4 ms·

I'm going to join in on the chorus of people here who are voicing their displeasure with the way the modern media works. I'm a left winger but I feel much the s

I'm going to join in on the chorus of people here who are voicing their displeasure with the way the modern media works. I'm a left winger but I feel much the same way about the media and the chattering class as the most noxious parts f the right wing. It's not so much that the media is biased in one direction or the other; it's that MSM has mostly abrogated it's responsibility to inform the public. the media, and the class of people that create its content, see themselves as influencers more than reporters. As an example, take the performance (and I do mean that literally) of Jim Acosta when he made a speech disguised as a question to Stephen Miller about the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Who told Mr. Acosta that what the public wants from its journalists are speeches instead of substantive questions? It's often said that politicians want to be movies stars. these days it seems that the journalists want to be politicians and it's become a problem that Americans all over the political spectrum are beginning to see.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>MSM has mostly abrogated it's responsibility to inform the public. That's a myth. The only real responsibility they have is to maximize profits for their shareholders.
- alistproducer2 9y ago
  I dispute that. Most major newspapers in the states have existed long before it was common for media outlets to be publicly traded companies. The term "fourth estate" dates back almost to the time of the French Revolution so while it's always been expected that newspapers need be profitable to exist, the interests of its readers and those that stand to profit from the paper have not always been so far apart as they are now.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    It would seem that not much has really changed since then: "To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, `by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowlege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Norvell, June 14th, 1807

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

>MSM has mostly abrogated it's responsibility to inform the public. That's a myth. The only real responsibility they have is to maximize profits for their shareholders.

alistproducer2 9y ago
I dispute that. Most major newspapers in the states have existed long before it was common for media outlets to be publicly traded companies. The term "fourth estate" dates back almost to the time of the French Revolution so while it's always been expected that newspapers need be profitable to exist, the interests of its readers and those that stand to profit from the paper have not always been so far apart as they are now.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  It would seem that not much has really changed since then: "To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, `by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowlege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Norvell, June 14th, 1807