Can anything be done about obviously disinformational news outlets?

Great Debates
101

Thing is, those are both well known flubs on the part of otherwise reputable news outlets. I mean, they were calling to rescind Duranty’s Pulitzer prize as recently as 2003. And there’s a lot of noise out there about the 1619 project and its historical inaccuracy.

The problem I’m wrestling with is the whole… alternate reality aspect of the partisan news. I mean, Fox used to be “partisan”, in say… 2012. But they weren’t pushing a totally alternate explanation of events like some of the right-wing sources are, and that partisanship wasn’t actually having negative effects overall.

But now the right wing has basically framed reality to their people as “our sources are true, the rest are controlled by the liberal media, Soros, etc…” and telling people not to wear masks, and that there’s rampant electoral fraud, etc…

That has to go beyond mere free speech into something else. It’s like listening to Baghdad Bob talk about how badly the war was going for the US in 2003, except without the absurdist elements.

102

Remember what the Op is: Can anything be done about obviously disinformational news outlets?

Not SHOULD anything be done about obviously disinformational news outlets?

I have answered the OP- yes, in the case of those being broadcast, the FCC can regulate them.

And it would drive the Fox news on Fox off to all cable, and drive Rush Limbaugh and his nazi brethren off the airwaves. And that second is worth doing.

And it is totally Constitutional.

For those that dont want to do it, you have no idea of the brainwashing Rush and his fellow Goebbels are doing.

103

The thing is, it’s not the editorial bias, or viewpoints that I object to. That stuff really ought to be protected- you should have the right to be as big of an asshole as you can manage, on or off the airwaves.

That’s different than deliberately presenting what amounts to lies and other falsehoods as truth, and painting the mainstream media as liars and “fake news” solely to promote a political agenda. It was one thing when that kind of thing was the province of tin-foil hats, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted kooks. But now it’s one entire side of the political spectrum and the party that represents them doing this. That’s something entirely different than garden-variety kookery, and I kind of wonder if there’s some kind of clever and minimal regulation, warnings, or disclaimers that could be applied to let the credulous know that it’s primarily entertainment and editorial content, not actual news and facts.

104

That’s not true.

105

Eh, I could get behind the idea that their editorial parts are pretty biased. I could also agree that the stories that they choose to cover is influenced by some pretty strong bias.

The difference is that MSNBC still has journalistic integrity. They do not just say and repeat things that are not true. They may make mistakes, and there may be controversial subjects that they take a simplistic stance on, but they don’t just lie.

That’s the big difference, IMHO, between Fox and MSNBC.

106

A couple observations after reading the thread. I worked for years in cable TV, on both the regulatory side, and later, the tech side.

Yes, the difference between broadcast and cable is the FCC licenses the spectrum broadcasters use, but not the cable carriage, at least in the same way. However, the FCC did implement rules governing the carriage of broadcasters on cable systems, but these don’t cover and wouldn’t affect content obligations, as the rules at least used to (requirements for news, public service, etc.). But they also had ownership rules, which is why Cox, based in Atlanta and owns a broadcaster there, doesn’t have any local cable systems (this was a challenge when I was implementing a system for Cox that my customers - Cox staff - couldn’t experience at their homes because they all had other cable providers).

WRT cable not being infinite - the cities regulate use of the “right of way” but once you get that approval, you still have to deal directly with the owners of the poles or conduits for access, and there are rules about that - where/how wires can be attached, payments, etc. More room could be made on poles but it is very expensive.

Regarding lack of competition - the municipalities generally negotiate coverage, meaning that the cable company must build out all streets in town, or all that meet a certain density. If a competitor comes in, they would have to do the same thing (in part because of Level Playing Field language we negotiated) so you’ve incurred all the expense, but have access to only the same universe of potential subscribers. This is why most “overbuilds” are by the phone or electric companies, since they already have the infrastructure largely in place. It would be economically unfeasible for someone to start entirely from scratch to build a system.

Finally, an interesting aspect of cable regulation is OTT services, even when the cable company is offering them (that is, they have a streaming version of their product). It is mostly the same system in terms of channel acquisition, entitlements, etc. but is just transmitted outside the bandwidth for reserved for “cable,” like all other internet traffic. In these cases, the position the companies took was that some obligations of the traditional cable service like support for closed-captioning, DVS, EAS, and in Canada, sim-sub, did not apply because they came over a different part of the same wire coming into your house (or streaming to your phone via a hotspot).

107

There should be no censorship on either side. What are you afraid of?

108

Well, I think the problem people are complaining about is the current phenomenon where people view their news in terms of “sides” instead of unbiased(ish) presentation of facts and events. So they tend to follow news sources that only present their political party in a favorable light. And the actual danger is what we have witnesses. If the news doesn’t come from their “side” they disregard or actively oppose it, whether it is telling them to wear a mask, cut sugar out of their diet, or go to war with Belgium.

I’m not sure if anything can be “done” about it. Censoring or restricting the news would be even worse. No one wants state-mandated “truth”. And it wouldn’t work anyway as people will just get their “news” from whatever source fits their pre-existing world view.

109

That’s just the problem though; only the right has made it a question of ‘side’, and they’re barreling along full speed toward constructing their own alternate reality where Trump was robbed, Hillary Clinton should be imprisoned, global warming isn’t happening, etc…

That’s what scares me- this stuff is NOT a matter of opinion. Global warming isn’t something you “believe in” like someone might believe in Allah, Jesus, Krishna, or even the Tooth Fairy. It’s a physical fact. But these people are allowed to essentially frame it that way, which fundamentally downplays the severity of the problem by making it something you can choose to believe or not. Or that the decisions of our legal system are not something to be respected and followed, but merely the results of a cabal of political opponents.

It’s insane and it’s dangerous.

110

Simple. Conservative talk radio and OANN are brainwashing people.

111

No, it (anthropogenic climate change) is a scientific theory with a lot of evidence behind it; scientific theories cannot, by their nature, be proven true, they can only be provisionally accepted as true until they are proven false. If you can’t tell the difference between these concepts, maybe you shouldn’t be calling for censorship to suppress things you don’t like.

112

Instead of sides I should have used angles. When and if News outlets start reporting instead of opining the news. People have to look elsewhere. The MSM squashed the Hunter Biden investigation, and now are walking it back.

113

That’s absurd and really kind of sad. Scientific theories are explanations verified by observation or experimentation. They’re as factual as anything on this Earth can be. Our entire civilization is based on what you’re calling “only provisionally accepted”. Stuff like electromagnetism, gravity, evolution, etc… are all things that are taken as fact. I mean, we’re all accepting that the theory of immunity is solid enough to bet our lives on it with every vaccination we give ourselves, children and pets.

And anthropogenic global warming is absolutely just as true as any of them. It’s just extremely inconvenient to one particular political viewpoint, so they’re harping on this weaselly bullshit that it’s just a “theory” and other nonsense like that.

114

Well, they are theories that could be proven to be false. Show me a ball that goes up(in a vacuum, and other caveats), and we will have to rework our theory of gravity account for that.

But just assuming that a ball could go up instead of down isn’t enough. You need to actually demonstrate this.

Same with climate change. It could be wrong, but all data supports it, and no data has come about that refutes it. If someone wants to refute it, they actually need to show data that does so, not just assume that there may be, or be skeptical of the data that supports it.

While it is true that you will not find a serious scientist that will say that a scientific principle is “proven”, you will also not find one that expects a ball to ever fall up. They are not just provisionally accepting the theory of gravity until someone proves it false, they are using it to make predictions, both for utility purposes, and to find more ways to test it. Same with the theories behind climate change, it is used to make predictions, and it is tested, not to try to refute it, but to refine it, and make its predictions more accurate and useful.

BTW, I am agreeing with you 100% on this, just expanding on it.

115

I did not know that the MSM was part of the Department of Justice.

116

Thanks!

One of the points I was trying to make is that there’s not a higher level above theory where something’s proven to be indisputably true in all cases forever. There are ‘laws’, but they describe how something happens, not WHY. So in the case of theories, they’re the highest level of proof around, until they’re disproved.

Disputing global warming because it’s a “theory” reeks of ignorance and an intentional desire to disprove it for your own motives.

117

I think the problem is when people accept “evidence” from dubious fringe sources with obvious conflicts of interest to disprove a scientific theory that has a preponderance of evidence behind it. If I fed you a constant stream of information about how the world is actually flat, even if you know it now to be true, at the very least you might start to think that the Flat Earth Theory is far more mainstream than it actually is.

Which is the bigger problem IMHO with disinformational news. It isn’t so much that all conservatives or liberals believe one thing or the other. It’s that all conservatives or all liberals are painted with the same extreme brush so it becomes impossible for them to find middle ground.

Like even if you believe global warming is real, banning all use of petroleum products isn’t feasible. But you can’t have a realistic conversation about transitioning off of petroleum when one side believes the other is looney hippy tree-hugging communists and the other believes the other side is evil capitalist goons. You also cannot ignore the fact that there are parties on both sides who have a vested interest in spreading such disinformation.

118

Yep. And that’s why I started the thread; the playing field isn’t even the same anymore, and a large part of that is due to ‘alternative’ news sources’ efforts to obscure things and paint those facts as a clear and present threat to people’s ways of life.

I mean, I’m not surprised that AGW is politicized, but what does shock me is that the observations and science itself is being questioned and politicized. I mean, they’re just saying it doesn’t exist without actually offering an alternative to explain what’s happening, and people are buying it because that side’s pet news media have done such a good job of portraying the other side as inherently biased, wrong, and threatening.

In a more sane world, they’d have trotted out some pet astronomer to promulgate his own theory of Milankovich cycles or something along those lines to explain the hockey-stick graphs separate from carbon emissions, because people would expect that sort of counter-argument and proof, instead of just accepting that anything from the non-approved news sources is inherently false and biased.

119

And that’s the problem. If only you’d been listening to QAnon you’d totally know these things. Then the world would make sense!!!11!. :wink:


I’m trying to make some kind of portmanteau aphorism out of
“Forget it Jake; it’s Chinatown” and “It’s turtles all the way down.”

A bottomless pit of scum and villainy piled upon itself without end that’s beyond reform, nearly beyond comprehension. But ultimately just a giant projection of all the failings of human nature self-reinforcing one another into a bonfire consuming our civilization. A bonfire of our vanity for sure. Or at least the vanities of some enterprising fatcats & pols igniting the near-inexhaustible supply of flammable credulity.

120

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not “guesses” but reliable accounts of the real world. wiki

Bump was correct- it is not something you 'believe" in.