I don't think the media is worse now than it was 30 years ago

[NNN0LHI]

I think it might even be a little better now. Our media still blows. I admit that. But 30 years ago we didn't have an internet to crosscheck stories like we can do now. We had to take everything at face value back then. There was no other option. Then it wouldn't be until a decade or so later that we found out we had been lied to. Took decades to find out that the Gulf Of Tonkin story was all bullshit. That wouldn't happen today.

One recent example I can think of was when CNN's Barbara Starr got on camera and lied like a rug about the age of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl some soldiers had raped and killed. We already knew her real age here before Starr got up there and lied. And she knew we already knew the girls age too. Hell, we had a photo of the girls identification card from Reuters here. Starr looked like the cat that ate the canary as she was lying into the camera to us. And her credibility took a huge hit, as did CNN's. And CNN corrected the story a few weeks later.

They know many people are watching them close. At least we have this going for us.

Don

[pinto]

1. Good points, and I tend to agree.

Also, the expectation of instant news/results/conclusions is much greater, though things still tend to happen at the same pedestrian, human pace as always.

:shrug:

[redqueen]

2. Disagree.

Back then we had the fairness doctrine. Back then we didn't have the Telecom Act enabling broadcast media to coalesce into a megacorporation dedicated to catapulting fascist propoganda 24/7.

Not better at all... not by a longshot.

[JHB]

3. Not just the fairness doctrine...

...but those 30 years have been filled with the deliberate liquidation of investigative reporting, the application of the "Mighty Wurlitzer" techniques to US media, and constant beating of the "liberal media bias" drum.

There were plenty of things wrong back then (and hell, even before: read up on George Seldes & what he faced sometime), but it is worse now.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I think the worldwide internet cancels out any advantages of the Telecom Act, etc.

All we had 30 years ago to check a story was short wave radio.

Don

[redqueen]

6. seriously? everyone has the net and cares to fact check?

if those two things were true, sure, i'd agree you'd have a point

unfortunately...

[NNN0LHI]

8. More do everyday

Fortunately.

Don

[redqueen]

9. sure... are things improving? yes, slowly.

are they better than three decades ago? hell no.

[dogday]

5. Media has had more time to be able to learn how to wash the news

legally and get away with it....

[NNN0LHI]

7. And anyone who does their thinking from above the waist has learned not to ever trust them

So it is even.

Don