Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I think you're right. Good journalism is crucial to democracy and I think one of the things that is currently undermining it is both people's distrust of the media causing them to seek even more partisan reporting and the fact that an absolute truth doesn't seem to exist anymore. When nothing is true anymore and the answer to any story, any evidence, is that 'well, that's one side of it' then we'll never agree on anything. How can we agree when there is no common ground?
This suits some people's agenda though and you've nailed it when you say it causes disquiet and paralysis: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/wo...formation.html
I only disagree with you on the last line:
I am not sure what the alternative is and I think any clamp down will be exactly the reaction the enemies of the West, and there are enemies of the West, want. Look at how much of a PR coup for Russia Natwest closing their accounts was. RT/Sputnik are constantly on the lookout for examples of Western hypocrisy to justify Russia's lack of a free press.
We are in dangerous times though and I do worry. |
There is no answer to this. Thanks largely to the internet and social media large numbers of people are being presented with all sorts of convincingly distorted 'facts' (even doctored images/videos) which they choose to believe for one reason or another. Rather than question the sources or seek alternative views/reasoning before deciding, it's easier for them to accept what's presented, especially if it confirms what they already believe or is simply what they want to hear. Isn't this why so many students simply do a Google search for information and then base their work on what comes up at the top of the list. Google's effectively doing their thinking! In the past we relied upon the likes of the BBC and mainly well established and credible (albeit biased) newspapers to present information but now people are exposed to information from all over the world and increasingly form their opinions from that, often without question. There's so much information around, it's getting increasingly difficult to tell what's real anymore. The consequence of a digital existence isn't just losing ourselves in entertainment, it's increasingly blurring the boundaries of reality in all other aspects of our lives particularly for those who've known nothing different in their short lives. Check your email inbox every day for evidence of that - seemingly genuine messages from what appear to be major, trusted, institutions which are not only fake but are designed to do you harm. Now we have seemingly genuine news providers making it up to suit their warped agenda and very convincingly so.
The genie is out of the bottle, there is no answer to this and not so slowly but surely we're heading in a dangerous direction which will leave us all open to influence, exploitation and control by all sorts of dubious interests from all around the globe. What's real nowadays depends on who/what we choose to believe...
Anyway, on a lighter note, I notice Obama's not above the old project fear trick - this time it's only the 'fate of the world' which is at stake thankfully...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37854525
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President Barack Obama has urged Democrats of all ethnic backgrounds to get out and vote for Hillary Clinton, warning that the fate of the US republic - and the world - is at stake.
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I wonder if it'll do for the Democrats what it did for the Remainers?...