Do you believe fake news?

[Septuagenarian]

Self removed.

[Mrmarvingardens]

To answer the question...No I don't, but a lot do.
Septuagenariun has argued it is already here.
Even more disturbing than fake news is the lack of serious journalism.
Pay close attention to the news stories you read, watch or listen to.
They are glorified media releases, p.r. statements and so on espousing a particular point of view.
As an example, the host of local talk radio,stated: "I am not going to talk about that until the police issue their statement" Really? Also has a bad habit of insulting listeners who don't agree.
Almost gone are the people who look for rather than at news topics.
Most news readers have no in depth knowledge of their subject., but like to opine the topic
At the local level, it is especially bad.
No city hall reporter to gather and report news that is important to local citizens;
Five radio stations,excepting the C.B.C. use news services: I Hart radio (U.S. owned) Canadian Press, (from Toronto)
A once free newspaper with good news reporting, now a joke;
The Daily Courier, hanging on by a thread, and can't decide if it is really a newspaper, changing its content almost on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, the news media wants the government money to combat on line content.
Sad.

[Poindexter]

And we all know where that loss of freedom is likely to come from.

It's already here, and by that I mean here here.

There's a real science behind turning people against science.

[TylerM4]

Anyone with 1/2 a brain knows that media/news is almost always sensationalized and a horrible source of information REGARDLESS of where it comes from. Left, Right, foreign, Bi, straight - you name it - it's all sensationalized and manipulated. Media agencies create content to attract views and earn advertising revenue - not to properly educate the audience.

[Septuagenarian]

Anyone with 1/2 a brain knows that media/news is almost always sensationalized and a horrible source of information REGARDLESS of where it comes from. Left, Right, foreign, Bi, straight - you name it - it's all sensationalized and manipulated. Media agencies create content to attract views and earn advertising revenue - not to properly educate the audience.

And advertising has always contributed to the trashing of our reality.


Also, from Adbusters Media Foundation:

Break the Trance

https://www.adbusters.org/article/break-the-trance

Advertising is the biggest psychological experiment ever carried out on the human race. Hypes, jolts, infoviruses, infotoxins, fake news and emotional blackmail have worked their way into the very fabric of our lives generating anxiety, mood disorders and mental dislocation on an unprecedented scale. If we hope to stay sane, keep our minds clear and create any kind of a viable future for ourselves, we need to stop seeing ads as a mere irritation . . .

<snip>

Bit by bit, the noise in our heads subsides . . . there will be a calming toneshift across our whole culture . . .
a new structure of feeling will emerge . . . we will be able to concentrate on what really matters.

[Mrmarvingardens]

Reference is made to Neil Postmans 1985 book. "Amusing Ourselves To Death".
Also, credit Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" which provides more insight in how the media shapes public perception of the news.
While academic in nature Chomsky provides insight into how the government, with the complicity of the media shapes the news of important events.

[Septuagenarian]

Self removed.

[two]

Unfortunately with the state of news and social media today there's a risk that the public will of lose the freedom to sort things out for themselves: meaning we'll have to deal with censors and / or algorithms to do it for us.

BTW the film I posted is about critical media education, and I think it does a pretty good job as a teaching tool.

Thank you for the link

Teaching more critical thinking as a core education in primary and secondary schooling would go along way... algorithmic censoring is bad since they usually share the same prejudice as their creators. Censorship is wrong.

[Mrmarvingardens]

Important news on the radio this morning!(I am not making this up)
AM radio aired a story that I am sure got many listeners attention:
"If you eat hotdogs, it can shorten your life by 25 minutes"
Missing, as usual from noteworthy stories is how many hotdogs you must eat to create this health malfunction.
And, whether they are to be eaten all at once or at prescribed intervals

[ferri]

Important news on the radio this morning!(I am not making this up)
AM radio aired a story that I am sure got many listeners attention:
"If you eat hotdogs, it can shorten your life by 25 minutes"
Missing, as usual from noteworthy stories is how many hotdogs you must eat to create this health malfunction.
And, whether they are to be eaten all at once or at prescribed intervals

That just reminded me of when I was a little kid, watching Walter Cronkite News and he said a new study showed that if you ate 15 tubes of red lipstick a year it would give you cancer. (I think it was 15 tubes, i was only around 5 or 6 so it's a little foggy) even though I was a child it made me wonder who the heck eats lipstick?

[Bsuds]

Same as when they claimed that drinking diet pop with (I think) Aspartame would give you cancer.

Then it came out that you had to drink the equivalent of 10,000,000 (exaggeration but close) cans a day.

[ferri]

You've got to have something to wash that lipstick down!

[Septuagenarian]

Self removed.

[two]

Thank you for the link

Teaching more critical thinking as a core education in primary and secondary schooling would go along way... algorithmic censoring is bad since they usually share the same prejudice as their creators. Censorship is wrong.

You're welcome, and thanks for noticing.

Love adbusters to I subscribed a few times.. currently I am lacking my subscription.

Have you read a book written in the 50s by a once famous psychologist Joost Meraloo which examines mass psychosis, titled "The rape of the mind" ? here is the free ebook in a link
https://archive.org/details/TheRapeOfTh ... 1/mode/2up

[Ka-El]

Anyone with 1/2 a brain knows that media/news is almost always sensationalized and a horrible source of information REGARDLESS of where it comes from. Left, Right, foreign, Bi, straight - you name it - it's all sensationalized and manipulated. Media agencies create content to attract views and earn advertising revenue - not to properly educate the audience.

It's not perfect but our mainstream media is lightyears ahead of basement bloggers and conspiracy theorists when it comes to credibility. At some point people need to take some responsibility in critically reflecting on the news - recognizing and acknowledging sensationalism, for example - but simply dismissing it out of hand to be replaced with completely unaccountable and outlandish sources does not make anyone look smarter than the average person. Quite the opposite.