American Prestige E248 - Journalism in the Age of Oligarchy w/ David Sirota
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May 12, 2026 David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever and creator of Master Plan, discusses journalism versus media and the attention-economy shift away from investigative reporting. He explores billionaire ownership, audience capture, the collapse of local news, algorithms shaping discourse, and the legal and historical roots of concentrated presidential power.
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Journalism Versus Media In The Attention Economy
- Journalism is distinct from media: journalism finds and surfaces new information while much of today's media simply riffs on others' reporting.
- David Sirota warns the attention economy rewards hot takes over time-consuming investigations, shrinking original reporting sources.
Consolidation Lets Elite Outlets Set The Discourse
- Corporate capitalist media and consolidation concentrate agenda-setting power in a few outlets like The New York Times.
- Sirota argues that a dominant elite outlet can quietly bake viewpoints into story selection while claiming objectivity.
Combine Reader Funding With Public Media Experiments
- Build and support small-to-medium subscriber-funded outlets and experiment with public funding models.
- Sirota cites The Lever's reader-funded model and suggests public funding like BBC-style or voter-directed city media vouchers as partial fixes.