We can blame voters or fix our media landscape. You can do both, but we need to do the latter to have a functioning democracy.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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People are really not ready for the media landscape conversation because it has absolutely no easy answers. The first amendment means that well-funded misinformation systems have an absolute right to keep operating.
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(1 replies)
How would you fix something that isn't broken? This is what for-profit capitalist media does and has always done. Manufacturer consent for capitalism and its desires. Regulation in the past made it mildly less obvious? I mean they still breathlessly covered and promoted the Red Scare a half a century ago.
Not to mention that state and nonprofit media still have issues. How would one fix any of them? The only way to fix the media is to fix the voters. Actually teach critical thinking stills and encourage them. Not gullibly devouring anything fed to you unquestioningly.
You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink. All the information to debunk every claim ever made by Trump is out there. All anyone has to do is look. But most people cannot be bothered. They will just go with whatever hearsay they see on Facebook.
On that note I recently had to deal with my sister getting a bit frothy. Raging about how the Harris administration had spent so much more money than the Trump administration had on some meaningless thing. I had to insert myself and point out if there had never been a Harris administration. And that not even the Biden Administration had done what she was talking about.
only way to fix the media is to fix the voters.
This narrative serves the capitalist class and cannot be proven. You don't "fix" voters, you create solidarity by dealing with their material conditions (engage in mutual aid).
Solidarity is great. And I I'm all for it. But how do you have solidarity with a group of people that cannot even agree on what constitutes reality. How do you address the material conditions of people who reject addressing the material conditions if it also helps someone who isn't them.
The answer is you cannot. Not until critical thinking skills Etc are addressed. As long as people are blindly ideological of any stripe. There can't be solidarity
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(4 replies)
That is well put. Thank you for that.
How would you fix something that isn't broken?
I would respectfully disagree and point out that all of your well-considered points are in fact indicative that media in the US and to some other extent the rest of the world is very much broken.
And has been for well over 50 years.
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(5 replies)
You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink.
The issue here is that the horse has been drilled into being gullible for generations now. Compared to other civilised nations, what Fox & co are allowed to spew forth on a daily basis goes way beyond what would be considered libel or incitement in other places. But the root of the problem isn't even that, the real crux is that whoever pays the most, decides what is legal and what not in the US. The fact that pumping money into politics has been decided to be perfectly a-ok freedom of speech instead of skewing legislation towards the richest is incomprehensible in many other societies. The Supreme Court and the lobbies make a mockery of actual democracy in favour of buying influence.
Sure, stopping billion dollar, profit-driven corporate media conglomerates should be super easy.
Honestly, "corporate mainstream media sucks" is a thing most people agree on. I know a guy who voted for Trump at least once who has been turning away from that kind of politics lately, and it's this kind of message I hear him repeating. Now, I'm sure we have different views on how to solve that and what alternative sources should be used, but if it's something to agree on, then maybe it's a point of leverage.
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"I didn't do anything beyond confirm my own biases. Why are things this terrible all of a sudden? I didn't want this!"
"turning to Youtube" doesn't really say much one way or another. There is a wide range of content from professional media over smaller alternative media outlets over individual opinion pieces to manufactured disinformation from state actors all hosted on Youtube.
The algorithm doesn't really send you down the helpful rabbit holes in my experience. Every reasonable video on YouTube is like two away from Infowars level content.
I use Freetube so my algorithm has been slightly neutered. Yet I have gotten video recommendations that are all about “End Wokeness in Games” or “Trump is going to save us.” Those videos will take you directly to the far right.
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This is why critical thinking is such an important skill. We have entire portions of the population who legitimately believe they are well informed while actually understanding nothing.
It's just a symptom of a bigger problem. Poor access to good education for anyone but the super rich will lead to this. So will demonization of higher ed.
If everyone watched MeidasTouch for the political/legal news, America would be far saner and harder to dupe. Its the only media outlet I have any respect or hope for
Trump's election seems/feels like reoccurring issue with short term memory, long term planning, critical thinking, and reading deficiencies amoung the American population.
All the direct result of decades worth of work by Republicans to erode public education and vilify ‘expertise’ as a concept.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” - Isaac Asimov
remember when talking about "dumbing down the country" got you labeled as a tinfoil hat conspiracy loon? peppridge ranch remembers
Shit, I remember reading about a quasi-secretive government agency called the NSA that was listening in to your phone calls and it was called batshit insane.
After Snowden, they just pretended like of course it was always there and why would anyone ever not know they were monitoring communications of course they were it's national security - and nobody said another fucking word.
denial. "i don't like this fact that i just learned, so i'm going to pretend i didn't hear it and carry on like nothing ever happened"
Trump’s election seems/feels like reoccurring issue with short term memory,
This is actually about all we have. If it happened more than 5 minutes ago, it didn't happen.
long term planning,
Dems tend not to see more than about 5 minutes ahead, either.
critical thinking,
Nonexistent in the modern age. People have long since spoken and have said they prefer online echo chambers where critical thinking is actively discouraged.
and reading deficiencies amoung the American population.
When do you think the last time your average American voter read a book? Or for that matter consumed a piece of news media that wasn't a social media clickbait video from their echo chamber of choice?
If everyone watched MeidasTouch for the political/legal news, America would be far saner and harder to dupe. Its the only media outlet I have any respect or hope for
I'm going to be honest, I watch a lot of very left-leaning independent media. MeidasTouch, BTC, David Pakman, Jesse Dollemore. I subscribe to BTC. But I've got a lot of issues with them, including MeidasTouch, myself.
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They all use extreme and misleading hyperbole and clickbait in their titles and thumbnails that have a strained-at-best relationship with objective facts and the subject at hand. Saying that Jack Smith is winding down his cases against Trump is not "BIG news on FEDERAL PROSECUTION of TRUMP before inauguration!!!!", for example. BTC is particularly noteworthy for this.
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They all focus their coverage almost entirely on Trump, to the point where it's not unreasonable to question what these people would do if Trump really were to just ride off into the sunset, and cover him in such a way where they are clearly profiting off of the outrage.
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None of them promote new Democrat ideas or give coverage to Democrat politicians unless they are going on the air to speak against Trump. Little to no time is dedicated to left-leaning topics that aren't somehow heavily tied to Trump and keeping Trump outrage high.
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With the exception of BTC, they all hock products that nobody has ever heard of, they have never heard of, and by the way they read the script, couldn't care less about beyond the check they get from the sponsor. David Pakman is particularly egregious with his claims about how long he's been using the product and is a fan of it, which you can tell is 100% grade-A bullshit by the way he reads the script.
Don't get me wrong. At the end of the day, they are still at least giving factual and accurate information even if it's clouded in hyperbole and clickbait, which is infinitely far more than I can say for Fox, Newsmax, Twitter, Trump Social, or OANN. The products they're hocking are at least actual products and won't actively harm consumers, unlike the crypto scams, ads for ivermectin, and whatever other money laundering schemes RAN is peddling this week.
But at the same time, they are all profiting heavily off of making sure outrage against Trump stays high. They all shy away from covering anything that could be construed as beneficial to Trump out of fear of losing subscribers. They all, with the exception of BTC, lie to their subscribers by claiming they use a product they clearly care nothing about. They all skew their coverage with an extreme left bent. They are far better than what we get from the right, but they are by no means objective, are not above and beyond skewing coverage in a way that they feel is most profitable for them, and would absolutely sell out to the very mainstream media they claim to despise if given the chance.
You should give the Humanist Report a shot. Mike is extremely measured and doesn't do advertisements apart from a book he wrote and that's just in the background. I find his takes more reasonable than anyone else on the left, although I watch a lot of different sources. At least worth mixing it in.
Will do 😘
Respectfully, they found a niche and they rolled with it. I do mildly criticize the hyperbole but I accept its something that helps get clicks which id rather they get than basically all the alternatives.
The products are whatever, sometimes I'm glad to hear about whats big and they tend to take on decent quality offerings that I may act on at some point, most of the podcasts and outlets I follow have to do some form of advertising but they all make it fun or minimally intrusive so again I accept that as a function of doing business and being able to continue their work.
I'm sure we couldn't disagree that the legal analysis and breakdowns are top-notch and quite deep. They've made me, a non-lawyer or law student utterly fascinated with the law and how it can all go wrong and where it upholds what it should where it matters
Edit: thanks for a new channel to explore (Jesse Dollemore), dont think I've seen them before if they are unaffilaited with any of the others you mentioned but i will check them out 😘
Respectfully, they found a niche and they rolled with it. I do mildly criticize the hyperbole but I accept its something that helps get clicks which id rather they get than basically all the alternatives.
This is true to some degree. But at the same time, these are all still a bunch of white guys who happened to be born into the wealth needed to create their channels in the first place, so it's more of which group of rich white dudes is getting the clicks.
And if that's the way they want to roll, it's really none of my business nor concern. Go with it. But just don't claim that you're objective and independent when watching about three minutes of your coverage proves otherwise.
The products are whatever, sometimes I’m glad to hear about whats big and they tend to take on decent quality offerings that I may act on at some point, most of the podcasts and outlets I follow have to do some form of advertising but they all make it fun or minimally intrusive so again I accept that as a function of doing business and being able to continue their work.
I have no problems with advertising. They have to make money too. But there's a difference between "Here's a word from our sponsor" and letting the ad run vs. claiming to like and use a product they've clearly never heard of while they're reading off a script with all of the acting talent of a first grader in a school play. And to some, it begs the question of if they're willing to peddle this crap and lie to me about it in the process, what else are they lying about to generate revenue?
I’m sure we couldn’t disagree that the legal analysis and breakdowns are top-notch and quite deep. They’ve made me, a non-lawyer or law student utterly fascinated with the law and how it can all go wrong and where it upholds what it should where it matters
Oh, this I agree with. Once you dig through the clickbait and hyperbole, the information is quite good. But you've got to dig through more than you should have to to get there.
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If only there was some warning that disinformation was going to play a role in the election.
Some of my fellow Chicanos can be stupid motherfuckers. They're proud of being Mexican yet ignore the racist shit spewed by Trump and vote for him anyways for "the economy." I'm a full citizen but I really hope the naturalized ones who voted for him lose their citizenship and get deported. It's like pulling the ladder behind you is such a self destructive human instinct.
That would include you.
Please don’t give up or condemn these people.
Keep in mind the total bombardment of right wing propaganda they are under.
All you need is to look at YouTube for an example. With a fresh account, or anything you search you’re quickly overrun with right wing, “anti woke”, Jordan Peterson type garbage.
These working class people are also victims of ruling class fascists. We all have to fight for each other now, or they will pick us off one by one.
Average American political literacy.
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