> How else will they keep their "information monopoly"?

Because the simplest explanation is a media conspiracy perpetuated by…finbold.com.

I wouldn't use the word "conspiracy" but just looking at the level of what articles are published doesn't really describe the problem. The top cable news show (tucker carlson) is only watched by 1% of Americans; but the reach of those shows is broader then that. It's human and algorithmic curation that creates the "information monopoly".

Focusing on the human curation, my local newspaper publishes "stories from wire services such as the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post or Bloomberg News". Even if those individual stories are factually correct and unbiased, I'm only seeing a curated subset of the stories from those outlets. If i rely on my local newspaper as a primary source of information then I'm in their "information monopoly".

Monopoly is a the wrong word here (maybe narrative is a better one) because it's simple to opt out of it. Just admit (or assume) that oneself could be wrong and then actively search out information that proves (or doesn't prove) that you're wrong. Even if you assume people are willing to do this, they probably only have the time and motivation to do so for issues they're passionate about.

That's quite a disingenuous take of what I wrote. It is not in Finbolds or any other news site's interest to include the source, since that makes it easier to write your own article. Now the chances are that they'll become the source instead, so free marketing. It is of course possible to find the source, but if it's not included then basically noone will bother. It increases the barrier just enough to deter most people.

That's not "conspiracy", that's self-interest.

Most people (including myself) are much more likely to read a dumbed-down summary written by a journalist than technical documents that will fly over their head. On the other hand I'm more likely to trust a journalist who cites credible sources.

I would argue it is mostly to deter other news sites. You have done all the work finding this news and then someone else can just come along and write another article based on what you found? You don't want that. But yes the ones "suffering" are the few readers that want to verify the contents.

True, most of us are financially illiterate.

Hell how many people really understand how the economy works? Our society is too complex.

While there is a glaring lack of references in journalism compared to what is considered normal (or even the bare minimum) in research (academic or otherwise), and that problem is cultural, you don’t have to assume malice to explain it. Like every cultural problem, it is self-perpetuating; but even aside from that, carefully collecting references is simply not the human default.

I once tried to exhaustively document and cross-reference a pretty ordinary coding session of several hours, and took a surprising amount of effort, something like an hour of writing and pasting links from browsing history per two or three hours coding, and you need to do it every two or three hours or else you forget half of what you were thinking. Similar experience with writing down the results of what seemed to be a perfectly harmless week-long dive into mathematical literature.

Annotated bibliographies (let alone anything more detailed) take time and work, which for standard newspaper journalism does not pay off.

I don't assume malice, but I see that a lot of commenters interpreted it that way. My guess is this has to do with the divisive nature of the mainstream media vs alternate media debate? My comment should not be interpreted in that context, I assume both sides don't add sources out of self-interest. They don't want to make it too easy for their competitors to comment on the same news. The barrier is low but it's there. I put it between citation marks because I wasn't really sure what to call it.

I think you also raise an important point regarding culture being a major factor, I agree with that point. Journalism is different from science, so I do not expect the same rigour but I do expect to see the main source in an easily accessible way if possibld (usually a link).

Reading court filings to follow cases is boring and time consuming. Actually going to hearings to hear what is said even more so.

There is no monopoly in this case. Any halfway credible comoetitor would know how to get to the docket themselves.