farehike
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farehike.bsky.social
farehike
@farehike.bsky.social
160 followers 150 following 64 posts
Husband, Father, and Urbanist. One of which is true.
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farehike.bsky.social
Unfortunately folks have little awareness just how much local and public media has been hollowed out. And the downstream (and upstream) effects are only going to get worse. While there's been more than a few smaller and local verticals popping up recently it can't make up for the (continued) loss.
Q: How might this affect the Chicago market? A: It’s going to hurt everyone. It is safe to say that WTTW, which is one of the 10 major public television stations in the country — it produces content, it has a wide and loyal viewership — will almost inevitably have to make layoffs. It will probably affect the kinds of content they’re able to produce. It will affect educational outreach. How that will work and to what extent, I can’t predict and that’s up to them to announce what they’re projecting. (When contacted by the Tribune, WTTW had no comment on how the CBP news will affect the station.) It will decimate every station to some extent. They will probably get an increase in donations for a while, and if the political winds change again, they could rebuild the CPB. But in the interim, it’ll be very bad. I try to be moderate in explaining how this works, but this is an ideological project to remove local news access from rural communities, which only have one or two news sources. It eliminates access to information within one’s own community. This is about changing the information ecosystem that eliminates local news and replaces it with national news. Q: The situation sounds dire. A: I would call it the most dire situation I’ve ever seen for any public media system in the West, including Europe. Most of the media we interact with is commercial media, like HBO or something like that. But it’s fundamentally different in non-commercial and public media in that public media is built around a mission statement, not the attempt to recoup an investment and profit. It’s built around an idea or a principle, and the principle is equal access to information. Before the ’60s, it was all educational and called educational television, and it was there to provide equal access to education during segregation. So the idea for public media is to realize democratic access. The entire purpose of it is different from commercial media — even though I love commercial media a lot — so it’s really important for democracy that we have this experiment going. And it’s such a nominal cost, it’s something like $1.60 per person per year.
August 2, 2025 at 5:53 PM
farehike.bsky.social
I dunno guys, think I'm seeing a pattern here?
BBC News (4/26/17): "Trump backs down on border wall funding" The Texas Tribune (cross-posted from The Washington Post, 4/4/2019): "Trump backs off threat to close southern border immediately, says he’ll give Mexico one-year warning on drugs, migrants" BBC News (6/20/2018): "Trump backs down on migrant family separations policy" NYT Opinion (9/8/2019): "Trump Backs Down, Again and Again"
April 8, 2025 at 2:26 AM
farehike.bsky.social
Probably the great Digg to Reddit exodus.
"In August 2010, Digg attempted to wrest control back from its power users by migrating to a new system (Digg v4) that deemphasized user-contributed content in favor of publisher-contributed content. The change incited an uproar among power users and regular visitors alike, who felt the company was selling out to the mainstream media it had originally sought to replace. Digg experienced a mass exodus of users, many of whom turned to rival site Reddit. While Digg’s traffic fell by a quarter in the following month, Reddit’s traffic grew by 230% in 2010. Digg never recovered from its transition to Digg v4, and the site continued to bleed users and traffic over the next two years. By July 2012, the time of its sale to Betaworks, Digg’s monthly unique visitor count had fallen 90% from its peak." From the academic paper: "The Demise of Digg: How an Online Giant Lost Control of the Digital Crowd"
November 19, 2024 at 3:06 AM
farehike.bsky.social
It's the "Always has been" meme with two astronauts. The first astronaut, while looking at earth in distance says "wait, podcasting is cardio?" and the astronaut behind him, while holding a gun out, says "always has been"
November 19, 2024 at 1:17 AM
farehike.bsky.social
Correct on East Side. Total giveaway and still, in the end, less useful than any portion of 2nd Ave. That said, we can't go on spending 4Bil+ for every expansion and expect to get sexy proposals/results. Construction & cost reform has to bring us closer to Euro peers if we're to get anywhere.
Image of wiki page for second ave subway describing the cost for phases 1 and 2: "The first phase of the line, consisting of the 96th Street, 86th Street and 72nd Street stations, as well as 1.8 mi (2.9 km) of tunnel, cost $4.45 billion. A 1.5-mile (2.4 km), $6 billion second phase from 96th to 125th Streets is almost ready to start construction as of 2024."
September 19, 2024 at 11:25 PM
farehike.bsky.social
December 22, 2023 at 2:39 PM