@Sturgis,
Quote:Sadly, the majority of so-called news organizations, from daily rags to television hours to The Limbaugh Radio Laughfest are propaganda factories these days (at least in the U.S.A.).
We are not in tune on this, you and I. I think most try to get it right, though within the constraints of commercial success. Horrible person Les Moonves , chairman of CBS, said a couple of years ago, "Trump might be terrible for America but he's good for CBS".
Even the old-style family owned news entities had to run successful businesses but they functioned under codes and traditions which minimized deceit. The newer corporate conglomerates are driven otherwise - profits for shareholders. Even so, they can only maintain readership/viewership when they do not, for the most part, damage their credibility. And journalists themselves prove some level of check on what their employers get up to.
And there are ways to identify good journalism just as there are ways to identify good science or good engineering. You'll recall the tabletop fusion thesis and claims from 25 years ago. It didn't hold up because other scientists could not duplicate those finding. Similarly, poor "journalism" will avoid or totally neglect supporting evidence for claims made - they'll just make the claim(s). Good journalism will search out (as a matter of professional ethics and personal diligence) multiple sources of verification and their editors will, most of the time, demand that. Good journalism will provide supporting data and make it as easy as possible for others to have access to as much relevant data as possible. Bad journalism does not function that way.
A common right wing rhetorical move will be to equate Limbaugh or O'Reilly with Rachel Maddow or Jane Mayer. But that is the laziest sort of thinking because the differences in style or process and content is vast.
Related to that are accusations of bias - everyone is biased so no one can be trusted. Again, this is laziness or arguing in bad faith. Bias isn't the problem. Everyone has biases. The question is how honestly anyone tries to recognize their biases and strives (or not) to surmount them.
We are in a very tricky point in time now with the rise of the internet. That's a big story I won't get into here (and if folks are interested in this significant problem, Jay Rosen is probably the sharpest thinker...see his Pressthink blog). But we can see the consequences of poorly educated information consumers just accepting claims and stories that come into their facebook feeds or such. Quality often is established by concurrence with one's own ideas and preferences. And as we know, such media are filled not merely mistaken ideas but by purposefully false ideas and claims. It's a huge problem no one has figured out yet how to ameliorate.
