tillingborn wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:15 am
I don't mean to trivialise it, but it is quite obvious that in a free market, journalists will choose stories and present them in a way that will appeal to a certain audience.
Of course. But "appeal" can be had for both good and bad reasons. A journalist could "appeal" to the public on the basis that his/her information, is more important, more accurate, more fair, more thorough and more urgent than the offerings of others. That's what it used to mean when journalists spoke of "getting a scoop" on the rest -- it meant beating other journalists
to the truth, not merely making up wilder, more controversial or more partisan stories than they could.
It is also transparently obvious that powerful interests will seek to exploit the media, which in a democracy means manipulating the electorate.
They will try. That's what democracy is continually fighting to prevent, of course. And needless to say, giving up on fighting that does not lead to better democracy. It leads by the swiftest road to some form of tyranny and exploitation.
It is tempting to believe that journalists who say what you want to hear are telling the truth, I know I find it much easier to believe things I already believe, for which reason the answer, as you suggest, is trust no one unconditionally, including oneself.
The problem is that neither you nor I has time or means to gather all the information we need in order to make informed decisions. And there is a ton of information out there about our public officials that is highly relevant to our democratic decision-making, but which is currently being controlled by unscrupulous media types. We're getting both disinformation and withholding of good information. And you and I can't compensate for the withholding of information by merely being skeptical: because we don't even know the information exists that we are supposed to be practicing our skepticism on. It's entirely hidden from our view.
That's the case with the Biden laptop. The problem was never the credulity of the public, in that case; it was merely that the public had no idea that the thing existed. So their skepticism didn't help them a bit.
