Should news media be allowed to lie?

NthOther
It doesn't matter if they lie or not. There's an off switch.

It does matter. "We The People" did not all come together to form a more perfect propaganda machine by which the elite could rule the world and divide the people through mass deception.

The news is there to gather information and do their best to accurately inform the public. We count on this information to come to a consensus on important issues.

We shouldn't be giving news organizations a free pass on deception and blame people for falling for it. That's like saying con artists aren't a problem, people who trust them are. I'm sure the con artists love that philosophy, though.

reply to post by spiritualzombie


Again, who defines the truth and who defines the lie?

The reason why there traditionally is no major media watchdog in this country is because it was assumed that a bunch of competitive news outlets would all try to find the truth in an effort to outcompete each other. Of course, they would all have different points of view, but a well informed populace would be presumed to be able to find the truth amongst the noise.

The rise of the Internet and citizen journalists with their mobile devices has opened up the media market again from the bottleneck that the Big 3 nets used to enjoy, so there is no longer quite the stranglehold on the "truth" that they used to enjoy. Nowadays there are as many different viewpoints as there likely were in the early days. All you have to do is seek them out and find the truth for yourself rather than depend on anyone to deliver it to you.

All that would happen in you put the government in charge of it is that you would wind up with Pravda and one "official" version that may or may not be the truth, but is only what the government deems is good for you to know.

Why do you think so many places (and the UN) are so eager to control the Internet? It's impossible to clamp down on and allows a steady trickle of competing information into places that would otherwise prefer there to be just one version of the truth.

ketsuko
reply to post by spiritualzombie

 

Again, who defines the truth and who defines the lie?

Intention plays a strong role.

As a news organization, is it our intention to tell the truth, or is it our intention to manipulate and misinform the people?

Is the intention of FOX News, for example, to truly inform the people with a fair and balanced approach? That is their claim, but is it their intention?

reply to post by spiritualzombie


Yes, yes, we get it already, you hate Fox News. but consider this, in the older, more romantic days of the news and journalism, you used to have sometimes as many as three main newspapers in a city competing against on another for readership. In those days, it was considered a coupe to break a big story before any of others could. That was called a "scoop" and every paper had investigative reporters whose job it was to break the scoops. If you were the only outlet reporting either a blatantly different angle on something or just reporting something period, you had an exclusive.

These were highly sought after.

Now let's look at today. We have the big three. How often do they deviate in what they say in any major sense? How often do they "scoop" one another or break an exclusive? You understand that for the most part, what separates them is the talking head who's feeding you the news which is mainly the same story from station to station.

When did they stop competing and is that a healthy thing for anyone and why did they stop competing?

Why does it seem that Fox news is often the only one with anything different to say or even different stories?

You say it's because they lie, but maybe it's because they're competing in the way news outlets were traditionally supposed to.

ketsuko
reply to post by spiritualzombie

 

Yes, yes, we get it already, you hate Fox News.

Why does it seem that Fox news is often the only one with anything different to say or even different stories?

You say it's because they lie, but maybe it's because they're competing in the way news outlets were traditionally supposed to.

FOX News is just one example... Feel free to add others. They are self-proclaimed "Fair and Balanced" and the "Most Trusted News Source". So do you believe their claim of a "fair and balanced" approach is in alignment with their intentions?

If their claims don't match their intentions, you get dishonesty. Dishonesty is at the root of lies, manipulation, distortion of truth.

reply to post by spiritualzombie


Well, "fair and balanced" does not imply that they are impartial, unbiased news source like some who are biased and still claim to be hard news, nothing but the facts.

Which would you prefer - the one that doesn't claim to lack bias or the one that does but is still biased.

Realize the no matter what, every news source will have some degree of bias. It's human nature.

ketsuko
reply to post by spiritualzombie

 

Well, "fair and balanced" does not imply that they are impartial, unbiased news source like some who are biased and still claim to be hard news, nothing but the facts.

Which would you prefer - the one that doesn't claim to lack bias or the one that does but is still biased.

Realize the no matter what, every news source will have some degree of bias. It's human nature.

I would prefer an honest representation of their intentions.

"Fair and Balanced", "Most Trusted News Source" implies unbiased, hard facts.... It also implies worthy of trust.

So, right out of the gate, the most trusted news source is being misleading and distorting the truth.

Well, we do have a constitutional right to lie, and while I would like to see untainted news the fact of the matter is that clean news just doesn't exist, there are way to many influencing factors (politics, religion, peoples' opinions to name a few). So until the day come when we get to see and hear true stories, of importance that weren't tampered with I take the relatively insignificant things with a grain of salt.

Two words.

FREE MARKET

spiritualzombie
Many people believe that major news outlets lie to their audience regularly and that misleading the public has become business as usual.

My question to ATS... Do you think media outlets that identify themselves as "news" organizations should be allowed to intentionally lie or mislead the public?

If you do believe in the right to lie, is it a broad right, or only specific circumstances where lying or misleading is okay?

What harm or benefit do you see in a news organization that lies to or misleads its audience?

How about a counter-question? If one were to believe they shouldn't be allowed to lie, where does that leave opinion pieces? Some people believe a journalist with an opinion is being dishonest even if he/she has informed them that it's just an opinion.

If we were to say they aren't allowed to lie to us, who would define what constitutes a lie and who could we trust to police them? Wouldn't it be just as easy for the overseers to be crooked and behave more like censors?

I see too much room for what passes as honesty in journalism to be just as bad as lying.