[babypuncher]

I feel like that could backfire since "scabbing" would be really easy, especially for less scrupulous news organizations more strongly tied to corporate or political interests than actual news reporting.

Basically while Reuters or AP are "on strike", Drudge Report, Jacobin, or Fox News would step in and become the de facto news sources across all of social media.

[bryanlarsen]

This is what I was getting at in the last sentence of my comment. The reason it's a government action rather than a collective action is that way it prevents defections, aka scabbing.

[ipaddr]

But smaller news outlets are not part of this cartel.