Awareness
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ORIGINAL: vincentML
Your thesis on the idealistic purity of the mission of the press would sound great in a freshman college journalism course but it fails the test of history. The earliest broadsheets had party affiliations. President Jackson's wife and Abe Lincoln were under vicious press attack, she as an adulteress and A.L. as a monkey and incompetent and of course tyrant all in one. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer dished out fiction and propaganda that drove the nation into the Spanish-American War. And let’s not even get started on the embedding of the press within our military units in Iraq. The press almost always engages in partisanship. The internet is press partisanship on steroids. Don't be stupid. There's a difference between an understanding of the role of the press in a constitutional sense and the degree to which the press fulfills that role. Your approach is to insist that the press has always been partisan so we should simply accept it as it is. My approach is to point out that consolidation of fourth estate power in the hands of the few, combined with the rigid censorship codes of the identity-politics-ridden left and the 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times vs Sullivan creates a dangerous cocktail of unrestrained media power, irresponsibility, orthodoxy of thought and corruption. If you're too stupid to see the danger that represents to liberty in this country, that's entirely your own problem.
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American journalism was already pretty soggy. Much of the problem you rightly cite is due to corporate ownership of our news outlets. The owner corporations have economized by cutting back financing for investigative reporting. No, it's also a product of political orthodoxy. The Left in particular is focused upon telling everyone how to think, with all the Orwellian undertones that implies.
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We are obliged to find independent sources. But mostly I think people read print and watch TV commentary that reinforces their preconceived positions anyway. Voters seek confirmation of their emotionally determined opinions. They do, but implying the Press doesn't influence opinion is idiocy.
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Truth can be judged by fact checking and holding news organisations accountable for the claims they make. It requires vigilance and a commitment to accuracy rather than a slavish hunger for clicks.
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“holding accountable” . . . what does that mean? If you print it, you'd better be able to prove it - and the constitutional protections which shield people from their government should also shield them from a rampant fourth estate.
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Will we have a Ministry of Truth? Insisting on Press accountability is hardly Orwellian.
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And what will the sanctions be? Will journalists be fined? Jailed? Burned at the stake? No, the publishers will.
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Already, media people are claiming they are being intimidated and threatened at Trump rallies. Which is ironic considering the degree to which the media bullies and intimidates anyone without the resources to sue them into oblivion. The destruction of Gawker was one of the most positive blows for Press accountability in the last 30 years - and there should be more of it.
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I fear you have bought into one of Trump’s false distractions. I fear you've abandoned rational thought.
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Ever notice how fucking annoying most signatures are? - Yes, I do appreciate the irony.
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RE: Donald Trump thinks SNL is rigging the election and... - 
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