Yea, I think the absolute scariest thing I've seen come from social media and the manipulation of mass media is that people believe the first thing they hear and don't do their due diligence to find the facts for themselves. This is a whole other conversation, but social media is extremely dangerous in that regard in that, while it can be used for good, more often than not misinformation spreads like wildfire and then nobody knows what the true narrative is.
Not to harp on the "blue checkmark" train, but to critique that for a moment, how many people that are "verified" actually have the credentials to back it up? In my experience, very few do, and the amount of influence that they wield as untrustworthy sources of information baffles me daily.
I do feel like it loops back to Woodward and the exact circumstances surrounding this particular news item, specifically because of how polarized society's become and in no small part due to the media shit. Case in point, circumstances have devolved to the point that is this news item going to be persuasive, or really informative, in any way whatsoever? As other posters pointed out, most folks fell into one of two camps: convinced this was already the case and Trump was lying from the beginning, or were going to do what Trump says come hell or high water.
Most on social and broadcast/print media are simply fighting over whether this news item is relevant in the first place, not the implications of it on the past six months of pandemic response policy. That may be a thin distinction but it's important, since the mere presence of the distinction speaks to exactly how buggered the state of US media is.
And believe me, I'll be the first person to hop on the "blue check" train. After all, this is what I found waiting for me when I checked Twitter this morning:
Literally a Nobel laureate, and one of the most respected and influential economists on the planet. And I could list other examples all day -- Rachel Maddow, an Oxford-educated scholar, turning herself into the Democratic party's answer to Glenn Beck for a paycheck, immediately also springs to mind. We're far enough into the age of truthiness, that even credentials are no measure of trustworthiness or credibility. Hell, Woodward's still one of the most respected names in journalism even accounting for his Bush era misadventure, and his opinion carries massive weight still -- but on the other hand, the timing of this news item is seriously damaging to his own credibility on the subject.
Long story short though, until ad dollars are taken out of the equation for mass media, corruption is always going to be present.
I'm all for pushing profit motive out of reporting, but on the other hand I feel simply re-regulating the media would be the most vital first step. Media literacy programs, restoring the Fairness Doctrine, mandatory disclaimers of ownership and advertisement, strict prohibition on conflicted interest (this bullshit of seeing pharma commercials in ad breaks between segments on health care's gotta go), breaking up these damn hyper-consolidated and integrated media outlets, all of it.
It's ridiculous AT&T and Comcast in particular have integrated and consolidated to the point they facially run afoul of
US v. Paramount having far exceeded Paramount's own scope and scale in that case, and not only are they getting away with it, it's being tacitly endorsed by the federal government
and advertised as a net positive to the American public.
Here’s my problem with this whole mess. It’s still way better than like 4 decades+ ago. All the major media companies had to toe the line with the administrations. Lies like the war in Iraq were commonplace but nobody reported on them. There wasn’t honesty in journalism back then, just being a propaganda machine. It would have made Stalin proud.
Dubya's admin was the one that figured out they could barter and auction access for administration-friendly reporting.
www.vox.com
www.markey.senate.gov
www.nytimes.com
www.cbs8.com
USA
