Nobody Seems to Have an Answer for Propaganda Posing as Local News(techdirt.com)
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Nobody Seems to Have an Answer for Propaganda Posing as Local News
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/03/nobody-seems-to-have-an-answer-for-propaganda-posing-as-local-news/
27 comments
Why would anyone have a problem with it? They are simply agents in the free market of ideas. Markets can't function without a diversity of competing suppliers and propagandists supply what's demanded. Likewise, if truth is important to enough people, more truthful news outlets will spring up.
> propagandists supply what's demanded.
Ask each person on the receiving end of propaganda if they are seeking to be lied to. The number that say yes is the amount of demand.
Ask each person on the receiving end of propaganda if they are seeking to be lied to. The number that say yes is the amount of demand.
There is a difference between stated preference and revealed preference in the marketplace of ideas. Anyone who has worked in WTP estimation very clearly knows the difference and danger in confusing the two.
No, their true desire is reflected in their revealed preferences, ie how often they return to information sources that they know have lied before.
This doesn't really make sense, a person cannot be an expert in very many things, and cannot tell the difference between propoganda and the truth. You are no different, the only people who could catogorize the truthful outlets from the propoganda outlets on more than a handful of subjects are the ones directing the propoganda.
If that's true, then all markets are broken. I would have to be an expert on food, cars, housing, clothing, education, &c to not be bamboozled.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law
Those markets used to be broken. They are often still broken until the law catches up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
Turns out if a market isnt well regulated scammers will absolutely run amok. Look at any posting about Amazon here and how much of the comments are just saying it is just fraudulent garbage. When a expert actually does look at something, that's often what they find https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494
The big difference is that it's not illegal to spout whatever propoganda you want, and more than that, it sometimes even has government backing and I can't refute you. If you sell me a fucked up car it's obvious to me after a while, if you lie to me about what's going on in say, Ukraine politics, how can I know you are lying to me? I've barely even heard of the place before the war happened. I just have to take your word on why it's important we need to send these guys billions of aid as opposed to all the other countries currently being invaded.
Those markets used to be broken. They are often still broken until the law catches up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
Turns out if a market isnt well regulated scammers will absolutely run amok. Look at any posting about Amazon here and how much of the comments are just saying it is just fraudulent garbage. When a expert actually does look at something, that's often what they find https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494
The big difference is that it's not illegal to spout whatever propoganda you want, and more than that, it sometimes even has government backing and I can't refute you. If you sell me a fucked up car it's obvious to me after a while, if you lie to me about what's going on in say, Ukraine politics, how can I know you are lying to me? I've barely even heard of the place before the war happened. I just have to take your word on why it's important we need to send these guys billions of aid as opposed to all the other countries currently being invaded.
This assumes an equitable distribution of purchasing power among market participants, so the only barrier to truth-dominant news is whether a majority of market participants demand it.
Unfortunately this is not reality. There are many reasons why statements that are untruthful, or at least tangential to the truth like rage-bait, are paid to be distributed.
Sometimes domestic political parties seek to spread misinformation because it will drive their core voters to the polls, or convert on-the-fence voters to their side.
Sometimes nation-state actors seek to spread misinformation to cause chaos and disrupt national unity.
Maybe an industrial lobby is seeking to obfuscate or misinform about products and their benefits (see the sugar industry's public campaigns for 'low-fat' foods packed with sugar as beneficial to your health).
In all three of these examples, the parties supplying the information have vastly more resources to spend on spreading the information than anyone does to combat it, even if it is a net-negative on society, because there is money to be made or power to be had. Business interests can sustain their propaganda as long as they are making money, possibly indefinitely. National political parties can sustain their propaganda as long as there are major interests that benefit from the party's actions, typically also indefinitely. And we all know the kind of resources a nation-state can deploy.
Unfortunately this is not reality. There are many reasons why statements that are untruthful, or at least tangential to the truth like rage-bait, are paid to be distributed.
Sometimes domestic political parties seek to spread misinformation because it will drive their core voters to the polls, or convert on-the-fence voters to their side.
Sometimes nation-state actors seek to spread misinformation to cause chaos and disrupt national unity.
Maybe an industrial lobby is seeking to obfuscate or misinform about products and their benefits (see the sugar industry's public campaigns for 'low-fat' foods packed with sugar as beneficial to your health).
In all three of these examples, the parties supplying the information have vastly more resources to spend on spreading the information than anyone does to combat it, even if it is a net-negative on society, because there is money to be made or power to be had. Business interests can sustain their propaganda as long as they are making money, possibly indefinitely. National political parties can sustain their propaganda as long as there are major interests that benefit from the party's actions, typically also indefinitely. And we all know the kind of resources a nation-state can deploy.
I can't help but think you're simply describing marketing. If marketing distorts markets then I can't help but think we have bigger problems at hand.
By jove, you may be on to something!
The free market favors wealthy influence over grassroots discourse. Everything always centers around money and power imbalance.
Thought this would be talking about a different phenomena I've noticed - Chinese propaganda articles that are hosted on clones of actual local news websites but with a slight modification in the domain name.
That's why the local newscaster still remains an important component of modern free press; this provides for identifiable aspect of credibility with regard to news transmittals.
But, what do I know outside of Civic 101.
But, what do I know outside of Civic 101.
What does that matter when the "local newscaster" is just reading a template provided by Sinclair broadcasting in a "must run" segment?
It is identifiable as locally recognizable, as oppose to the "pink slime" creeping into our neighborhood.
Content is still going to be beholden to the master of bias; but we would then know whose bias is beholden to.
Good ol' days would have two, three or more competing newspapers of which different folks can buy from: now it is just one newspaper (or none) which is THE problem (of a different kind than what OP is asserting about).
Thankfully, we usually have at least two local broadcast newscasters (of different affiliates) in nearly all local communities.
Content is still going to be beholden to the master of bias; but we would then know whose bias is beholden to.
Good ol' days would have two, three or more competing newspapers of which different folks can buy from: now it is just one newspaper (or none) which is THE problem (of a different kind than what OP is asserting about).
Thankfully, we usually have at least two local broadcast newscasters (of different affiliates) in nearly all local communities.
It's not about abstract "bias," it's about your local newscaster not being local at all, but one of the brands of a giant national (or multinational) company.
That's the definition of "pink slime", pretending to be a local newscaster when it is not.
This is a separate definition from ones in national broadcast news and one who pretend to be a national broadcast newscaster, which is a mute point when it comes to freedom of press.
Back to "pink slime", it is critically important to organically raise local newscasters as a local business.
This is a separate definition from ones in national broadcast news and one who pretend to be a national broadcast newscaster, which is a mute point when it comes to freedom of press.
Back to "pink slime", it is critically important to organically raise local newscasters as a local business.
It's possible to fix one problem without fixing all the problems at once. That is an important but separate issue that needs to be fixed.
I think this solution mine (which is the addressing on this singularity of locally organic aspect of the printed ("web") free press that I have identified) is the nexus that should be our starting point, given the onslaught of "pink slime".
That was true until Sinclair bought up a bunch of local stations and started requiring identical stories. This was part of Sinclair's dislike of social media doing moderation of malicious and hateful content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE
I think we won't real have progress until the non-digital generation dies out. The older part of the population vulnerable to this garbage is the also the part of the population with the most idle time, the most likeliness to vote, and the most money, so it will be the most propagandized to.
It's weird because it feels like the younger generation is devoid of original thought, and completely lacking in logic. Everything is run on emotion.
As a proud member of Gen X, we are definitely the only sane ones :)
As a proud member of Gen X, we are definitely the only sane ones :)
The reason they're dumb is because Gen Xers (like us) censored and overprotected their childhoods, and made them dumb. We've doomed them to having to educate themselves on the internet, because we failed to give them accurate knowledge and reasoning skills. Unfortunately, the US government (who saved a few generations from their dumb parents) ceased to care about education after the Soviet Union fell, leading to privatization and homeschooling.
For being miseducated, propagandized, and impoverished, I think they turned out relatively well.
For being miseducated, propagandized, and impoverished, I think they turned out relatively well.
Homeschooling is tiny fraction of a percent. Meanwhile, standardized test scores in public schools are down across the board and have been trending down for years.
I got an answer for it. Turn it all off.
They are correct to have a tighter focus on the right wing propaganda but the truth is nearly every local news outlet, regardless of ownership or alleged leanings acts as propaganda for police basically any chance they get.
Obviously "submarine" is an overused term on this board but check out basically any crime / police related articles from your local "real" news site and see how many of them only source police in virtually every article. Sometimes I wonder if there is even a human at the news org tasked with rewriting the police press releases or if they are just touched up via an AI writing service.
Obviously "submarine" is an overused term on this board but check out basically any crime / police related articles from your local "real" news site and see how many of them only source police in virtually every article. Sometimes I wonder if there is even a human at the news org tasked with rewriting the police press releases or if they are just touched up via an AI writing service.
edit: oh, also confirming that they were extremely right-wing.