The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the press, including the freedom to make mistakes and even outright lie. There is no godlike authority that can tell truth from fiction without fail, and having government censors telling people what they can say (especially w.r.t. political speech) would invert the relationship between the people and their government, making government the master instead of the servant.
Instead, we rely on an educated readership to identify bias and mistakes and call them out, as has been done here. People get the journalism they deserve. To the extent we're failing to teach our children critical thinking skills, we're putting our democracy at risk.
The NY Times and other resources currently considered "credible" have earned that credibility from the people not through government permission but by generally providing a useful service to its consumers, despite all the mistakes they make and biases they present.
The NY Times in particular has unfortunately been burning through that hard-earned credibility capital at an alarming rate, even long before the current last few years, with the result that there are large portions of the country that no longer trust it like they did, with good reason. More recently they have taken the bait proffered by Trump and his ilk and lowered themselves to his level, spinning most articles I've seen with more political or oppositional bias than in the past.
I can only hope this is a cyclical phenomenon, where the citizenry/readership becomes ignorant of the related history and its challenges, simply because we've lived through a period where the battles were won and we could take such things for granted. Just like our predecessors, this generation is going to painfully relearn that everything printed (or typed) should be taken with a grain of salt and cross-checked against multiple sources.
>The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the press, including the freedom to make mistakes and even outright lie. There is no godlike authority that can tell truth from fiction without fail
A word from Herbert Marcuse on this notion:
"This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought.
In the contemporary period, the democratic argument for abstract tolerance tends to be invalidated by the invalidation of the democratic process itself."
You've been given an example of a system that might work in a civilized, modern country called Denmark. Maybe it's worth looking into it rather than repeating your First Amendment / "government is the servant" saw.
>The NY Times and other resources currently considered "credible"
Yea, but...
>The NY Times in particular has unfortunately been burning through that hard-earned credibility capital at an alarming rate
Ah, never mind you got it.
>More recently they have taken the bait proffered by Trump
How this isn't being observed by more people is stunning. 100% of the time, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo are running what they think is an effective awareness and information campaign - and is in reality going to cause scandal fatigue and hurt their credibility. Everyone complains about his Twitter... stop airing every single one of his tweets. In another two years, the country won't be on fire, and statistically Trump has a good chance at re-election.
All the media pearl clutching, faux-rage, and surface depth "activism" aren't helping... well, it's not helping them anyhow.
> and is in reality going to cause scandal fatigue and hurt their credibility. Everyone complains about his Twitter... stop airing every single one of his tweets
I agree but it takes 5 minutes to write an article about how 'terrifying' the latest tweet is by the president and that article will generate a lot of clicks to have a high margin on return so I don't expect to see this stuff go away.
They're a business and have to publish articles to make money and can't just sit on every thing waiting for a big story so I understand. I think all you can do is just ignore it.
> 100% of the time, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo are running what they think is an effective awareness and information campaign - and is in reality going to cause scandal fatigue and hurt their credibility. Everyone complains about his Twitter... stop airing every single one of his tweets.
But right now it's good for those sweet clicks. They have an audience who loves to get worked up about Trump, just as there's an audience that loves to get worked up about the kind of people who get worked up about Trump. They have their own content, too.
But, basically... yes, what you said. And newspapers mostly lack any credible business plan ideas that don't rely on this.
There is currently no real demonstrated business model to sustainably pay for good journalism. Some are hoping they can at least fund good journalism with clickbait and sponsored content... ugh.
I agree with both of you, and pose this question... do you think they have more desire to see Trump not win again because of their integrity - or want Trump to win because it's extremely good for business?
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the press, including the freedom to make mistakes and even outright lie. There is no godlike authority that can tell truth from fiction without fail, and having government censors telling people what they can say (especially w.r.t. political speech) would invert the relationship between the people and their government, making government the master instead of the servant.
Instead, we rely on an educated readership to identify bias and mistakes and call them out, as has been done here. People get the journalism they deserve. To the extent we're failing to teach our children critical thinking skills, we're putting our democracy at risk.
The NY Times and other resources currently considered "credible" have earned that credibility from the people not through government permission but by generally providing a useful service to its consumers, despite all the mistakes they make and biases they present.
The NY Times in particular has unfortunately been burning through that hard-earned credibility capital at an alarming rate, even long before the current last few years, with the result that there are large portions of the country that no longer trust it like they did, with good reason. More recently they have taken the bait proffered by Trump and his ilk and lowered themselves to his level, spinning most articles I've seen with more political or oppositional bias than in the past.
I can only hope this is a cyclical phenomenon, where the citizenry/readership becomes ignorant of the related history and its challenges, simply because we've lived through a period where the battles were won and we could take such things for granted. Just like our predecessors, this generation is going to painfully relearn that everything printed (or typed) should be taken with a grain of salt and cross-checked against multiple sources.