3 ms·

It's not actually. Let's review a couple points: Competitive News Landscape The US media is owned by a few large entities. It does not do reporting from a l

It's not actually. Let's review a couple points: Competitive News Landscape The US media is owned by a few large entities. It does not do reporting from a labor point of view, as one example. Indie media is under active suppression, as is any meaningful dissent on a number of fronts. What many see as "competition" is actually theatre, and is also not inclusive coverage, again labor being a super easy example to see, missing important points of view. As for the fairness doctrine, I agree with it's impact being debatable, but doing that along with media deregulation was a one - two punch, leading directly to the death of investigative journalism and the rise of newstaiment and access journalism. This is now News Corp got started, birth of FOX, et al. State mouthpieces basically. We are currently prosecuting a journalist to death for exposure of war crimes and corruption, just to add on to what is not a ringing endorsement here. My point in this is the current state of the US in this sense is not good, and that has a clear impact on the people. You are attempting to make a not bad point, and implying a low impact on the people. Notably, neither of us is making a definitive good assessment. That aligns more favorably with my point above than your counterpoint here, and the context is people refusing vaccines and other behaviors one would associate with an unclear, propaganda laden body politic. There is a lot of BS being fired at people non stop and it starts right at the top from the consolidated media, by the way currently marked as authoritative by many entities online despite it having clear conflict of interest and a poor record on a number of fronts associated with those conflicts. (war machine, economic policy, media oversight (lol), health care policy) I've got reasonable support for that and the body of my comment. Finally, the overall assumption being challenged here is whether to blame the people, and I do continue to reject that idea for it being unproductive and toxic to all of us.

eru 5y ago
> That aligns more favorably with my point above than your counterpoint here, and the context is people refusing vaccines and other behaviors one would associate with an unclear, propaganda laden body politic. Oh, people come up with unhealthy fads all the time by themselves. It's consistent with propaganda, but not really any evidence for it. > Finally, the overall assumption being challenged here is whether to blame the people, and I do continue to reject that idea for it being unproductive and toxic to all of us. Not sure about blame. The media gives people what they want, and people want drivel. The whole point of stuff like 'fairness doctrines' etc is paternalism: given people who 'know better' the power to give people media that's supposedly better for them than what they would have chosen by themselves. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... for an exploration of that dynamic. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/11/book-review-manufacturing-consent/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/11/book-review-manufactur... might also be interesting.

eru 5y ago

> That aligns more favorably with my point above than your counterpoint here, and the context is people refusing vaccines and other behaviors one would associate with an unclear, propaganda laden body politic. Oh, people come up with unhealthy fads all the time by themselves. It's consistent with propaganda, but not really any evidence for it. > Finally, the overall assumption being challenged here is whether to blame the people, and I do continue to reject that idea for it being unproductive and toxic to all of us. Not sure about blame. The media gives people what they want, and people want drivel. The whole point of stuff like 'fairness doctrines' etc is paternalism: given people who 'know better' the power to give people media that's supposedly better for them than what they would have chosen by themselves. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... for an exploration of that dynamic. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/11/book-review-manufacturing-consent/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/11/book-review-manufactur... might also be interesting.