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Pointing out flaws is a red herring? No, finding the flaws in western journalism takes more effort because it's not as obvious. Which means the rulers can get

Pointing out flaws is a red herring? No, finding the flaws in western journalism takes more effort because it's not as obvious. Which means the rulers can get away with propoganda and manipulation much more easily than one who provides a direct, complete and obvious propoganda. I think people would be wise to be equally critical of left and right MSM, not just assume they aren't propoganda because they are on different 'sides' (hint, they're not really)

noduerme 4y ago
It's a red herring because this article is about reported statistics from country to country. When the media in one relatively free country skews statistics, that is generally reported by opposition media in the same country and in other free countries abroad. Certainly it's right to point out that some "free" media has skewed statistics or parroted an establishment line about covid, and pointing it out is exactly what a free press is for. And if you read news from alternative and European and Latin American outlets as well, you can spot the biases of some MSM reporting in the US. But what is a red herring is pointing out MSM bias in the same breath as Chinese propaganda, presenting it in a context by which it is somehow meant to excuse the total top-down censorship of an unfree press. The attempt to draw draw that equivalence is the favorite tactic of dictatorships. It's not just a matter of detecting lies, but of exposing truth. For instance, the lab leak hypothesis would never have even been mentioned in an unfree press; to simply know that your government is lying via press manipulation only tells you that you don't know anything. It doesn't tell you what they're hiding from you. Yet the American press has shown itself free enough to expose these things, giving one the opportunity to determine what may or may not be true. That opportunity simply doesn't exist in the Chinese media ecosystem.

noduerme 4y ago

It's a red herring because this article is about reported statistics from country to country. When the media in one relatively free country skews statistics, that is generally reported by opposition media in the same country and in other free countries abroad. Certainly it's right to point out that some "free" media has skewed statistics or parroted an establishment line about covid, and pointing it out is exactly what a free press is for. And if you read news from alternative and European and Latin American outlets as well, you can spot the biases of some MSM reporting in the US. But what is a red herring is pointing out MSM bias in the same breath as Chinese propaganda, presenting it in a context by which it is somehow meant to excuse the total top-down censorship of an unfree press. The attempt to draw draw that equivalence is the favorite tactic of dictatorships. It's not just a matter of detecting lies, but of exposing truth. For instance, the lab leak hypothesis would never have even been mentioned in an unfree press; to simply know that your government is lying via press manipulation only tells you that you don't know anything. It doesn't tell you what they're hiding from you. Yet the American press has shown itself free enough to expose these things, giving one the opportunity to determine what may or may not be true. That opportunity simply doesn't exist in the Chinese media ecosystem.