6 ms·
>any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views. That is what I was thinking. Paul is writing as if credibility stems from reality. Whe
by basch 7y ago
>any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views.
That is what I was thinking.
Paul is writing as if credibility stems from reality. When in reality, the reverse its true. Fox news is credible, its viewers believe that, and whatever those credible people say, is reality. As long as people keep tuned in only to Fox News, that reality wont shatter. Their credibility exists because of their reach, its strength in numbers, its entertainment factor. Calling Fox News news and not entertainment is quite a leap. Most of what they have to say exists to keep people hooked, not to educate them into being more capable of performing civic duties. Fox News wants people to vote in a way that benefits Fox News, not the voter, and the same principal applies to all their coverage of everything. Coronavirus skeptic was a contrarian position to take, it divided their people from other people. Now that they are divided, they can switch sides and still maintain the artificial divide, and keep their viewers isolated from "alternate" realities.
This was a really good article by Kara Swisher of ReCode, who at the end finally convinces her mom to heed medical warnings about being out and about, cant convince her to turn off Fox.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-news.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-n...
They can flip a 180 overnight, and the viewers will see it as people with "updated information" and continue to cheer them on.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-and-jesse-watters-now-pretend-they-never-said-what-they-said-about-the-coronavirus https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-an...
There is the sad irony too, that the demographic who watches Fox news is already the most likely to be at risk (age, faith over evidence, distrusting of established medicine and government) denial not withstanding. Add denial to the mix, and youve got a real bad stew.
- ryandrake 7y agoThis is a deliberately built political philosophy, one of the results of Karl Rove's "reality-based community" [1] idea, from over 15 years ago. Whether or not the label was actually coined by Rove is debated, but essentially this idea is that some people lived in a world that was "reality-based" and that others were not limited by reality and thus were better/stronger politicians. In practice, what this means is the Bush administration did not have to believe in and be bound by this thing called reality, they created reality when they acted. President Trump is just continuing this idea through today. Unlike GWB and cronies, Trump and team don't even have to act to "create reality", they merely talk and reality instantly changes for their followers. It's a powerful tool and like him or hate him, his administration is using it skillfully. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-...
- AzzieElbab 7y agoto an outsider, americas left vs right hostility and mutual disrespect are becoming painful to watch. lets make a counter example to they one you provided, does the nyt "create reality" for their readers? they did publish their fare share of dangerously incorrect material about the virus, pandemic, the countermeasures,you name it.
- iron0013 7y agoI’m not sure that’s true. Some objective “truth” exists in the world whether it’s noticed and reported correctly or not (the tree falling in the woods), and some news outlets (NYT) report this truth more accurately than others (Fox News). It’s misleading to insist on “both siding” to make a mountain of untruths from one outlet seem to be the same size as a molehill of untruths from the other.
- jeremyjh 7y agoBothsiding feels so mature though. Look at those petty little onesiders! Don't they know bothsides are the same!?
- nabla9 7y agoThis is false equivalency. When you have to seek to find bad examples from other side, and it's the every day modus operandi the other side there is no comparison.
- AzzieElbab 7y agothe two outlets are absolutely equal when it comes to making half of the americans view the other half as raging lunatics. it is basically this https://youtu.be/aFQFB5YpDZE https://youtu.be/aFQFB5YpDZE
- seppin 7y agoTrump is a lunatic, literally. Obama was a smart, measured person people didn't like. There's a difference.
- amanaplanacanal 7y agoThe problem is that the channel is named "fox news", but they have both news shows (which are actually not bad), and opinion programming, which is pretty terrible. I suspect most people don't really make a distinction between the two.
- seppin 7y agoWhy would you assume they want to? Opinion shows are the only thing watched on Fox News, they are the primetime lineup. Everything else is filler.
- cortesoft 7y agoRight, but this might change as people they know start dying. It is easy to lie about things happening that don’t directly affect the people being lied to, but if you personally know multiple people killed by the virus, it will be hard to lie about it.
- Yhippa 7y agoThis is the only thing I can think of that could change their minds. And even then.