Important to remember that Fox News is reporting the Comey story completely differently

[karynnj]

58. That captures the problem that we face

Last edited Thu May 11, 2017, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

It really didn't completely hit me until Trump DEFINED fake news as every source that has traditionally been trusted -- and gave press credentials to Jerome Corsi (birther, SBVT) of Infowars! It brings to mind that the famous Moynihan statement that you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts is in practice no longer true. In the 1960s, when I grew up, there were both left and right leaning newspapers, but the gist of the facts were the same. It was the context and simply the "color" of how things were explained using either negative or positive adjectives or cherry picked details that defined the difference between the three Chicago papers.

Last weekend, we watched France deal with a hack that dumped stuff about two days before an election. You could credit the excellent statement that the Macron campaign quickly made before the "quiet period" kicked in or you could credit the French media for NOT breaking the quiet time to race to cover it. However, another difference to BOTH the US and UK is that France does not have a tabloid or right wing personalities like the US. There were other differences - that Macron was seen as clean, unlike Le Pen who was actually under investigation for using EU money for people actually working on her campaign. I think it helped that Macron had already directly, calmly and speaking directly to people countered the Le Pen hinted at allegation that he had an offshore account.

However, the biggest difference between the countries may come down to the media. Ours has genuinely created two Americas - and not the ones John Edwards spoke of. That does explain why the Obamas' popularity never expanded beyond the Democrats and Independents - even though his family was easily as charismatic as JFK's. It explains the garbage on twitter attacking people like Obama and Kerry with attacks long ago discredited - including some that never existed in the mainstream. (In Kerry's case that there was suppposedly something untoward with him going to Antarctica around the time of the election rather than that he wanted to go there before the Kigali climate change conference.)

In their universe, Trump has reasserted America's role as the leader of the free world, which Obama lost by "leading from behind". Ignored is that any poll in western countries showed that Obama had greatly repaired our relationships with our allies that had weakened under Bush. They ignore that Trump is seen unfavorably by 82% of the French and contrast the strong Tillerson favorably to Kerry, claiming the French were dismayed that he came with James Taylor - completely ignoring that French media covered his speech (in French) and Taylor live. It ignores that Obama's administration succeeded diplomatically on getting the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Change Accord both given very little chance to succeed even in 2013! Part of that, is that they argue both are bad deals, but at this point, many serious right wingers actually see that both are better kept than shredded. Ignored is that Tillerson is not even engaged in any real diplomacy.

Like you, I don't know what the answer is and it is getting worse over time. I remember that Kerry spoke at the Kennedy Library in early 2005 when Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe, who had covered him since 1971, had a conversation with him as the Library gave him an award. One question asked was about how to deal with the media. He said that the print media did pretty quickly side with him vs the SBVT, but cable and radio continued to give them credence. (My own view was that some of the media bent over backwards to not call the liars what they were.) He spoke of the RW echo chamber, where the think tanks wrote detailed reports, that were translated to talking points, then simultaneously dispersed on Fox News and the many RW radio outlets. The repetition helped convince people because all the sources reinforced each other. Both men stated simply that there was no easy solution, but Democrats needed to deal with this. In 2008, I thought that social media, where primary material - ie Obama himself stating his policy or dispelling a lie on a youtube could be sent viral - meaning we could counter the echo chamber. Last year, showed how wrong I was - far from being a solution, facebook, twitter and the internet itself exasperated the problem, benefitting those spreading lies more than those offering facts.

In a day when newspapers are getting weaker and their financial state is precarious and so many trust sources that objectively broadcast lies, how do we get to a place where we are like we once were and which the French still are?