the time, thats not possible.
I dont believe for a second you are truly without hate all the time, thats not possible.
Well luckily I am not bound by what you believe :) I - figuratively - hate financial / economical / political systems - and I might occasionally say “I hate that <person>”, only to correct myself right after with “no, I despise them”. But I don’t feel hate towards anyone. Because hate ruins my own day and our time on this planet is too precious for that. Especially - why would I give any asshole free real estate in my mind by preoccupying myself with them when they clearly do not deserve the attention?
I’m saying that moment before you correct yourself, you do feel hate. You choose to disregard hate, thats not the same as not having it at all. Similar to disregarding pain vs not feeling it at all.
Not even then. I correct myself because “I hate xy” is a figure of speech that I wrongly use.
Bill George, a former Medtronic CEO and executive fellow at Harvard Business School. “People are in disbelief that they would be making this kid into a hero,” he told Fortune.
Which “people”? Who are “they” in this context?
Actually most of those quotes read as completely disconnected from normal people’s reality…
Assholes who do the least amount of work and take 95% of the profit can’t figure out why the people who actually make the company money see them as parasites.
Maybe have your Private jet fly you up a few thousand feet higher for a better view and you might be able to figure it out. Fucking assholes.
It won’t be enough to eliminate the CEO’s. You’ve got to get the whole c suite and their kids. That should give them the perspective they need.
Ah.
As an ADHD person. Generalizing, strategizing, finding critical points and all that are too very important tasks. Many people seem to think these are equivalent to “doing the least amount of work”. That’s simply not true and you can compare a group where everyone linearly and with great effort always does something and where nobody does the generalizing and strategizing or even failure finding tasks, inevitably spending a lot of time chilling looking at the clouds or just thinking, to a group built normally. A hint - the latter will perform much better.
And as an ASD person. You heavily underestimate the importance and uniqueness of skills for the political part. People who become CEOs are usually incredibly gifted in that direction. I’m impaired in that direction even compared to most people, so I can see just how important it is.
And in general about assholes and not being able to figure something out … humanity works by Darwin’s laws. No matter what morality you preach in schools, no matter how much you talk about love and helping each other, the people on top are very capable. If you want something to change in any order of things, you should first accept the fact that their power is perpetually challenged and they win against those challenges preserving that power. They are quite smart.
They may see some things with aberrations. We all do.
But looking at those people and saying they understand something worse than you is similar to Soviet propaganda talking about Western world as something which is going to rot on its own, because its strategy for the future is so much dumber than the Soviet one. The weaker side does not win by being arrogant in addition to weakness.
“People are in disbelief that they would be making this kid into a hero,” he told Fortune.
Attending a conference for CEOs in New York this week, just blocks away from the site of the shooting, George found that many were shaken and deeply concerned by the reaction to Thompson’s killing. “They’re having plenty of meetings right now to discuss beefing up security,” he said of the business leaders, even as some question how much security coverage is enough. People are asking themselves, “‘What does that say about our society? Where’s our society going?’” George said.
So they’ve learned absolutely nothing.
Plenty of meetings to beef up security. How about plenty of meetings to understand how your greed has caused this? They sound one logical leap (that they are unwilling to make) away from understanding exactly what the problem is.
The “what does this say about society” question bugs the shit out of me. It means that our society is sick and tired of being the only rich nation in the world where getting sick or injured will bankrupt you. If these people were truly concerned about the good of society, they’d quit sucking us dry for every dollar that they can and would advocate for a better system.
Absolutely. The entire article makes it clear that they don’t even have an inkling of what it’s like to have to worry about your health or how much money you have.
It would be hilarious if there were a law requiring healthcare CEOs to use the lowest tier health plan of a competitor which denies the most claims and bar them from self-financing any procedures while legally requiring them to use the same customer support as everyone else. They would face jail time if they accept preferential treatment on account of them being a healthcare CEO.
For other CEOs there would need to be a different approach. They would be given a choice: pay the full amount they owe in federal taxes or personally finance the room and board, food and necessities, healthcare including mental health, substance abuse treatment and dental for homeless people until the amount paid is two thirds of what they would otherwise pay the IRS.
We live in a society!!
It also bugs the shit out of me because how long have children been being murdered in school in a mass shooting epidemic, but now that the rich are being killed that’s what makes them ask this? Our society has been in bad shape for a long time
Because CEOs are a symptom.
The problem is our investment economy that focuses only on the stock prices continually going up. It’s literally an unsustainable system.
If a CEO puts their personal safety over the investors, the company gets a new CEO.
They’re not the one really making the worst decisions, they’re the ones who agreed to take a shitton of money to be the face of the company and take all the blame.
CEOs don’t get paid for the work they do, they get paid to be the fall guy.
Still absolutely shit people who deserve zero sympathy, but they’re not the real problem, just a symptom
If a CEO puts their personal safety over the investors, the company gets a new CEO.
How many times will they be willing to get a new CEO before they make changes? How many times will someone accept promotion into that position? I wouldn’t take Brian Thompson’s job for any amount of money right now, would you?
How many times will they be willing to get a new CEO before they make changes
They’d do it on the daily if it makes them more money…
What do you think a CEO actually does?
They listen to what high level management says is best, and then just does whatever brings the stock price up fastet disregarding everything else.
There’s a reason they all get golden parachutes. None of them care past the last board meeting
They’d do it on the daily if it makes them more money…
Sure. They’d run a hundred grandmas a day through a woodchipper, each of them clutching a puppy, if it made them money. However, I am quite sure there isn’t a way that replacing your CEO daily, or even often, makes more money. And yes, I understand hyperbole.
I also understand that the impacts on a company of having multiple CEOs shot in a short period of time, or having multiple CEOs come in, try to be decent humans, and fired for it in a short period of time, would have destabilizing impacts throughout any sizable organization. They would run into problems with manpower and staffing, investment dollars, and generally the ability to do business. It would harm morale and reduce efficiency. And probably a bunch of other things I haven’t thought of in the 3 minutes I’ve been typing this.
How many times will someone accept promotion into that position? I wouldn’t take Brian Thompson’s job for any amount of money right now, would you?
I absolutely would take the job. I’d do it for a $1 salary even. I would have the power to make sure claims were approved, lower premiums on users, and call out the inequity of private healthcare from the top of the ivory tower. I’d be fired, but not before I was able to make some good happen.
And, in the long term, that wouldn’t even be bad for line go up.
Companies used to invest in their reputation, back when there was that 90% marginal income tax rate.
If you made too much good happen, you wouldn’t be fired, you’d be thrown off of a moving train
thrown off of a moving train
It’s called “dying of an apparent suicide” and the authorities can find no sign of foul play. It’s so sad when this sort of thing happens. The company’s thoughts and prayers are with his family.
Ah yes, apparent suicide with two random, unrelated gunshot wounds to the back of the head
Fair, but in the context of a company being willing to just replace CEOs every time they have to fire one (or especially when someone shows up to fire the CEO for them, Luigi-style), I think there’s a small number of cycles they would go through before logic would dictate that they need to conduct business differently.
That’s the thing, you wouldn’t have the power to do any of that before you were booted out. CEOs do have a lot of power over the board, and the board has power over the company. The net result is that if the CEO pushes too fast or too radically they get removed before any change occurs. As the poster above said, in situations like this the CEO is paid to be the fall guy; the people who wield the actual power are the board members and the large shareholders. The CEO deserves a chunk of the blame for being the face of the organisation and legitimizing it, but killing one, or even a few, off wont significantly change the direction these companies are headed in.
Yep, we have a word for continual uninhibited growth - it’s called cancer.
I don’t always agree with what you post, but you’re spot on here.
The problem is our investment economy that focuses only on the stock prices continually going up. It’s literally an unsustainable system.
Yup, this is the problem right here. Investments are supposed to generate returns, that’s the whole point. But Milton Friedman and Jack Welch decided that the sole mission of any company was to increase shareholder value, and the rest of the world rolled with that. So whenever these CEOs point to their Mission and Vision statements, unless they say “Our only priority is delivering returns to our Shareholders”, they are lying.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value
Economist Milton Friedman introduced the Friedman doctrine in a 1970 essay for The New York Times, entitled “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”.[5] In it, he argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.[6]
Meanwhile, we’ve decided that these corporations are people. Psychopaths who have no moral responsibilities to anyone but their shareholders, but people nonetheless.
Exactly. At some point companies need to transition from investment vehicles to institutions
Thus our efforts to make social justice a core condition for profits: fuck people over and get a boycott or protests or a label in media as toxic, and lose customers.
It’s not going well, as a strategy. It requires an educated populace.
I mean, every economic model out there “assumes rational actors,” which I’ve always taken to mean informed and educated. Too many of the masses are neither.
All I can think of is a TED talk I saw where the speaker had given some presentation to a bunch of billionaires and had some q&a, and one of them who had built a bunker for themselves asked him how they could prevent their security team from turning on them in the bunker.
The TED talk guy responded “Be kind to them?”
And the Billionaire said “But where does that end?”
I’ll try to find it so I can link it.
EDIT: Found it!
Wow, that was actually an extremely insightful conversation. Thank you for going out of your way to share it!
That video was freakin amazing and insightful!
You should make this it’s own post so more people can spread it
I don’t think it was a ted talk, I’m pretty sure it was a seminar put on specifically by the billionaire class asking this guy how best to navigate societal collapse with their vast amount of resources.
This I believe was one of the exchanges at that event.
You’re right, though I was first introduced to the story from the guy telling it at a TED talk. I phrased it poorly :p
And it’s funny because the answer is build an egalitarian compound where your share of the labor is the funding. That’s it. If the guards see it as how they contribute to a shared community then they’re not going to turn on their boss
What’s incredible to me is that they don’t realize that societal collapse will render their resources more or less worthless. Their options are the same as everyone else’s: get a bug out plan, be ready to abandon all belongings, etc. What are you planning to do to keep your bunkers stocked past the first month? How will you pay your security if your banks are gone or your currency is worthless?
Exactly. These people don’t think rationally. They truly believe they’ll have a group of sycophants who will do anything they say because they had them all this time before.
When shit hits the fan, you need to be the only one with the keys to the shock collars. You need to basically become Batman.
I’ll try to find it so I can link it.
Oh god please do.
I managed to find what I was thinking of, but it concludes with a totally different line about them than I remembered. I think @neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com is right, and the “where does that end?” quote might be from a segment in a Robert Evans podcast.
Thank you!
Wait! I found it! It was the same guy from the TED talk, but on a different podcast!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nS3-dQen-YM
relevant part at 4:20
You rock!
I’m pretty sure it was the same guy who did the “it could happen here podcast.” Then they were like, can we put shock collars on the security guards. Stuff like that.
Robert Evans? The man is a national treasure.
If you haven’t heard his miniseries “Behind the Police” (ironically a four episode special in a much longer running serial podcast called “Behind the Bastards” which is not only about police) I strongly recommend it.
The guy is called Douglas Rushkoff and he wrote a book on the subject called “Survival of the Richest: Escape fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”.
That’s a bridge too far for them, especially with particularly oligarch friendly policies of the incoming US administration.
That’s what makes it sooo good, they think they just got the keys to the kingdom but forgot the all the residents can bite back at any time.
Well they did learn one thing though
They finally learned how it is to be a high schooler, having to live under constant fear of murder. I can’t wait to watch C level execs having tondo active shooter drills where they have tonhude under bullet proof blankets.
Mind you, murder is bad, and this murder on this CEO was bad, no matter how you turn it. I don’t want to live in a world where murdering eachother is the only conversation left.
Having said that, it is very gratifying to finally see these out of touch assholes having to suffer the same fear as all little kids in America
Great points!
Mind you, murder is bad
Yes for sure.
and this murder on this CEO was bad, no matter how you turn it.
I don’t want to live in a world where murdering eachother is the only conversation left.
Me neither. Let’s see if they are ready for any other kind of conversation now. OP makes me think they aren’t. Let’s not forget this murder happened because of all the other murders.
Yeah, you missed the point
Teo wrongs do not make a right. The murder of this CEO was still murder. This CEO indirectly murdered thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands and caused untold suffering. He was also apparently already on the hook for tax fraud and insider trading IIRC hearing in a news report earlier this week. He was a horrible man who should spend the remainder of his years behind bars.
That, unfortunately, is not the world we live in and I fully understand why he was shot. That doesn’t make it right, though. I don’t want to live in a world where you can be murdered without judges and juries and due process. We live in a civil society and that means that if you want it done right, everyone deserves a fair trial, even rapists, murderers or criminal CEO’s.
Yeah, I know that the US has a big issue with the justice system being damn near bullshit at this point, still doesn’t make anarchistic vigilante murdering an “okay” thing.
Do you want to live in a move civil society where everyone is treated equal, or do you prefer to live in a post civil society where it’s each for their own and we just murder those that we have a conflict with?
This murder of the CEO, as much as I understand it, is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the catalyst that will push society in the right direction and the US justice system will be overhauled and made fair for everyone and maybe the government will institute laws that will restrict what companies can do to make it fair for everyone… Doubtful, but maybe. Either way, it still is a step in the wrong direction and I do worry that the US is sliding off into a hellhole it will never be able to dig it self out of. This trump shit will inevitably make it easier for a few to abuse the rest. The few will control the news and narrative, and blame the leftz the immigrants, and at some point more on the left will start fighting instead of talking. Once the scale tips, there is no tipping back. Ask Yugoslavia how well that worked out for them. Oh yeah, millions of deaths later, it no longer exists.
How is that for a kind of conversation?
“Do you want to live in a move civil society where everyone is treated equal, or do you prefer to live in a post civil society where it’s each for their own and we just murder those that we have a conflict with?”
Oh, the first one, absolutely.
But we’re already living in the second one it’s simply obfuscated by an illusion of civility. When the violence is only directed downward, it’s somehow legal and civil, but when it’s directed upwards, they convince the public that it’s wrong.
Some of us disagree with that, and think that mass murderers should be punished even if the law won’t do its job.
How is that for a kind of conversation?
It’s fine, if a bit preachy.
It’s not in any way moving the needle on healthcare though.
Yeah, you missed the point
No I didn’t, I’m just not sure I agree.
Maybe, just maybe, this will be the catalyst that will push society in the right direction and the US justice system will be overhauled and made fair for everyone
In which case it would be a net positive.
Same for stealing.
A company steals millions from their employees? Silence.
A guy stealing from Walmart? Police force everywhere.
Elysium
Have been thinking about that movie quite a bit since all this went down, but don’t remember it in great detail. Might be worth a rewatch.
They literally can’t see the light for all their wealth because they’re calvinists believing: the greater the wealth, the greater the morality.
“When I was growing up, CEOs didn’t make millions more than everyone else in the company. I think we have to reflect on why there’s so much anger and do something about it.”
Only one of the 11 anonymous CEO responses gets it. There’s constant brainwashing in America (fortune.com is a literally part of it), that wealthy people made good decisions and were smart so they deserve every penny they make off the backs of everyone else.
This ruse might work in an economy of the past with fairer tax rules, better social mobility (for cis white males at the time), and industries where the consumer-company relationship aren’t counter to each other. With healthcare, it is plainly obvious that the money going to the executive is from people dying and sick people being denied care, forced into debt and bankruptcy, exploited for this product with extremely inelastic demand. Every minute they waste of your time keeping you away from your treatment is more dollars to them. That’s why people are upset at United, and aren’t upset about CEOs of these types of industries being murdered.
The country’s residents’ health should not be a commodity to be sold.
I’m positively giddy
— “You’re never stopping anyone who wants to get to you.”
All my life I’ve tried to make sure people don’t want to kill me and I’m still alive, it seems like a winning strategy.
It’s interesting to see that we may be flirting with a new era in which being kind has actual benefits.
My whole life I’ve watched kind and generous people be taken advantage of and punished by our societal systems. Trump is the best public example of how the antithesis gets you everywhere in this country.
Careful, that sounds suspiciously like socialism!
The disconnect between public perception and personal humanity has been striking, with some commentary bordering on dehumanizing.
Yeah it’s a lot easier to humanize someone who makes six figures than someone who makes seven. Why don’t you start there?
Or maybe just make it so the CEO doesn’t make 700x more than the lowest paid worker. You don’t even have to reduce the CEO pay to do it! Just lift up those other people.
What infuriates me is that there are those that make 6 figures as being able to potentially make 7. And sure, some of them might.
But are they brain surgeons that have such a specialized life saving surgery that by the nature of economics pushes the value of their skill exceptionally high? Nope.
Hell, I make 6, and I’ll admit, I have a lot more than a lot of people. I’m 2-3x the median of my area. I can’t buy a house. I own a 7 year old RAV4. If I was better managing my money and not having to pay out my ass for my ex wife, sure, things would be better.
It’s not at all difficult to find how just a little less income makes life much harder. It is VERY difficult to see how someone who has so much money can be remotely ok with people having it harder than them.
Those pulling in 7 figures without highly valuable skills should be dehumanized. Because they have abandoned what has helped humans survive at all. Each other.
Also, as if many CEO’s and upper managements humanize their customers and not see them as numbers in a spreadsheet.
That’s actually been studied. Turns out that about 40 is the tipping point for most people, as in CEO earnings 40 times more than the lowest paid workers. Up to that point people think they boss earns it, above that resentment starts to grow.
They’re at 700. Yeah, that’s dangerous. People are very sensitive about relative earning for work. Fairness is just hard wired into all animals and it’s dangerous to ignore this, although humans react a bit later and that gives a false sense if security for those at the top.
But it’s inevitable as a successful business grows, and the population grows. A CEO of a company of 100 people does not have the same level of responsibility as the CEO of one employing hundreds of thousands (Google says UHC employs 440,000, for example).
Working conditions were inarguably much worse a century ago, but the gap wasn’t anywhere close to 700x back then, was it? The gap was smaller not because the CEOs were more generous, it was just because the largest businesses were much smaller.
So you’re saying large corporations need to be broken up into smaller businesses I avoid concentrating too much wealth in upper management.
No, arbitrarily punishing a business for being too successful is both nonsensical, and has a chilling effect on new entrepreneurship. Also, it makes literally zero difference to someone earning $10/hour if one CEO is earning over $4000/hour, or if ten CEOs are each earning $400/hour.
Ultimately, the ratio itself doesn’t matter at all. The actual number is what actually matters. Who do you think is more likely to be more resentful, someone making $10/hour under a CEO making 50x that, or someone making $100/hour under a CEO making 50x that? Obviously the first person…if they can’t make ends meet, it’s not going to make any difference to them if the CEO gets a pay cut, the fuck do they care?
Businesses that were too successful are also called monopolies, and have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship all in their own.
Median wage in USA is about $20/h, so the actual numbers say there are a lot of people being closer to having trouble making ends meet. Even then, the ratio matters a lot. It’s the difference between “we’re all in this together” and “some of you won’t make it but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”. In the latter situation there is a lot more resentment and sympathy for violence.
Businesses that were too successful are also called monopolies
No. There is no inherent relationship between the two things. A business can absolutely be very successful while there is competition, simply by being the best ‘competitor’ in the eyes of the customers.
the ratio matters a lot. It’s the difference between “we’re all in this together” and “some of you won’t make it but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”.
The vast majority of people don’t know or care how much the person at the top is making, at all. They care only about if they’re in good shape themselves. Someone who’s making $100/hour and is living comfortably is, in 99% of cases not going to really give a shit if the CEO is making 50x what they are, or 500x.
That’s the reality.
15% of people make $100k in the USA. That means 85% care and a large part of them are not in a good shape.
I’m glad they’re afraid.
Why don’t you love your oligarchy overlords? All our surveys say you’re happy to have no choices other than the ones our questionnaire leads you to. You didn’t cancel your subscriptions after we jacked the prices up a half dozen times in the last five years and/or shoved ads at you, so you must be happy.
May they never feel safe as long as they live
If they want to actually be safe they can give it away
Well, corporate America is made up of hardworking Americans who do their best to reward the investors, and many times those investors are pension funds
Ah yes, every day I wake up to go to work just to do my best to reward the investors. Not because I need to pay for living expenses, just because I love pleasing the investors.
JFC these people are living in a fantasy world.
It’s fortune magazine, so yeah they’re full-on delusional in their pandering to “business leaders.”
This was a random killing by a mentally ill person. Let’s not turn a tragic incident into a trend. Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.
How fucking tone-deaf is this person? The bigger issues that we care about are things like going bankrupt from getting sick or injured. Those issues are directly caused by their CEOs. This wasn’t a random killing, which is why people are so happy about it.
Soooo out of touch it’s hilarious.
Please, go ahead and continue to show how little understanding you have for the common man, by all means.
They’re not out of touch, they’re just trying to control the narrative.
“If we pay these professional mouthpieces to spout enough nonsense, perhaps the upwelling of public vitriol will be tamped down until next quarter’s bonuses.”
All the labor agreements of the past century were the tenuous detente of these more severe options. Now they’re relearning their own history.
If he is mentally ill, the majority of the US might be as well and they are tired of the system that makes them ill.
We are 100% not saying Boo-Urns.
/NYTimes staff writer
The bigger issues that we care about are things like going bankrupt from getting sick or injured. Those issues are directly caused by their CEOs.
I think that depends very much on where you live. Here in Germany we don’t usually go bankrupt from getting sick. I at least worry much more about the climate catastrophe or right wing propaganda on social media. Issues that in a funny coincidence are also caused directly by CEOs.
“Journalists look for heroes and villains; life is not that simple. Why is the killer getting 10 times as much press as the person who was killed?”
I agree with the last part of this quote, but probably not in the same way they wanted.
Why aren’t we hearing more about the policies the CEO supported that caused so much pain and suffering?
Why did I have to learn about them having double the industry-standard claims denial rate through a meme and not through news articles everywhere?
Why am I not seeing more articles about how much money these people made by denying coverage? Why am I not seeing articles about their political contributions to keep healthcare privatized?
Because if they show all that shit, then they’re going to be agreeing with everyone else…and won’t be able to pull a “why did this happen” routine
You know why, we all know why. Modern corporate journalists are more narrative drivers than journalists. They attempt to control the talking pints and conversation, and steer clear of anything that would promote asking the right questions.
One part of the response is that since the 80s, the media were financialized. One consequence is that the media quality dropped and medias reports go in the way of the finance.
Gleefully looking forward to the US not learning anything from this and moving on to the next gotcha moment! Seriously, the ship’s slowly sinking and I’m buying stock in popcorn and booze.
I’ve been struggling to process my reality for as long as I can remember.
me_irl
