Fakenews from HuffPo

[Dill]

(12-21-2016, 05:09 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: The current "blaming the media" rage was born during the Watergate Scandal and Vietnam. A lot of people on the right at the time felt the media should "stand behind the President and the war, regardless". This was meant to mean only printing or broadcasting stories of the President and the war in a good light. The media at the time, which was bound by FCC rules from the late 60's, published and broadcast the facts of the war and the ongoing case instead. This was a betrayal in the eyes of the right, which had hoped that a WWII-style propaganda blitz would win support for both the war and the President. Since the media did not do what the Right wanted, pretty much all media was lumped into a "can't trust the mainstream left" category. Ironically, mainstream media at the time may have been been the most unbiased it has ever been in our history. The complaint was actually that the media didn't have a bias.

Right wing rage smoldered for about 15 years until Ronald Reagan, in one of his last acts as President, had the FCC rules changed. This allowed for the creation of purely partisan media outlets starting in the early nineties. Radio led the way since newspapers and network TV at the time still tried to conform to the old FCC rules. Rush Limbaugh became "the Voice of the Right" in the nineties. Rupert Murdoch and Richard Ailes launched Fox News in 1996 as a partisan TV network. Partisan left media would follow. The growth of the internet and social media later only fueled the partisanship. Fox's viewing audience was 97 million in 2015. 

Well said. I would only add that following the FCC rule changes, much formerly fringe commentary worked its way into mainstream media and political discourse to create a "base" of many millions. Formerly, claims that fluoridation was a Communist plot and that Eisenhower himself was a Communist reached few people and had little authority. Now there are competing centers of news authority--some competing by virtue of their lax standards--making news a commodity-driven business providing some segments of the population with news they want rather than one oriented towards what citizenry need to make informed decisions.