Friendly Fire at Faux News

[Dill]

(03-23-2018, 05:43 PM)michaelsean Wrote: But let’s say you are correct, do you think something should be done about it on a government level?

Thanks primarily to Fox and affiliates, millions of people currently believe that an Obama deep state (in the FBI and CIA) is trying desperately to stop Trump.  Hence all the lies and fake news about the dear leader.

Were the government to denounce them or limit their free speech or shut them down, that would be clinching proof that "the establishment" was taking government away from the people's chosen leader, and hence from the people themselves. And how would such government action be possible without the executive and congress on board?

Very hard then, to get that horse back in the barn.

Federal and state governments might do something about school curricula, requiring courses on media literacy, and more course work in US/world history, including a history of how democracies have fallen from the inside. (I wish all HS seniors were required to take a course on Thucydides The Peloponnesian War; great model for understanding US foreign adventures over the last 30 years, not to mention the perils of democracy and demogogues.)  But that in itself might be seen as government indoctrination.

A more immediate remedy would be  for the MSM taking this issue of disinformation and collusion between Fox and the Executive branch more seriously. The Trump/Fox base won't follow their reporting, but they could do a better job of explaining traditional precedents of Presidential behavior, not to mention how the intelligence services work, and how unlikely it is that cabals can work in them the way people think they can.  Also patriots within Fox and affiliates could start doing exactly what Peters has done. And  Congressmen and other prominent elected officials could do the same. Fox would have to report on it then, and their commentators would have to publicly debate the merits of conspiracy theories with reference to some journalistic standards other than their own.