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Diamond Boy's avatar

When did the media abdicate their traditional role? When did they stop reporting what is going on in the world? When did they become extensions of government power?

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Jul 11, 2021
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Diamond Boy's avatar

Okay. Interesting. So the media have been curating the story my entire lifetime. Nothing has changed in my 57 years?

IтАЩve been reading substack stuff for less than a year. I have to conclude that everything I know has been fed to me like pablum,at least in so far as it came from the media.

The media are liars, overtly, through omission, through wilful mischaracterization, compromised by economic necessity, people, self appointed windbags, shrouded in self righteous glory who do what they are told by editorial staff who kowtow to power.

Hum!

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HBI's avatar

At the time of the Alien and Sedition acts in the 1790s, newspaper editors were being tarred and feathered and run out of town if they didn't toe the government line.

In the 1860s they were getting thrown in jail if they didn't play ball.

A lot of our speech protections are really horseshit when the government really wants something badly enough.

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hierochloe's avatar

Journalism, including especially the US 'paper of record' could be said to be yellow going back probably to it's inception, so 'traditional role' is probably a term that has different meanings depending on who you're asking.

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HBI's avatar

To be fair, my friend Gary, who worked the NYT in the 60s and 70s and was working at the Asbury Park Press as the legal editor upon his death in the very early 2000's, believed fiercely in the whole objective journalism myth. He meant it, I know he did. But, i'm sad to say Gary was wrong. Everyone has a bias, and our newspapers only used to try to conceal it, and not very well.

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hierochloe's avatar

It seems only fair to acknowledge that the industry of journalism, even when dealing with smaller subunits down to individuals, does enjoy some variability in the degree to which they behave as 'extensions of government' or any other power (or else I wouldn't be spending my money on TK). But there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to large-scale bad faith journalism..

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Jul 12, 2021
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Latouche's avatar

Do you think that the theoretical framework of critical race theory is adequate to explain the available meta-narrative studies on Ivermectin? Or would posit, in general, that this is a sophist's gambit and that the anti-parasite treatment is more properly evaluated through a more pragmatic, less existential "tinted" lens, as it were?

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Jul 14, 2021
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Latouche's avatar

We're both on a Kon-tiki-like raft, negotiating the warm currents of the Gulf of Mexico, destination Cuba, where we intend to remake the island into a capitalist paradise! No more of this egalitarian leftist shit for me! Banana plantations and seaside casinos are the ticket for me! Aloha!

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Diamond Boy's avatar

By yellow you mean liking encourage or morals?

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hierochloe's avatar

This is what probably most people think of by 'yellow': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

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hierochloe's avatar

Actually this is a good question since I'm probably misusing the term a bit. Traditionally 'yellow' refers to sensationalism over real information. Here I'm also/in addition referring to propaganda (sensationalized or not) over real information.

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