I wonder if subscription numbers, like "followers" or clicks on social media, can be purchased or otherwise faked....

New York Times Adds 455,000 Subscriptions in Third Quarter

After moving behind a paywall, Wirecutter added to the company’s revenue stream.

It's kind of like putting a book up the Bestseller Lists these days...  You don't know if those are actual readers, purchasing a singular copy and actually reading the product, or merely interested investors buying up a large lot before they hit the remainder tables to up the sales numbers, with nobody really engaging in the content of the product or the book actually shaping minds, educating those not in the know, and being discussed beyond the spreadsheet sales numbers.

Just because somebody paid to buy you doesn't mean they respect or are engaging with your work.  Often, it's just cheaper to pay out upfront to keep those paid off in line.  If the media is convinced that their social justice advocacy work is successful, they'll continue to dish up more of the same...  

 

Now who could possibly benefit by the now-international NYT newspaper continuing the type of divisive American reporting and reportorial editorializing that characterize their work in the post-Journolist ethical landscape?  Hm.  

 

I can think of a lot of players who might be interested in dumping petty cash -- the subscription costs are cheap, really -- to keep encouraging books and news coverage that we've seen since 2016, when President Trump was duly elected. (Nobody's contesting that national change of course, correct?)

Change comes when we fix the country together.  Those who would choose to divide and conquer us, based on skin color, economic class or both -- have some learning of their own to do about the American people.  The pioneer stock in the Midwest have much less guilty consciences, for example, than the East Coast investors and invaders who capitalized early on by owning other people as property.  The immigrants who came later never owned others and it outrages many of them to be labeled in with the White Elites whose family lines did...

A lot of Blacks too, the wealthier ones, have slaveowners as their ancestors too.   If it's all about classifications, and counting numbers...  They don't have too much to add to the mix today, it seems.  Which is likely why the media is trying to classify Mayor Wu now as a person of color.