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On January 23 2022 04:12 Starlightsun wrote:
the more insidious harms of undermining trust in journalism
I won't speak to any of the other ones, but if Trump really is right to be credited with undermining trust in journalism (or specifically, mainstream US-based journalism), then that should be notched down as one of his best achievements. The trustworthiness of US media evaporated long ago, its conflicts of interests become more painfully obvious by the day (look who owns these outlets), and the only item that was in doubt was when public opinion would catch up to the fact. Maybe when Trump got into a spat with CNN and called it fake news, even if he did this out of petty self-interest, it got people to realize that maybe CNN and the outlets like it really are pretty bad when it comes to overall journalistic integrity.
I don't doubt that the press would objectively interpret even a well-founded attack on their own journalistic integrity as anything other than the most evilest thing that has to be stopped. So the coverage would naturally gravitate towards looking like that.
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On January 23 2022 05:07 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 04:12 Starlightsun wrote:
the more insidious harms of undermining trust in journalism I won't speak to any of the other ones, but if Trump really is right to be credited with undermining trust in journalism (or specifically, mainstream US-based journalism), then that should be notched down as one of his best achievements. The trust worthiness of US media evaporated long ago, its conflicts of interests become more painfully obvious by the day (look who owns these outlets), and the only item that was in doubt was when public opinion would catch up to the fact. Maybe when Trump got into a spat with CNN and called it fake news, even if he did this out of petty self-interest, it got people to realize that maybe CNN and the outlets like it really are pretty bad when it comes to overall journalistic integrity. I don't doubt that the press would objectively interpret even a well-founded attack on their own journalistic integrity as anything other than the most evilest thing that has to be stopped. So the coverage would naturally gravitate towards looking like that.
I don't disagree that journalism is in a bad state. If instead of just trashing journalism in general he had advanced some reforms on that front then it would be to his credit. As bad as much journalism is though, I think most of the time it is from misleading framing, emphasis or omission rather than just making stuff up. So it is still an important source of fact for us all. The idea that facts about current events cannot be known or verified, because the press only lies, is incredibly damaging imo.
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Yeah that's an incredibly dumb opinion. There are plenty of places still doing reliable journalism, and they are not the publications Trump was friendly with.
The baseline media standard in the US might not be high, but the idea that Trump was somehow working to raise it is absurd and dangerous.
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On January 23 2022 03:00 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 02:44 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 23 2022 00:55 confusedzerg wrote:On January 18 2022 01:30 KwarK wrote:
That is the worst possible take.
Trump harmed a shitton of people and was stopped from harming even more by the narrowest of margins (fucking deathbed McCain blocked the repeal of the ACA). The fact that you can’t tell the difference between before Trump and after Trump doesn’t mean that they’re all the same, it means you’re not very observant.
If I couldn’t tell the difference between chocolate syrup and diarrhea you wouldn’t want me pouring one over your ice cream and telling you that it’s all basically the same. What did you actually notice change in your day to day life? Please tell me and do not mention a single thing you read on article or news. I noticed I paid a little less on Medicare taxes but that was it. Please remember to ignore articles because articles cannot be trusted. Media is biased. That is why Republicans think Trump was so great because they read different media than you. Only I don't lack the self awareness to realize it's all biased bullshit. Only data and research study can be trusted. So only answer with your own experience because it seems like whenever I ask this question people say "Omg concentration camp!" but those were going on since Obama no matter what CNN or Washington Post tell you. Or maybe you say "He did muslim ban!" yet the two countries with the highest number of muslim were not banned. But again these are not things you noticed in your day to day life. So focus on that because I do not want to get into useless debate with someone who gets their information from journalists and media. Only research study and sometimes polling can be used to make a point. Thank you. You people say I am nihilist, cynic, but it is just realistic. I think not many people actually make into politics with good intentions. Remember how big of a role nepotism plays in US government. Thank you. No doubt the media is biased and frequently peddles misinformation for ratings purposes, but some of their trump scandals must be acknowledged as fair and accurate. Family separation certainly appears to be one. That said, there is a good faith argument that trump did not cause more harm to people than other presidents. For example, trump did not cause calamity in any foreign countries. By contrast, Obama through acts of folly caused calamity in Libya and Iraq, resulting in rape and death by the thousands. So as a utilitarian analysis, it is not cut and dry that trump caused more harm to people than other presidents. Thousands of rapes through Obama's actions? Do you have a source for that? I mean, normally people blame Obama for continuing the drone strikes and so on, but that one I hadn't heard before.
The idea is that the conditions created or exacerbated by the US/NATO intervention resulted in rape and death over the subsequent years, including a second civil war. Obama was not shy about meddling in the internal affairs of foreign countries for the purpose of dislodging their governments. That's the quintessential American folly that trump (like no other modern president) avoided.
On January 23 2022 04:12 Starlightsun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 02:44 Doc.Rivers wrote:
That said, there is a good faith argument that trump did not cause more harm to people than other presidents. For example, trump did not cause calamity in any foreign countries. By contrast, Obama through acts of folly caused calamity in Libya and Iraq, resulting in rape and death by the thousands. So as a utilitarian analysis, it is not cut and dry that trump caused more harm to people than other presidents.
I suppose he was unlucky to have covid happen during his presidency, but he caused an incredible amount of death and harm by downplaying and then politicizing the virus. Then there are the more insidious harms of undermining trust in journalism and elections, inflaming racial/class tensions, and normalizing compulsive lying and conspiracy theories. Do you not consider those harms?
As for covid I've always assumed that the US response was always bound to be state based, due to states rather than the fed govt having the police power. People seem to only criticize trump for not using his power of persuasion as he should have, but I'm not sure how impactful that would really be. Trump has always encouraged people to get the vaccine, and they basically boo him for it.
As for the other things I would dispute some of them (and trumps opponents may have caused half the harm in their zeal to destroy him and his presidency), but they are more so societal harms as opposed to harm to individuals in a direct sense. I believe the original claim concerned harm to people.
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@Doc.Rivers
People seem to only criticize trump for not using his power of persuasion as he should have, but I'm not sure how impactful that would really be. Trump has always encouraged people to get the vaccine, and they basically boo him for it.
His biggest problem with the pandemic was that he vehemently denied it was going to be an issue for months all while the virus spread. Closing travel from China and signing off on speedrunning the vaccine trials, he can claim as wins, but let's not forget his abysmal response. I don't care much for the bleach comments or bright light stuff. His problem with Covid was that he refused to be anything other than a cheerleader for the country.
"The economy will be better than ever, China Flu will be gone by Easter, dont worry". - paraphrasing
But that sort of rhetoric blabbered out for months really fucked over his base who then took a carefree view to the pandemic. We are still seeing those leadership choices have longlasting effects, where still to this day, many of his base claim the pandemic is all a lie of some sort.
All that said, had Hillary been president, I honestly think the death toll would be relatively similar.
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Russian Federation102 Posts
https://unintendedconsequenc.es/bezmenovs-steps/
"Ideological subversion or active measures [meaning] psychological warfare… What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that, despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.”
This is what I am talking about. Some of you may have missed my point as is evidenced by the focus on Trump. For example, Republicans and conservatives are so convinced they are right. On one hand, some of you are so convinced you are right because you read articles. You trash talk studies but they can be relied upon more consistently than articles. Republicans are truly convinced they are not racist, liberals are convinced they are racist, republicans think vaccines cause autism, democrats think they save lives and are completely effective and should be mandatory. All of these aside, it creates a bigger issue...
What I am trying to point out is the self awareness that is lacking. It is not cynical but it hopes to make you realize who the true enemy is and what they are really doing which is a hard pill to swallow because it may make one think "I am stupid" but in reality there is no shame in it... Many of you have "us against them" mentality, where the "them" is created in your head; the opponent rarely exists as you picture them. The current system is engineered so well that "falling for it" is no shame. You are not stupid. I am not smart.
I do not think I can make any more progress here so I will leave it at that. You all of course interpreted this as me being pro-Trump or something, but I hate Trump too. But I hate him precisely because he didnt do what many of you hate him for. It's not about trump or obama or biden or any particular politician. it's about seeing the two party system, recognizing what it does to us, and how we can fight it. But more importantly, what the media does, how it creates a narrative, how it is so effective in gathering attention, and how it is dangerous to us.
I mean even things like covid vaccine are politicized... Like, really? Read the studies and form your own conclusion*. But I guess humans are happiest when they feel like they belong to a particular movement or crowd. If what I am saying is so controversial then I think we have already lost, and that is not okay with me because I want a good future for my kids and my kids kids, if we cannot reach the inevitable collapse now then I will have sadness because it means my kids will have to deal with it and I do not want this... I want to deal with it, not them.
*I mean 'you' figuratively here not talking about any of you, it was just example of how things are politicized to create division because it brings profits. But you all do not realize this, some of you think there is reliable journalism, there is rarely such thing as each company has an owner, and an owner is human. You may think is reliable because it agrees with your worldview or coincide with it, but in reality it is the system at work meant to keep you complacent.
You guys call it a "dumb take" or "silly opinion", please do not disregard it as such. Read this and digest it. Like someone else said, capitalism is big part of the problem, but I fear that person was implying communism was better. This is not my stance but please understand the direction we are heading before it is too late (it already may be, but awareness is better)
Thank you.
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United States43630 Posts
It’s weird that you keep coming up with the worst takes so reliably. Laypeople should absolutely not be reading medical studies and evaluating their conclusions themselves. They also shouldn’t be designing their own bridges and generating their own nuclear power.
There isn’t a truth in the middle where people decide for themselves. Liberals don’t advocate for mass vaccination as a tribal thing, virologists advocate for it and liberals advocate for doing the thing the experts recommend.
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
@confusedzerg who here has trash talked studies?
If I were to pigeonhole posters here and in the Covid it’s (largely) people on the left, who don’t like or trust the Dems or have loyalty to them, and who post a lot of studies.
I don’t think you’re entirely wrong just, frequently half right. Yes everything has some degree of bias, but not everything is equally biased. And if one is aware of likely biases you can take a source factoring that into account. People like their tribes but not to the same degree of fervour.
Likewise people are multifaceted and have many qualities, I don’t particularly see someone as innately my ‘enemy’ outside of a ground we disagree on.
There’s plenty of otherwise more admirable people than I in my life, but they’ll have ridiculous positions, I will disagree when those positions come up, but otherwise it doesn’t mean I think they’re an awful person. And least with people I know IRL this usually works.
It’s not on me to stop having my opinions on a specific issue because some people take it as an attack on the totality of their being.
I also think the media’s role is exaggerated. I don’t think it’s coincidence that by far the most toxic wider political environment I’ve encountered coincides with people having individual control on the kind of news they consume.
Even peak Gore v Bush times weren’t nearly this fractured
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On January 23 2022 12:02 KwarK wrote:
It’s weird that you keep coming up with the worst takes so reliably. Laypeople should absolutely not be reading medical studies and evaluating their conclusions themselves. They also shouldn’t be designing their own bridges and generating their own nuclear power.
There isn’t a truth in the middle where people decide for themselves. Liberals don’t advocate for mass vaccination as a tribal thing, virologists advocate for it and liberals advocate for doing the thing the experts recommend.
I'm going to disagree with you on this one. I've had some success with vaccine-hesitant people by just googling studies together. In addition, if you're so jaded about journalism and facts like confusedzerg seems to be, this may be the only way out of the rabbit hole for some.
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On January 23 2022 06:54 Belisarius wrote:
Yeah that's an incredibly dumb opinion. There are plenty of places still doing reliable journalism, and they are not the publications Trump was friendly with.
The baseline media standard in the US might not be high, but the idea that Trump was somehow working to raise it is absurd and dangerous.
The idea that Trump undermining traditional journalism is a good thing is really puzzling to me too, considering that the alternative is fringe media, conspiracy theorists and plain old online lies.
Trump attacks the traditional media not because they are bad or biaised, but because they expose his lies.
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Dunno if anyones seen the ThedaCare thing, but seven members of their interventional cardiovascular/radiology care team quit and got jobs at a competitor, Ascension, and ThedaCare took it to court to stop their former staff leaving and the judge granted an injunction.
One ThedaCare person applied to Ascension and got a better offer there and took the job, and then six more people heard and went along with them, leaving like four people in ThedaCare's stroke care team. The people went to ThedaCare looking for a counter offer to which ThedaCare replied, "the long term expense to ThedaCare was not worth the short term cost."
So they decided to get lawyers involved because why spend money on paying your employees fair wages when you can instead pay lawyers to try and force them to stay with their shittier wages? So,
ThedaCare requested Thursday that an Outagamie County judge temporarily block seven of its employees who had applied for and accepted jobs at Ascension from beginning work there on Monday until the health system could find replacements for them.
Muth argued that ThedaCare had weeks to come up with better offers to keep their employees or figure out alternate staffing solutions and instead chose to initiate court action days before the workers were set to start at Ascension, resulting in "a mess of ThedaCare's own making."
Wisconsin is an at will employment state to my knowledge, but the judge decided to go with ThedaCare here,
Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis granted ThedaCare's request and held an initial hearing Friday morning. The case will get a longer hearing at 10 a.m. Monday.
McGinnis told lawyers for both health systems they should try to work out a temporary agreement by the end of the day Friday about the employees' status until Monday's hearing.
Otherwise, he said, the order prohibiting them from going to work at Ascension would be final until a further ruling was made. That means the seven health care workers would not be working at either hospital on Monday.
So its at will unless its the will of your employer for you to stay, then they can get the courts to back them up? Surely this isn't going to work and Ascension's new employees are just going to be able to start their new jobs because elsewise this is starting to get indentured servitude-y.
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/21/what-we-know-ascension-thedacare-court-battle-over-employees/6607417001/
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America yall
If theres truly no replacements and the suit is to protect the public Thedacare should have to pay the higher wages until they bring new people on. Still really makes no sense that this is allowed.
The comment about the workers not working at either hospital is confusing. Isnt the point of this to make them go back to work at Thedacare?
Also, thedacares comments about "poaching" employees is a big thing i hate about america. Non-compete clauses, unofficial I wont hire any of your guys if you dont hire mine, etc. All it does is allow businesses not to compete with one another and keep wages down. That shit should be illegal.
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On January 23 2022 17:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 06:54 Belisarius wrote:
Yeah that's an incredibly dumb opinion. There are plenty of places still doing reliable journalism, and they are not the publications Trump was friendly with.
The baseline media standard in the US might not be high, but the idea that Trump was somehow working to raise it is absurd and dangerous. The idea that Trump undermining traditional journalism is a good thing is really puzzling to me too, considering that the alternative is fringe media, conspiracy theorists and plain old online lies. Trump attacks the traditional media not because they are bad or biaised, but because they expose his lies.
I agree with this. He calls anyone/anything that disagrees with him "fake news", regardless of whether the news is objective and/or factual. He doesn't actually critically examine different sources or pieces for accuracy and decide that some things are good, reliable journalism while other things aren't worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.
On January 23 2022 17:17 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 12:02 KwarK wrote:
It’s weird that you keep coming up with the worst takes so reliably. Laypeople should absolutely not be reading medical studies and evaluating their conclusions themselves. They also shouldn’t be designing their own bridges and generating their own nuclear power.
There isn’t a truth in the middle where people decide for themselves. Liberals don’t advocate for mass vaccination as a tribal thing, virologists advocate for it and liberals advocate for doing the thing the experts recommend. I'm going to disagree with you on this one. I've had some success with vaccine-hesitant people by just googling studies together. In addition, if you're so jaded about journalism and facts like confusedzerg seems to be, this may be the only way out of the rabbit hole for some.
When KwarK wrote "laypeople", I understood that to mean (perhaps tautologically) "People who can't understand what they're reading shouldn't be drawing conclusions about what they're reading, and if they can understand it, then they're no longer merely a layperson". When you (EnDeR) discuss a peer-reviewed study with a layperson, I think the additional lens of clarity and understanding that you provide helps a layperson to be a little less of a layperson, if that makes any sense. (I have similar success with the minority of anti-vaxxers who are actually willing to read through a study with me, as I can provide context and a background of statistics to help them understand, rather than throwing a journal article at them and walking away, expecting them to figure it all out on their own.)
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On January 23 2022 20:41 Sadist wrote:
America yall
If theres truly no replacements and the suit is to protect the public Thedacare should have to pay the higher wages until they bring new people on. Still really makes no sense that this is allowed.
The comment about the workers not working at either hospital is confusing. Isnt the point of this to make them go back to work at Thedacare?
Also, thedacares comments about "poaching" employees is a big thing i hate about america. Non-compete clauses, unofficial I wont hire any of your guys if you dont hire mine, etc. All it does is allow businesses not to compete with one another and keep wages down. That shit should be illegal.
Id bet that there are no replacements at the wages/benefits theyre offering, but employers arent willing to think that way because they demand the upper hand, its all Free Market! until the Free Market stops entirely working for them, lol.
The poaching claims are funny too because Ascension didnt reach out, the employees applied to Ascension, lol. Such a joke, the company had plenty of time to find new employees or match Ascension's offer but god forbid you do that, instead try to use the courts to strong arm the rabble back into their places!
EDIT: Unrelated, but I just saw and was appalled by the 2022 Federal Poverty guidelines sooooo,
2022 Federal Poverty level is apparently, for a single individual, 13,590 dollars, which is less than someone makes at the federal minimum wage full time (~15,000 dollars), lol. I wonder what US poverty statistics would look like if the US government classified poverty in some vaguely sane way.
Quick googling indicates nearly 15% of the US lives under the poverty line, lol, I seriously want to know what the poverty levels look like with a reasonable poverty line.
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On January 23 2022 17:50 Zambrah wrote:Dunno if anyones seen the ThedaCare thing, but seven members of their interventional cardiovascular/radiology care team quit and got jobs at a competitor, Ascension, and ThedaCare took it to court to stop their former staff leaving and the judge granted an injunction. One ThedaCare person applied to Ascension and got a better offer there and took the job, and then six more people heard and went along with them, leaving like four people in ThedaCare's stroke care team. The people went to ThedaCare looking for a counter offer to which ThedaCare replied, "the long term expense to ThedaCare was not worth the short term cost." So they decided to get lawyers involved because why spend money on paying your employees fair wages when you can instead pay lawyers to try and force them to stay with their shittier wages? So, Show nested quote +ThedaCare requested Thursday that an Outagamie County judge temporarily block seven of its employees who had applied for and accepted jobs at Ascension from beginning work there on Monday until the health system could find replacements for them. Show nested quote +Muth argued that ThedaCare had weeks to come up with better offers to keep their employees or figure out alternate staffing solutions and instead chose to initiate court action days before the workers were set to start at Ascension, resulting in "a mess of ThedaCare's own making." Wisconsin is an at will employment state to my knowledge, but the judge decided to go with ThedaCare here, Show nested quote +Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis granted ThedaCare's request and held an initial hearing Friday morning. The case will get a longer hearing at 10 a.m. Monday.
McGinnis told lawyers for both health systems they should try to work out a temporary agreement by the end of the day Friday about the employees' status until Monday's hearing.
Otherwise, he said, the order prohibiting them from going to work at Ascension would be final until a further ruling was made. That means the seven health care workers would not be working at either hospital on Monday. So its at will unless its the will of your employer for you to stay, then they can get the courts to back them up? Surely this isn't going to work and Ascension's new employees are just going to be able to start their new jobs because elsewise this is starting to get indentured servitude-y. https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/21/what-we-know-ascension-thedacare-court-battle-over-employees/6607417001/
I don't get it. What's their legal basis for prohibiting the employees from working at a competitor? Is there a non-compete clause to their contract or something?
The article is long but doesn't seem to answer the most glaring question of "how is this even a thing?" Is there some specific legislation that forbids critical workers from leaving their jobs without notice?
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I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
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On January 23 2022 23:43 Gorsameth wrote:
I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
So US judges can force employees to work somewhere against their will if it would otherwise cause a health crisis? I'm just surprised that there's legal justification for this.
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On January 23 2022 23:51 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 23:43 Gorsameth wrote:
I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
So US judges can force employees to work somewhere against their will if it would otherwise cause a health crisis? I'm just surprised that there's legal justification for this.
It’s a one off state judge’s emergency ruling, so I’d keep an eye on the case for the reasons you and Zambrah identified, it doesn’t really withstand basic scrutiny.
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On January 23 2022 23:43 Gorsameth wrote:
I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
On January 23 2022 23:51 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 23:43 Gorsameth wrote:
I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
So US judges can force employees to work somewhere against their will if it would otherwise cause a health crisis? I'm just surprised that there's legal justification for this.
The judge isn't forcing the employees to work. The order only prevents them from working for the new employer. Which is the stupidest part of the whole thing if you think about it logically. We're having an employee shortage so we're going to stop these professionals from working at all.
On January 24 2022 00:15 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 23:51 Sbrubbles wrote:On January 23 2022 23:43 Gorsameth wrote:
I believe the argument is supposed to be that without these employees they can't provide critical care and since their the only provider in the region it would cause a health crisis.
So US judges can force employees to work somewhere against their will if it would otherwise cause a health crisis? I'm just surprised that there's legal justification for this. It’s a one off state judge’s emergency ruling, so I’d keep an eye on the case for the reasons you and Zambrah identified, it doesn’t really withstand basic scrutiny.
It is also worth pointing out that this judge specifically has previous corruption.
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On January 23 2022 05:59 Starlightsun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 05:07 LegalLord wrote:On January 23 2022 04:12 Starlightsun wrote:
the more insidious harms of undermining trust in journalism I won't speak to any of the other ones, but if Trump really is right to be credited with undermining trust in journalism (or specifically, mainstream US-based journalism), then that should be notched down as one of his best achievements. The trust worthiness of US media evaporated long ago, its conflicts of interests become more painfully obvious by the day (look who owns these outlets), and the only item that was in doubt was when public opinion would catch up to the fact. Maybe when Trump got into a spat with CNN and called it fake news, even if he did this out of petty self-interest, it got people to realize that maybe CNN and the outlets like it really are pretty bad when it comes to overall journalistic integrity. I don't doubt that the press would objectively interpret even a well-founded attack on their own journalistic integrity as anything other than the most evilest thing that has to be stopped. So the coverage would naturally gravitate towards looking like that. I don't disagree that journalism is in a bad state. If instead of just trashing journalism in general he had advanced some reforms on that front then it would be to his credit. As bad as much journalism is though, I think most of the time it is from misleading framing, emphasis or omission rather than just making stuff up. So it is still an important source of fact for us all. The idea that facts about current events cannot be known or verified, because the press only lies, is incredibly damaging imo.
It should be noted, there are a fair number of major stories that turn out to be false, and thus cannot be relied on as a source of fact. Two examples are Russian bounties and the early 2017 NYT story saying there were numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence officials (which Jim Comey described during congressional testimony as "fiction").
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EPT
