How to effectively combat the Fox News propaganda machine?

Great Debates
81

…if you are looking for a “one-stop-shop” solution to propaganda it isn’t going to happen.

Here’s the elephant in the room.

America is on the road to authoritarianism.

It isn’t there yet. The system is holding up.

But everything hinges on the next election. Everything.

The best case scenario is that Trump is defeated, he leaves with his tail between his legs, and the Dems start bringing things back to some semblance of normality.

The worst case scenario? I honestly don’t want to think about it.

So looking to institute things like the “fairness doctrine” or “public broadcasting” is all well and good and everything, but you can’t do that if you aren’t in power.

The number one priority: the only way to even hope to have a chance at addressing this, is to win the next election.

This is all so much bigger than Fox News and to make them the big bugbear is to ignore the scope of the tools that this administration and its minions are using to influence public opinion.

What we can do now to combat the flood of propaganda coming from Fox is what I suggested earlier in the thread. Go after their advertisers. Call them out each and every time. Marginalise them. Make them unpalatable. Get people to stop appearing on their panels. There isn’t a legislative fix to something when you don’t control the legislation. Its going to take direct action.

But its a mistake in my opinion to think that Fox News is the biggest problem. They are simply one channel in a vast and ever-growing propaganda machine. Its like thinking the Maginot Line will successfully stop the flood of propaganda only to discover that they overrun you simply by going through the Ardennes. They are conducting asymmetric warfare while we are digging trenches.

Nothing matters more than winning the next election.

What to do if Trump is defeated at the next election is an entirely different subject. I’m not in favour of things like the fairness doctrine. We live in a world where a guy in broadcasting out-of-his-bedroom can get an audience of millions. Try and bring it in and it will get locked up in the courts for decades. Fox would get creative: maybe set themselves up to broadcast in from Canada or something like that. The fairness doctrine worked when there was a scarcity of the broadcast spectrum but everyone has a platform now. You can’t force broadcasters to be “fair and balanced”: not when deciding if something is “fair and balanced” is an entirely subjective decision.

What can be examined though are the power structures. Facebook. The Sinclair Group. Big business has been skirting the boundaries of ethical behaviour for a very long time: what are they doing with peoples data? How big do we allow these companies to get, how much of a monopoly should they be allowed to have? I honestly can’t don’t know, but it needs to be a the forefront of any discussion.

But we all need to recognize that we are in a “post-truth era.” This is bigger than Fox. To learn how to combat post-truth I think we have to take lessons from the fight against goobergate. Gaters were at the fore-front of the post-truth age but we don’t hear much about them now. They were marginalised, deplatformed, and the people that they attacked fought back, reclaiming their spaces. You choose how to engage them. You don’t let them set the and control the narrative.

I’ll say it again: we are going to have to do a lot of the hard work ourselves. And that means fighting to win the next election. Then fighting to preserve your democracy. Push back against the talking points. Deplatform. Keep the elections fair. Get people out to vote. Don’t mistake the symptoms for the cause.

Because post-truthers aren’t going to give up without a fight and they aren’t ever going to go away completely. What we are seeing right now is the endgame of a strategy that started a long time ago. They are patient and they are not going anywhere even if you win the next election.

The best way to fight them is to attack the structures that preserve their power. Gerrymandering. Voter suppression. Start listening to the voices of marginalised people. They have been fighting these structures since the very beginnings of what we call the United States of America. Listen to people like Sarah Kendzior who had very loudly and clearly warned everyone what was about to happen when Trump got elected, and IMHO advocates the best course of action to deal with Trump now and what to do in his aftermath.

But Fox is just a foot soldier in a much bigger battle. Sure, they need to be addressed. But dealing with Fox won’t win the war.

82

To make his analogy a little more accurate is that McDonalds isn’t lobbying positions so much as passing stories that kale is poisonous and anybody who eats anything with kale in it is an idiot and forcing everyone else to eat kale as well.

The picture I have in my mind’s eye is that the ship of state has been struck by a rogue wave, broached, and is now heeled over at a forty-five degree angle. Anything not fastened down is crashing to the low side causing damage and injuring people. That some well-meaning people have been unclipping tie-downs and sawing through supports has not helped.

At such times a properly designed ship will have a force, called a righting moment, but the shifting has lessened this force and another wave is coming. With the righting moment compromised, even a wave smaller than the rogue wave could well cause the ship to capsize.

That’s why for the first time in my life I will be voting for the Democrat candidate for President regardless of who he or she is. To vote for the Republican is to join those who are busily sawing through the supports.

83

It’s not really a dance. Mostly because liberals believe that media bias begins and ends with Fox News. They don’t believe, or are not willing to admit, that any other sources - the ones they agree with - are biased.

So liberals won’t “continue this fight”. Silence Fox News, and then we’re done. That’s not a worthwhile approach.

OK. The SDMB is heavily dominated by liberals and liberal thought. In order to combat the real problem of liberal bias, we will need an approach that deals with media bias everywhere. What, in your view, is a good approach to combating media bias that can and should be applied both to MSNBC, and to Fox? Not one first, and then the other - both.

Regards,
Shodan

84

Heavy criticism when the reporting is contrary to the facts, including opinion journalism/infortainment disguised as news.

85

How about this: A medium is biased when it does not report on an issue in a way that reflects the reality about that issue.

Let’s say a media outlet is some state is frequently reporting about how one of the Senators in its state is involved in scandals while it rarely, if ever, reports on any scandals involving the other Senator. Does that mean the media outlet is biased against the first Senator and for the second Senator? Maybe. But it’s also possible that that the first Senator is genuinely involved in more sandals and the media outlet is just reporting the objective facts.

Going further, a media outlet in this state which gives equal scandal coverage to both Senators is actually biased despite its equal coverage. If the first Senator is involved in significantly more sandals then he should be receiving significantly more scandal coverage. Giving both Senators an equal amount of scandal coverage is bias in favor of the first Senator.

86

My comment was a response to Hurricane Ditka, and my questions were directed to him. Since you answered, please don’t ascribe motives to me or my OP. YOU are the one saying it’s fight Fox News and then done. I said otherwise. So one more time, and I’ll bold this so maybe it’ll stick this time:

Fox News is the most egregious example of bias, so we start there in proposing solutions. If you want to know what possible solutions I and others have discussed so far to determine for yourself if they’d work at MSNBC, Breitbart, et al, I suggest you read the thread. Feel free to propose your own solutions for Fox News and all the other biased media. That, after all, is what this thread is about. If you want to defend Fox News or bash the independents, liberals, and conservatives who criticize the bias, there’s another thread for that.

87

(emphasis mine)

Oh the irony is thick in here.

88

Nice dodge to avoid answering the questions. Actually, your refusal to answer is an answer in itself, and that IS ironic.

89

Fox has, at least for a good bit of the last 2+ years, been a part of the Trump administration itself. He’s gone to them for advice, for talking points, for policy pointers, for people to staff his administration, for phone calls, for ways to counter what he deems the “fake news”. There’s never been a station that is as intertwined with a president as much as Fox and Trump.

So, they set themselves apart based on that alone. People often bring up CNN or MSNBC. But those channels were not part of the Obama White House. Fox “News” is part of the West Wing currently.

I’m not sure there is a silver bullet solution for Fox News. But I think the first step is to Impeach Trump, and elect more Democrats in 2020.

90

You want an answer to “So you agree …?”

No, I don’t agree, and “please don’t ascribe motives to me”.

91

nelliebly, I’d encourage you to review Bone’s “So I’m wrong” rule.

92

I didn’t have to ascribe anything. You did that all on your own.

Sure, you made it conditional on the bias being removed from media in general, but that would include Fox News. So do tell: How do YOU propose to restore honesty, impartiality, and factuality to the media generally and to Fox News in particular, since that’s the subject of the thread?

93

This isn’t the only method, but as an example of a method that should function appropriately:

  1. Modify the Electoral College to be an actual deliberative group that assembles and does work.
  2. Explicitly declare the recruiting mechanism for the College. E.g., randomly select 12 people from each Congressional District and have them meet and nominate one person from among their number to join the College for that election cycle.
  3. The College will headhunt and interview candidates to lead the Media Rating Bureau. They will elect one using a Condorcet methodology across the entire body of the College. Previous to this, however, the College may perform a simple up-down vote to maintain the current director of the bureau. While interviewing, the College may request any experts or other entities for consultation, with Congress obligatorily covering these expenses, though the experts must travel to the assembly location and may not provide any thing of value to any College member beyond the answers to their questions.
  4. The Media Rating Bureau shall issue scores (or ratings) for news organizations based on those organizations’ worst examples of journalism, in terms of honesty, depth of research, non-partisan coverage, etc.
  5. Any organization receiving a score from the MRB may optionally choose to request a subsidy from the Federal government based on their score. The subsidy will be a percentile (which may exceed 100%) multiplied by their domestic, non-governmental revenue that year. Congress has no latitude in budgeting this expense.
  6. The percentile for each score will be determined by the Electoral College and remain unchanged until the next college. The College may call any current or previous members of the MRB, of Congress, or any other person or entity to consult with as a component of making this determination. (Though, the College must meet with all persons on the premises of the College Assembly and may not accept any thing of value except answers to their questions from these parties.)
  7. Similarly, the College will decide the operating budget for the MRB. These funds must be furnished to the MRB by Congress, obligatorily.
94

No, it strengthens my belief that the electoral college needs to be boned up and applied more widely.

95

Which liberals? Name them, please. Count me out. All US commercial media exist to sell eyeballs to advertisers, and thus do whatever it takes to keep and grow their audience. The FauxNuz audience is happy with bullshit, so that’s what they get.

No “electoral college” exists. That’s a retroactive label for unelected delegates who don’t meet except in bars and brothels. The US electoral system values less-populated states more than those where most Americans live. A Delaware voter is worth more than a Texan. Is that good? National losers are installed in power. How well does that work?

Impose such a system on other areas? So losers always rule? I hope not.

96

It is telling that Fox News dropped their original slogan (Fair and balanced) some years ago in favor of Most Watched. Most Trusted. Nuthin’ about factual.

97

Instead of Fox news you would prefer us, or heck require us, to watch the Clinton News Network?

98

Nobody is required to watch any TV news. You are not required to watch Fox. You are free to develop your own views without having them spoon fed to you by your favorite talking heads. You are allowed to think for yourself.

99

If I don’t believe “that any other sources - the ones * agree with - are biased”, then how come I’ve said – approximately a thousand times – that to some degree there is bias in all media? Perhaps you would cease making this claim if I said it another thousand times, but I doubt it.

The difference with Fox is also something that’s been alluded to quite often in these forums. Fox News is special; it isn’t just biased, it lies, it distorts, and it selectively omits and misrepresents material facts in order to aggressively push Republican politicians and Republican ideology. Examples abound in the GD thread dedicated to this topic. Other media may have bias, but no one else even comes close to this outright mendacity.

The goal here isn’t to silence Fox News, although you’d have to admit, Fox being the biggest and most egregious of the lying right-wing media outside of maybe Infowars and Breitbart, doing so would go a long way to restoring balance in media and a more functional democracy.

What “approach” do you think is necessary for MSNBC, which tends to have liberal commentators and an acknowledged liberal bias? Whereas Republican-supporting wingnuts have huge pipelines of disinformation of which Fox News is the flagship, but they also have talk radio, Infowars, Breitbart, Newsmax, the WSJ, National Review, and of course thousands of morons flooding social media about Hillary Clinton’s pedophilia or Joe Biden’s corruption.

One might think that at least requiring factual accuracy in news reporting might help, and requiring a clean separation between news and opinion, but I know just how Fox News would handle that, because they’re already doing it. In addition to all their other tricks like minimizing unfavorable news, lying about, and flooding their front page and airwaves with ridiculously biased and inaccurate commentary, I’ve noticed a tendency lately to react to bad Republican news by aping Trump’s “people are saying” gambit. So instead of reporting on the bad-news event, they report on what lying Republican hacks are saying about it, thus magically turning it into a good-news event!

100

The purpose of the Electoral College is not to balance rural versus urban states. That is how the numbers were chosen but it’s not the central purpose.

The purpose was to ensure that reasonable and educated individuals perform due diligence to select a President. That purpose has been destroyed and replaced with populist rule by state.

Populism is what creates things like caudillos. When people say, “The US is becoming a Banana Republic”, they mean that it is veering away from reasoned and deliberative rule towards populist rule.

Removing the Electoral College will give the urban states extra power, but it also gives the majority more power and the majority like soap opera, charisma, entertainment, conspiracy theories, and us vs. themism.

The move towards populism had already given us GW Bush and Trump. Must you really continue to move the ball in that direction?