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What do you think "proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests" means? It means that US "facts" will get priority in the me

What do you think "proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests" means? It means that US "facts" will get priority in the media over foreign "non-facts". Somebody will decide what is and isnt a fact and those somebodies will sit in the state departement. Nobody is ever going to make a bill saying "we will censor russian and foreign media", you do realize that right? The wording will always seem a lot less threatening.

tptacek 10y ago
It's always tricky to tell if commenters here are from Europe, the US, or elsewhere, but on the off chance that you're not from the US: the US federal government has virtually no control over the US media industry, and can't prioritize any particular kind of content in it.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > US federal government has virtually no control over the US media industry They may not have any control de jure, but the government (federal or otherwise) has de facto gained a lot of control by threatening the media's "access". Yes, this should be an empty threat that the media shouldn't submit to so easily, but in practice it has been extremely effective in keeping some topics off the news.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    In what sense? Can you provide specific examples? It hasn't been my impression over the last (say) 4 years that the media narrative has been dominated by stories that started with access. In fact: access to the newsmakers of the opposition has probably been more lucrative.
    - pdkl95 10y ago
      > In what sense? Journalists have been complaining for at least 10-15 years about having to self-censor their coverage under threat of losing access to politicians and other "insiders". You should have seen many examples of this yourself. The problem isn't any specific story. This kind of self-censorship creates a culture based on never challenging authority. Did you notice, for example, that CNN has slowly fired anybody that regularly "threatens their access" by acting like a real reporter? What about the people claiming[1] that the job of a journalist is to only act as a stenographer? [1] http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-wolff-says-journalists-covering-trump-should-just-transcribe-what-he-says/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-wolff-says-journalist...
- hubert123 10y ago
  This is demonstrably untrue, I have read many articles showing collaboration between major news outlets and the US government. I think wikileaks mentioned it too. Specifically John Podesta saying something along the lines of "lets ask one of our friendlies at AP to plant a story". Even if all the wikileaks and other reports were untrue, this isnt a conspiracy theory, the US media needs collaboration from the US government if it wants to get invited to white house press conferences, be called upon in them etc. Revoking media access to the US government is very much in the power of the US government. You are being very naive to think that the US government has zero control over the media. The US government regularly talks with silicon valley companies, I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg had a few meetings discussing how to combat fake news aka suppress articles from rt.com and breitbart. Not just that, it is public knowledge that facebook and google are part of the prism program that gives direct access to their data to the US government. So in light of all that, your tone is quite inappropiate because it is in fact you who speaks out of ignorance.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Your theory here being that the US government will use its friendly relationship with the AP to censor stories favorable to Russia, and that it's a newly passed law that's going to enable them to do that? This isn't coherent. Either the government is constantly acting sub rosa to manipulate media narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the US government has no formal control over the media. It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here, signed) legislation take this form.
    - bendbro 10y ago
      I believe the fallacy you've created here is called a false dichotomy. There are obvious shades of gray here. In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.
      - tptacek 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

It's always tricky to tell if commenters here are from Europe, the US, or elsewhere, but on the off chance that you're not from the US: the US federal government has virtually no control over the US media industry, and can't prioritize any particular kind of content in it.

pdkl95 10y ago
> US federal government has virtually no control over the US media industry They may not have any control de jure, but the government (federal or otherwise) has de facto gained a lot of control by threatening the media's "access". Yes, this should be an empty threat that the media shouldn't submit to so easily, but in practice it has been extremely effective in keeping some topics off the news.
- tptacek 10y ago
  In what sense? Can you provide specific examples? It hasn't been my impression over the last (say) 4 years that the media narrative has been dominated by stories that started with access. In fact: access to the newsmakers of the opposition has probably been more lucrative.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > In what sense? Journalists have been complaining for at least 10-15 years about having to self-censor their coverage under threat of losing access to politicians and other "insiders". You should have seen many examples of this yourself. The problem isn't any specific story. This kind of self-censorship creates a culture based on never challenging authority. Did you notice, for example, that CNN has slowly fired anybody that regularly "threatens their access" by acting like a real reporter? What about the people claiming[1] that the job of a journalist is to only act as a stenographer? [1] http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-wolff-says-journalists-covering-trump-should-just-transcribe-what-he-says/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-wolff-says-journalist...
hubert123 10y ago
This is demonstrably untrue, I have read many articles showing collaboration between major news outlets and the US government. I think wikileaks mentioned it too. Specifically John Podesta saying something along the lines of "lets ask one of our friendlies at AP to plant a story". Even if all the wikileaks and other reports were untrue, this isnt a conspiracy theory, the US media needs collaboration from the US government if it wants to get invited to white house press conferences, be called upon in them etc. Revoking media access to the US government is very much in the power of the US government. You are being very naive to think that the US government has zero control over the media. The US government regularly talks with silicon valley companies, I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg had a few meetings discussing how to combat fake news aka suppress articles from rt.com and breitbart. Not just that, it is public knowledge that facebook and google are part of the prism program that gives direct access to their data to the US government. So in light of all that, your tone is quite inappropiate because it is in fact you who speaks out of ignorance.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Your theory here being that the US government will use its friendly relationship with the AP to censor stories favorable to Russia, and that it's a newly passed law that's going to enable them to do that? This isn't coherent. Either the government is constantly acting sub rosa to manipulate media narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the US government has no formal control over the media. It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here, signed) legislation take this form.
  - bendbro 10y ago
    I believe the fallacy you've created here is called a false dichotomy. There are obvious shades of gray here. In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.
    - tptacek 10y ago