The News Not Noise Letter: Who Owns Your News?
Journalists at newspapers across the country are on strike. Plus: Meta to limit news in Canada, gas prices are poised to rise and here's to looking at you, weird Apple headgear.
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Here are your headlines:
Hey Big Spenders: We avoided default. Now we just have a lot of debt. The national debt, is largely the domain of Congress, but administrations do set budget priorities. So, I thought we’d take this opportunity to look at how much debt has risen under each of our recent presidents – and what drove it up. USAFacts gathered the data and they found:
Under President Bill Clinton, the national debt started at around $4.23 trillion and increased by 35.5%. NNN’s take: It’s comparatively low due to Clinton’s aggressive fiscal discipline policies.
Under President George W. Bush, debt rose 85.5%. NNN’s Take: This was largely due to tax cuts.
Under President Barack Obama, debt increased 87.8%. NNN’s Take: This is largely due to federal decisions like lenient tax cuts but also responses to economic stressors like the ‘07-08 Financial Crisis.
Under President Donald Trump, it expanded by 39.1%. NNN’s take: This is in part due to tax cuts he claimed would fuel economic growth and in turn reduce national debt.
As of March 1 of this year, it has grown 13.3% up to $31.46 trillion under President Joe Biden. NNN’s take: This is due to large federal spending plans like COVID relief and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
For nerds who want to know more: Here’s the 2022 Government Accountability Report and Penn Wharton’s Projections for U.S. Debt. USAfacts is a nonpartisan nonprofit civic organization dedicated to making government data accessible. They are a News Not Noise content partner. You can read more of their debt data here.
Shrinking the News for “Synergies”: Today journalists at two dozen newspapers in eight different states walked off the job, saying conditions are so unbearable journalists can barely pay their bills. The journalists work at papers owned by Gannett – the largest newspaper chain in the country. The strike was timed to coincide with a shareholders meeting today. Over journalists’ objections, the board voted to keep CEO Mike Reed in the job. Reporters accuse him of “gutting newsrooms, slashing jobs, paying reporters poverty wages, and destroying local news.” On his watch newsroom staff has been slashed by 50-90%. His compensation is reportedly $3.4 million.
What’s going on? Gannett owns local newspapers across the country. In 2019, Gannett was purchased by Fortress Investments, which describes itself as a “highly diversified investment manager with approximately $44.2 billion of assets.” Fortress was owned by a Japanese investment holding company called Softbank. Stay with me – we are tracking ownership and the choices profit-focused investment funds make about news. At peak the new owners controlled more than 260 daily US media organizations across 47 states. In 2019 they said they planned to “generate” $300 million a year in “synergies” across those newspapers. Translation: massive cuts. There are reports the owners actually cut $400 million. That means fewer or no journalists at some papers; furloughing staff; canceling benefits and more. (Note: According to public reports this year Fortress sold its last shares in Gannett and the company’s largest shareholders are institutional funds including Blackrock and The Vanguard Group.) To recap: these US newspapers are subject to the priorities of a board that answers to shareholders; their top priority is returning value — company profits — to shareholders. Note a prior version of this newsletter wrongly identified the leading shareholders in Gannett. I apologize for the error.
Bottom line: The newspapers on strike include some we have all come to rely on including the Arizona Republic, the Austin American-Statesman, the Bergen Record, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and the Palm Beach Post.
This is part of a trend in the news business. Investment funds are buying up newsrooms, and often slashing budgets, jobs and even shuttering some outlets. As a result you, the consumer, see fewer local stories in your newspaper, fewer newspapers in your town, and fewer stories and resources at the newspapers that do survive. Research shows that fewer newspapers erode democracy: when there is less news, civic engagement – including voter turnout – falls, and polarization rises. In fact, the free press is the only private business explicitly protected in the US Constitution. The press is meant to ensure voters are knowledgeable so they can make informed decisions at the ballot box. This should matter to everyone. So, if you can afford it, please pay for your local newspaper and for the content you read and consume. Thank you to those who pay for my work. And I’m curious – do you think the government should underwrite media? Should more philanthropists back news operations? What can we do to repair this?
Meta To (Some) Canadians: No News for You! Silicon Valley tech giant Meta revealed plans to remove news links from randomly-selected publishers in Canada. Meta says this will impact one to five percent of users on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. They’re retaliating against a bill that could pass Canada’s Parliament this month, which would require that the tech giants pay news publishers for the news that appears on their platform. (It’s called the Online News Act – and this is Canada’s attempt to get journalists paid!) Meta says it’s ready to remove all news in Canada if the bill becomes law. Meta’s Canada head of public policy Rachel Curran brutally acknowledged that while news is “valuable to our democracy. It just doesn't have much commercial or economic value to our company.” In 2021, Australia passed a similar law Meta (then Facebook) pulled news off its platforms. Within a week, the government and Meta reached a compromise in which the law’s terms were relaxed and Meta voluntarily compensated certain publishers. Wait there’s more. California could be next. Meta has already declared war on the California Journalism Perservation Act, which has yet to win California Senate approval. Tough times for people who bring you the news.
President Pence? Former Vice President Mike Pence is doing something Vice Presidents don’t typically do – running against his former ticket-mate. Today Pence filed the paperwork to challenge former President Trump in the GOP race for the presidential nomination. He will position himself as the true social conservative, focusing his attention on evangelical voters in Iowa. Also this week, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and North Dakota’s current Governor Doug Burgum are expected to enter the race. The first GOP primary debate will air on Fox News on August 23 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Trump is polling well ahead of all them and, at this point, is the clear frontrunner for the nomination.
Will They or Won’t They: Today Donald Trump’s lawyers met at the DOJ with the Special Counsel and other officials investigating president Trump’s handling of classified documents. That’s according to multiple news outlets including NBC, CBS and CNN. Legal analysts say this suggests the grand jury’s work is wrapping up and charges could come soon, if they come at all. On Truth Social Trump wrote, “How can DOJ possibly charge me, who did nothing wrong, when no other presidents were charged.” We’ll reserve comment until we hear from the DOJ.
Gas Prices to Rise? Saudi Arabia announced plans to cut oil production which will almost certainly drive up gas prices in the US and across the Western world. Saudi Arabia wants higher prices to fund things in the country – including the construction of a $500 billion futuristic desert city anchored by a single 105 mile long building called The Line. This decision will have global effects. Rising gas prices drive up inflation which could incentivize the Federal Reserve to keep raising rates, increasing the chances of a US recession. The cut also invigorates the market for Russian oil, funding their war against Ukraine. The Biden Administration has repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia to keep production up. Instead, these cuts hurt Western economics and help Putin. This is one reason the US is trying to shift to renewable energy and domestic energy production.
Here’s some news that doesn’t suck:
Un-BEAR-ably Cute! Earlier this year, motion-activated cameras at the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province, China recorded an albino giant panda – along with a female panda and a cub – for the first time since 2019. The white-furred, red-eyed, and undeniably adorable creature is believed to be one of a kind, and unlike many other albino animals seems free of major health issues. Researchers guess it's about five or six years old and don’t know whether it will steadily pass along its genes. “More follow up research is needed,” said Peking University researcher Li Sheng. Watch the footage here!
The Future is Here and I Don’t Want To Wear It: Apple is out with a new much-anticipated augmented reality headset called Apple Vision Pro. CEO Tim Cook says, “It’s the first product you look through and not at.” According to the marketers it allows for “spatial computing.” What are they talking about? I’m not entirely sure but here’s the part I understand. Basically, it’s like a pair of chic ski goggles and when you wear them you can open apps, type, do all the iphone-things by looking, touching and speaking. Still confused? Check this out but keep in mind, the starting cost is $3499.
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Just a simple point: when discussing large dollar amounts, such as the debt, it’s helpful to have other numbers to keep things in perspective, such as GDP growth or annual tax revenue, or tax revenue as a % of GDP.