CDZ An idea regarding the American media

Mac1958

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Dec 8, 2011
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Opposing Authoritarian Ideological Fundamentalism.
This could be a pretty interesting conversation if we can stay calm and focused.

Point 1 - We have a serious and growing problem in this country with a media (across the ideological spectrum) that has (deservedly, in my opinion) lost the trust of the American people. We've all seen and contributed to threads that discuss and catalogue examples of gross bias from both ends of our media.

Point 2 - It's not a stretch to imagine a body that creates, maintains and enforces standards of journalistic integrity and accuracy, in such a way as providing guidance to consumers and provides them with more faith that what they are consuming is, indeed, accurate. Before we devolve and divide much further. I don't know about you, but I don't see a bottom to this yet. BUT I'm not fond of the idea of such a body being government-based. For many reasons.

Point 3 - There are two bodies that provide such services in the financial services industry. The first is the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) which is an agency of the US Federal Government. But the second one is FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) that is a private corporation that also policies the industry - but it is the industry's self-regulatory body.

Idea - Could such an industry self-regulatory body work with the press? Theoretically it could (a) maintain and enforce standards of journalistic integrity and accuracy, and (b) provide consumers with some kind of roadmap so that they can easily discern fact from opinion. As in, this is an actual news resource, that is an opinion resource.

Look, I'm not going for perfection here. I can already think of some issues with this. I'm looking for (a) some improvement and (b) the hope that such a system would gradually raise standards up to a point at which it was barely needed. THAT would be the goal.

Thoughts? And by the way, if you can think of a problem, perhaps you could also provide a possible solution to discuss. We used to do that, here, in America.
 
Theoretically it could (a) maintain and enforce standards of journalistic integrity and accuracy, and (b) provide consumers with some kind of roadmap so that they can easily discern fact from opinion.

Who sets the standard and arbitrates it? When everyone in the media has a bias (as has always been the case throughout history) who gets to decide which bias is acceptable and which is not?

So called fact-checks are no such thing ... they are simply the application of selective bias on a specific idea.

I have a counter proposal. Let educated people listen to as many different ideas as they can then decide for themselves which they believe is true and which they believe isn't. I trust my own judgement over that of a "standards board" any day of the week.
 
We have self regulation and its not much use. Making it easier to sue the rogues would help, it is far too expensive.
 
So, you want an official arbitrator to tell folks what to think?

It's worked before ...

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We have self regulation and its not much use. Making it easier to sue the rogues would help, it is far too expensive.

The British Press still has Page 3 girls in 2020. I'm not sure anyone in the UK is in the position of lecturing anyone on journalistic integrity.
I dont buy that paper but I am pretty sure they stopped the tits pix a few years back. Of course that doesnt invalidate your point about the standards of the UK press.
 
I have a counter proposal. Let educated people listen to as many different ideas as they can then decide for themselves which they believe is true and which they believe isn't. I trust my own judgement over that of a "standards board" any day of the week.
Educated then becomes the question- what criteria is used to arbitrate that? I believe your assessment is the correct manner in what people try to do in figuring out our politics, but, as we can see on political message boards, the educated? are dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to non-biased opinion- and lets not forget, the opinionaters (talking heads and such) are "educated"- they play to an audience that is dumber than a box of rocks who let emotion rule their thought process-

The media trots out experts which leads one to believe they are "educated"- I wouldn't trust them to take out the trash never mind give an honest assessment- and the inhabitants of the District of Criminals are are educated?-

So, what "needs" to be done? That seems obvious- but, there is no over night fix that'll make it all better in our life time. So, as I have said numerous times- leave your space a little better than you found it- AND sow the seeds of liberty-
 
People will always seek the media that conforms to their prejudices ... so there will always be media to fill these niches ...

People pay the cable company to present them with commercial advertisements ... maybe we should be thinking for folks ...
 
No industry standards... Government shouldn't be involved EXCEPT in one single way. A corporation/person that owns another business, cannot own a media business.

AT&T, Amazon, Disney, Sony, Alphabet, ext... ext... have a reason to modify the output of news to try to make their other parts of their business more money. Not to mention the ability to look our elected officials in the eye and say "Do what we want, I control what is said about you on a major media platform(s)"

Corporations will always have some sway in our government... It's the nature of capitalism, but this is too much.
 
One has to consider the *objective* when dealing with the media- simply put; follow the money, see the agenda.
No, it isn't easy, but, simple is not spelled easy- the dots can be connected, but, I suspect people don't want to- it would show their *side* in a bad light, because light is the enemy of truth.
Having an objective is not the same as being objective- people have an objective which relegates their analysis subjective which is seen through the prism of emotion which is rarely, if ever, objective.

I remember reading years ago, before I became politically involved, that one must choose his battle with his heart, but fight the war with his head- that weighed heavily on me. It doesn't hurt that I am, by nature, (and have some formal training in Failure Analysis), very analytical- but, not many people are as it requires intellectual honesty and introspection, neither of which are a prevalent trait in today's society- yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but, they are rare in politics.
 
The media is filled with hacks. This proposed stalin like idea of setting up a regulatory body controlled by the federal govt will be run by hacks.
Media controlled by a corrupt duopoly. What could POSSIBLY go wrong :rolleyes:
 
When it comes to media I am uncomfortable with any sort of regulatory body.
I absolutely agree... That's why I think we should go the route of removing the ability, or lessening it by a shitload, of large corporations from making money off of it's own controlled media.

You can bet your sweet ass that if a company is trying to get into the China market, any media it owns will be very favorable toward China, or simply silent on it.

The government should absolutely not have any say on what is reported by media. It SHOULD remove those things that allow foreign powers to influence our media through our corporations.
 
I can't imagine any media-regulatory body in 2021 treating both sides of an argument fairly. Even if they managed to do so, organized twitter outrage mobs would force them to retract and apologize.
 

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