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They clearly do, but there is a difference between speculating and posing as the government and lying about what the real government is saying.
by frostburg 4y ago
They clearly do, but there is a difference between speculating and posing as the government and lying about what the real government is saying.
- perihelions 4y agoWhich one is the Washington Post, when the US government says X, but the Post says they interviewed two anonymous insider sources and the truth is actually Y? Are they "posing as the government"? I don't understand the perspective of the other side of this position, at all, frankly. Contradicting official narratives isn't some edge-case scenario we're just making up; it's a core function of the Fifth Estate.
- frostburg 4y agoWhen you read that on a newspaper you know that you're reading a newspaper and they tell you that they've talked with people that allegedly told them something different than the official line. This doesn't happen with stuff like "no, no the Senate actually didn't pass that law yesterday" that are a matter of obvious public record.
- perihelions 4y agoIf you're acknowledging a newspaper as a potential source of truth, you're no longer acknowledging the government as the sole source.
- frostburg 4y agoI'm going to put it this way: "reputable" newspapers generally want to influence opionion (lie) in a somewhat subtle way. Publishing trivially disprovable falsehoods about official acts isn't how they act, so you can generally trust the parliament-does-something -> official act -> newspaper writing about the official act custody chain insofar as the official act actually existing.