Report: Russians used Bernie Bros as unwitting agents in disinformation campaign.

[BainsBane]

167. Most Americans choose not to think critically

and they justify their use of fraudulent stories by the kind of false equivalency you site above.

The fairness doctrine did not prohibit the spread of false information. It required equal time for two sides of an argument, for Dems and Republicans. That was only possible because it was attached to federal licenses for broadcast networks. There is no constitutional basis for imposing it on any other outlets; in fact it would violate the First Amendment.

Op ed pages are not the news division of newspapers. Applauding and opposition to war was conveyed through Op eds. Some reporters, Judith Miller most notoriously, were fed false information by the Bush administration. That does not mean the Times is as bad as RT or random Macedonian sites looking to sow division to advance the Kremlin's interests. Comparing them is part of the very problem that the Russians were able to take advantage of.

The sites I referred to as leftish (not leftist) did not exist during the build up to the Iraq War. Respected leftist periodicals are not equivalent to the shyte that gets pushed today. As pissed I am about what Katrina Vanden Heuvel has done to The Nation, it is not the same as sites like politicsusa or bipartisanreport. Monthly Review is a Marxist publication. People know that going in and should read them accordingly. That does not make it illegitimate.

None of us can control what others think, but we can start with ourselves.