Thursday, December 02, 2021

New sources of information on the Internet

When I find a new website for information, I browse a few articles for bias (verbs and adjectives), then if that's acceptable and they haven't insulted my intelligence, race, or religion, I look at the "about us" section. Usually, the highest ranking editorial staff are youngish females, usually white. But if I work my way through ownership to the boards and corporate details, it's about 80% white male. Then trapped in the department of DIE, diversity inclusion and equity, there is a minority staffer, usually black, and usually female.
 
Today I was using Balance.com to read about debt and deficit in government budgets; I'd used it before--good articles. Then scanned a bit and found out it is owned by Dotdash.com. Did my usual personnel search. Yup.

Then I did a Wikipedia search on Dotdash and see it used to be About.com and at one time acquired the Chinese company Abang, with a similar make-up and somewhere in the mix was the New York Times (2005). Then I really got into the weeds with Barry Diller who whose IAC (bought Dotdash 2017) recently acquired Meredith (120 year old media company from Des Moines--aka Better Homes and Gardens) 2 months ago. https://www.iac.com/press-releases/iacs-dotdash-announces-close-of-meredith-transaction? Whew. Diller created Fox Broadcasting and owns 150 media brands. He started his career in the mailroom.
My note to IAC investor comment: "I don’t know if I have any IAC investments, but now that I’ve examined your information, I do see you own something I hate—Daily Beast. It’s evil, Leftist, and angry. Now you’ve acquired Meredith. What a stretch. An icon in the history of American journal publishing dating the devil. Sigh."

No comments: