On 1/14/2017 4:57 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 14-1-2017 12:33, clipka wrote:
>> Am 14.01.2017 um 08:49 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>>> On 13-1-2017 10:12, clipka wrote:
>>>> Am 13.01.2017 um 08:54 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>>>>
>>>>> Yes indeed. I used to laugh about those "silly" Americans that thought
>>>>> such quixotic things. For a number of years, I am not laughing any
>>>>> more
>>>>> as the disease is spreading outside the US, and deriding/disbelieving
>>>>> science in general is becoming fashionable in more places in the
>>>>> world,
>>>>> including Europe. It is a worrisome development. With the new
>>>>> administration in place, things are not likely to become better I am
>>>>> afraid.
>>>>
>>>> At least The Pumpkin himself doesn't seem to be motivated by religion.
>>>> Just by pure narcissism.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That is true, but is is not only about religion I am afraid. It is about
>>> a growing scepticism about science /per se/. The internet and utube are
>>> not entirely foreign to this.
>>
>> What I actually find even more worrying is the growing scepticism about
>> the press. Free journalism plays an important role in any free society,
>> and widespread distrust in it might be just as disruptive to its
>> function as anything else.
>>
>
> You are absolutely right.
>
Mind you, in this case, one needs to make a distinction between a "free 
press", which may not have entirely ever existed, and one solely owned, 
and directed, by specific people and ideologies. When one person owns 
90% of the press on one side of the line, and the other side is owned, 
again, by a similarly small handful of corporations, with their own 
roughly uniform agenda... where is the "free" coming in exactly. Most of 
radio is now owned by conservatives, who run the same people on there as 
Fox News. Worse, the only opposition to them, on TV at least, is MSNBC, 
which has been caught firing people, like Fox does, for saying things 
that their owners don't like, even when factual, and CNN - which the 
running joke has, in recent years, been either than they should start 
re-running old content, where they used to get things right once in a 
while, or that they just repeat what everyone else says, without 
bothering to check if any of it is factually accurate - i.e., "We report 
the news, what ever the heck someone else thinks is the news. Its not 
our job to check any of it."

Most of the "free press" as is stands today is online, not even if the 
news stands (where often, if you are lucky, instead of 10 papers, from 
all over the country, you might get one local one, one right wing owned 
one, a few rags/penny dreadful types, and maybe one from a nearby bigger 
city. Heck, here we get the local, which is worthless, one from another 
state, because no one will deliver the nearest one from Pheonix, and the 
bloody Wallstreet Urinal.). And, of course, the biggest problem with the 
online sources is that there *is* no news stand, so everyone just 
migrates, in most cases, to which ever source most supports their views, 
even if that means the "source" is batshit insane places like Info Wars, 
or the like.

Its kind of hard to have a true free press when "all" of them are owned 
by political entities, with their single goal being, "Tell people what 
we want them to believe, not what is actually happening."

Of course no one trusts the press right now, especially in the US. The 
problem is... most of them only really distrust the press that is 
telling them the opposite of what they want to hear, not the whole mess 
in general. So, its always the "other side" that needs to be fixed, and 
to stop lying.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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