Conversation

I've commented on the unhealthy media ecosystem that's built up around reporting every absurd thing noted billionaire fascist supervillain Elon Musk says on more than a couple of occasions, but this essay by Paris Marx on Disconnect is a much more thorough, and historically conscious examination of the subject:

https://www.disconnect.blog/p/the-medias-failure-on-elon-musk

The author of course starts with the incessant churn of clickbait articles that allow Musk to exert outsized effect on the public discourse at any give moment, no matter how often that fascist mutant gets caught in a lie. From there however, Marx focuses on what he describes as "a two-decade-long informal partnership between Musk and the media" that survives Musk's antagonism, and the media's antipathy towards his most (and *only* his most) reactionary positions, because both entities are dependent on the largely fictional "genius innovator rich guy" character they have mutually created around the brand "Elon Musk."

To demonstrate this, the author offers a rough, back of the napkin history showing Musk purposely cultivating media engagement and celebrity, then leveraging that notoriety into access to more money, before ultimately becoming "too big to fail." At every turn Musk is enabled not only by the media, but by star-struck investors, and even the United States government; all the while continuing to build Elon's self-crafted mythos, free of charge, even as serious evidence of his duplicity, reactionary positions, and objectively criminal labor practices continued to emerge in the public sphere. While it's true, as Marx notes, that even corporate media coverage of Musk has begun to change, the lateness of the hour, and the continued existence of the "stories about Elon" clickbait machine, suggest that the damage has in fact already been done.

It's really only in his conclusion, that I have any real qualms about the author's article here. In good faith, and all sincerity, Marx closes by urging the media to remember their failure in covering Musk, and stop trusting tech executives; in other words, don't create more mythical creatures like Elon Musk. I would however argue that since the people he's talking to work for corporate media outlets owned by billionaires and wealthy investors, their desire to create a Randian Prometheus out of every rich muppet who claims to be a genius, is a feature of capitalist journalism, not a bug. After all, he who pays the piper, calls the tune, and the class sympathies and solidarity of billionaire muppets who own everything in our society, are readily demonstrated in our society by the process of myth-making around billionaire tech executives, described in this very article. Besides, clearly all the "right sort of people" are still making piles of money; even if we all know Elon's a fraud.

#Media #Musk #Tech #RecReads