We've always had to discuss what the facts are - the extreme bias between newspapers and TV channels picking and choosing facts to provide to their users, even on the same news stories - news source A chooses not to provide background info, news source B chooses to provide background info from one primary source only, news source C chooses to provide background info from another source, news source D chooses to provide a general overview but with a slight bent towards assuming that its readers hold values X, Y and Z, etc etc.
You can go back and read stories from the 1950s which have these issues and more. There has never been a time where all individuals involved in a democracy have understood all the facts. Popular politics has always been driven by newspapers and special interest groups.
In my country, implementation of a certain policy has very clear correlation with a marked increase in suicide rates - the slow rollout of this specific policy across areas of the country provides an easy way to show this. Certain newspapers refuse to report on this - it doesn't match their ideology - after all, when pointed out, people holding this ideology will often point out that suicide is one's own decision and it's not the Government's problem.
And the experts you cite that say it is real are in on it.
It's the Establishment trying to suppress the truth. That's what they say today. With more technology, the underdog with AI can beat the Establishment in a few weeks. And there will not be any way to distinguish what's true anymore than you can distinguish a chess line played by AlphaGo vs any other really good chess line.
It's related to a benefits reform designed to cut costs by giving people less and making them jump through more hoops to get it, without providing any additional support.
One of these is a simplification of a bunch of benefits into something called "Universal Credit". It's a good idea, with some nice points. It's being implemented terribly, and is causing significant harm.
When someone makes a claim there is a minimum wait of six weeks before they get any money. In the England a landlord can apply to the courts to resposses a rented home if the tenant misses 8 weeks of rent. So the rollout of UC is causing some people to be evicted from their homes.
The old benefits were paid fortnightly. UC is paid monthly. People have to budget very carefully to last all month. Poor people tend to be bad at budgeting, and being poor makes it harder to budget.
There is a very strict, punitive, sanctions regime in place. You'll see people being given sanctions because they attended a medical appointment or had to look after a child. People are expected to spend 35 hours a week searching for work, and they have to provide evidence that they've done so. That could be ok, but it means a claimant will send very many applications to unsuitable jobs, rather than spend a couple of hours polishing an application for a more suitable job. There's a lot more about sanctions and suspension: the rules are very strict; there are very many rules; the DWP and JC+ don't know what their own rules are and sometimes give incorrect advice. So sometimes a claimant will ask DWP or JC+ what to do, and will follow that instruction, and end up being sanctioned because it was the wrong thing to do.
Benefits are paid by the Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions. That person is busy being a government minister, so they employ "decision makers" who look at the various acts of parliament, statutory instruments, and case law and apply those to the details of the claim. The quality of decision making is particularly poor at the moment.
Note here they're not just talking about UC, but also about PIP and ESA. (PIP and ESA are disability benefits. ESA is an out of work benefit.)
To get PIP or ESA the claimant will need an independent medical. This is provided by a nurse, a physiotherapist, or an occupational therapist. These people are employed by private companies. Those companies have said that over 30% of the assessments they do are not acceptable. https://twitter.com/CommonsWorkPen/status/942773136390590465
Imagine that - imagine if fully one third of everything you did was not acceptable.
We have to be a bit careful with these figures. (We'd expect the population claiming benefits for a disability to include more people who've had suicidal thoughts).
You just set your credibility on fire with the phrase "the extreme bias between newspapers and TV channels picking and choosing facts". What you are describing is literally the opposite of how objective journalism is performed. That you believe this is how professional newsrooms function indicates you haven't worked in the industry.
That you and vertex-four disagree not only on the facts, but on the nature of facts indicates that perhaps his point has some merit. ;-)
FWIW, I've been that primary source for some major news stories, and the final story usually bears just a passing resemblance to reality as I experienced it. Assuming good faith on the part of the reporter, I have to assume that reality as I experienced it bears only a passing resemblance to reality as other primary sources experience it, which is congruent with other known facts like the difficulty of communication, the existence of cognitive biases, and the field of psychology. Objectivity is a myth; it's oftentimes a useful myth, but it's worth remembering that the reporter has his own biases and preconceptions as well, and as the person choosing what to report upon, these will necessarily make it into the final piece. The audience has their own biases as well, so they won't be reading exactly the same piece that the reporter wrote.
The fact is that facts lie and don't always capture the big picture and they certainly don't capture the importance of an event in and of itself.
With millions of events happening each and every day the simple act of choice is incredibly meaningful.
Your own belief in the objectivity of modern newsrooms proves my point.
Clearly both Al-Jazeera and Fox News do fact checking... yet one would be left with a very different view of the world depending on who did the reporting.
It certainly proves nothing of the kind, and your use of the phrase "belief" is disingenuous. It implies an element of faith that is entirely lacking from any of my assertions. My statements are made based on direct observation of 35 independent newsrooms and direct access to the AP wire over a period of three and a half years. Fox is an outlier in the industry.
The fact that you use the authority argument means you are the opposite of an authority on objective truth.
If anything it is the one place where getting the objectivity wrong has no consequences. In a typical company if you are getting the truth about something wrong (e.g. what people want, what people are willing to pay, where the market will move to) the lack of profit margins will refute the correctness.
In a newsroom however objective truth is a hygiene issue like a cook washing his hands. They should. But if they don't it has very few consequences.
I read newspapers, I often find that important context is missing from every article on a given story, unfortunately - and different context is missing per paper to meet the biases of that paper.
You can go back and read stories from the 1950s which have these issues and more. There has never been a time where all individuals involved in a democracy have understood all the facts. Popular politics has always been driven by newspapers and special interest groups.
In my country, implementation of a certain policy has very clear correlation with a marked increase in suicide rates - the slow rollout of this specific policy across areas of the country provides an easy way to show this. Certain newspapers refuse to report on this - it doesn't match their ideology - after all, when pointed out, people holding this ideology will often point out that suicide is one's own decision and it's not the Government's problem.