Not under the current paradigms for media and news. Other countries do somewhat better (Germany) but they too face rising nationalist movements.
The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT.
This is a problem on two grounds
1) people talk about what they know. So like many discussions people nerd out on what they have information on.
2) The issue of Correlation vs causation in Fox’s impact on its viewers is pushed away for another day, when things are worse.
Is conservative pandering media causing a break from reality, or are they simply doing what they need to when dealing with their audience. Or perhaps both?
Is having someone like Rupert Murdoch and his children running the show a good thing ?
> The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT.
That is because practically everyone on HN agrees Fox is bad, biased, etc. Therefore the debate is going to be implicitly about how bad the NYT is in relation to Fox.
A related factor is that it's hard for an educated person to get suckered by Fox. There are too many garish infographics and obvious nutjobs. It just does not give even a superficial impression of being Legitimate and Unbiased and Supported by the Best Experts. But the NYT does, and that's what makes it more dangerous.
If I go into "Uncle Cletus's Homeopathy Clinick", I kind of deserve whatever I get. But if another con man has a convincingly faked (or even real) Harvard M.D., then sets about poisoning lots of people through incompetence and apathy and greed, then everyone insists it can't possibly be his fault because he has an M.D. from Harvard...
...you can see why "Uncle Cletus is the real problem here" can seem nonresponsive. It is not even especially obvious to me which is "worse", "Uncle Cletus" or Fake M.D., even if we grant that Fake M.D. is somewhat better at medicine. I know I personally could get suckered by the latter but not the former, making the latter more dangerous to me.
> A related factor is that it's hard for an educated person to get suckered by Fox. There are too many garish infographics and obvious nutjobs. It just does not give even a superficial impression of being Legitimate and Unbiased and Supported by the Best Experts. But the NYT does, and that's what makes it more dangerous.
So, same reason why scam emails are rife with spelling errors.
They might actually face more criticism if they don't turn away the part of the audience with half a brain first.
The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT.
This is a problem on two grounds
1) people talk about what they know. So like many discussions people nerd out on what they have information on.
2) The issue of Correlation vs causation in Fox’s impact on its viewers is pushed away for another day, when things are worse.
Is conservative pandering media causing a break from reality, or are they simply doing what they need to when dealing with their audience. Or perhaps both?
Is having someone like Rupert Murdoch and his children running the show a good thing ?
How could this be prevented ?