News is not public service. Maybe you can remember a time when news cost nothing or mere pennies. Today, late summer 2023, a corporation selling news, editorial opinion, expert analysis posts a tantalizing headline, followed by a blurb containing neither geography, chronology, science nor theology. Then comes the bridge, “Continue reading”. Click that object and you will learn the price of that “news” item, and the more desperate corporations will use your click to collect your personal information, ostensibly for identifying you as a client.

Incorrigible corruption

The term “news” should be stripped from many names of television stations, radio stations and websites. We will be sorry if we do not take action now to end the reign of political and religious spin. The corruption in information peddling is deep, buried in the very things that have been dividing society and inviting violence and using patriotism and religious conviction to create a new mindless cult. News outfits become virtual silos of specialized packages of information bits. After what we have learned about the Fox media platforms hatred of facts and social media obsession with manipulating public sentiment with algorithms shutting off the faucet of quasi-news is a step in the correcting of the incorrigible.