With all the talk about fake news I thought a dedicated thread to the media, its motivations, and the role it plays in society would be useful. The US president constantly derides the media and it doesn't seem to do him any harm. A free press is crucial to a free republic because governments have used media to control the flow of information but just because the media is separate from the government doesn't mean someone wants to use that influence for their own ends.

To start off CNN recently had to retract a story about Russia. Three journalists had to resign.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.075a2d95c1d2

I always wonder how much oversight goes into some of the articles that are posted. Even Comey, who is no fan of Trump, said some of the articles being posted were false. If giant media conglomerates lie who call them out?

I see people parading this around as proof that CNN is "fake news" or something. It seems quite the contrary to me. CNN actually has the integrity to hold its people accountable and its journalists take it so seriously that they step down in shame if it happens.
How many times have news media like Fox or Breitbart been proven patently wrong but they keep the information out there?

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I recently learned that the founder(?) of Fox News, the one who died recently, said of his mission that "People do not want to be informed. They want to feel informed."

And doesn't that just about explain everything, eh?

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Do you have a source?

Hey forum, can I get a source for this?

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I think I know what your source is but it sounds made up when I looked it up.

Are you the one that wants to feel informed Anansi?

Who is the least bit surprised that a CNN producer would think American voters are stupid for not agreeing with them. How qualified is CNN to dictate American policy and how much do they care about the country when they talk about it with such derision?

I'm not going to watch the video, but I mean, yeah, American voters are pretty stupid.

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How did the US become such a powerful and wealthy nation then?

Are you suggesting there's a correlation between power/wealth and intelligence?

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Yes.

Positive influence: equality, innovation, creativity, immigrants, openness, hard work, unions, industry, ample natural resources, bipartisanship, cooperation

Negative influences: built on the backs of slaves, late colonialism/imperialism, not being attached to europe so our infrastructure never got wrecked in ww1 or 2, lots of shady cold war manipulation of foreign governments, destruction of natural resources

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Brought to you by Sanguine Enterprises.

My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

Mostly by being basically the only developed nation to not get destroyed during WWII.

[edit] Apparently Fox News thinks Mississippi, Arizona, Utah, Virgina and many other deep red states are actually blue states?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...aud-probe.html

A right-wing fake news facebook page (made to troll lefties) apparently tricked a bunch of rightists into protesting a nonexistent Confederate-grave-desecrating Antifa event. Fox, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and other right-wing rags picked up the story of the grave desecration plans and ran with it. One of the rightist protesters then proceeded to accidentally shoot himself.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesth...ddV#.wfWgxBee5

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Just remember to take Veritas with a grain of salt. They arent actively worse than places like CNN, in that they tell a narrative over fair and factual news...... But they arent better either

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Fucking Epic :X

The guy who runs it has been taken to court over his completely fabricated storylines. Project Veritas is the very definition of Fake News.
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/01/...ollar-lawsuit/

Sinclair Broadcast group is another major contender for a major Fake News outlet, making Fox News look almost radically liberal in comparison.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

I don't think they are better. It isn't like CNN denied those videos.

I do like though how someone is keeping the big media giants in check though. Maybe one day Project Veritas can become too big and then we can infiltrate them.

O'Keefe selectively edits every Veritas video just the same way they do on Reality TV. Everything he does is taken out of context to portray a made up story he decides on (or at least he's paid to make anyway). He's yellow journalism taken to the nth degree. The very definition of a propagandist. He's worse, objectively. And this is coming from someone who doesn't like CNN.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

What is the context on the videos then? Where the guy says "The American people are stupid as shit," or "the Russia thing is just for ratings?"