To be fair, news media have been dicks before. In the cold war, we were so afraid of USSR that it was difficult to find news critical of the US and its government policies. We have the longstanding existence of an ideological enemy to blame for the push of our Overton window to the right. (Also a propaganda effort by the owner class to do that.)
I was taught about news literacy in the late 1980s in college Logic and Critical Thinking. It became useful in the aughts, when George W. Bush was trying to push going into Iraq after we were sore about the 9/11 attacks, and then later when they wanted to suppress the torture and PMCs and war crimes.
At the time we relied on foreign media, and turned to multiple sources to get the facts straight. In the Trump era, there’s a lot of independent media, sometimes getting raided by FBI or ICE.
When a news source injects a bit of spin in its stories, that’s the management of the news agency telling you who they are.
ETA: Musk buying up Twitter and Bezos directly intervening in the management of WaPo should serve as warnings that the owner class is actively trying to suppress free and fair journalism. We also used to have a lot more investigative stories than we do now.
To be fair, news media have been dicks before. In the cold war, we were so afraid of USSR that it was difficult to find news critical of the US and its government policies. We have the longstanding existence of an ideological enemy to blame for the push of our Overton window to the right. (Also a propaganda effort by the owner class to do that.)
I was taught about news literacy in the late 1980s in college Logic and Critical Thinking. It became useful in the aughts, when George W. Bush was trying to push going into Iraq after we were sore about the 9/11 attacks, and then later when they wanted to suppress the torture and PMCs and war crimes.
At the time we relied on foreign media, and turned to multiple sources to get the facts straight. In the Trump era, there’s a lot of independent media, sometimes getting raided by FBI or ICE.
When a news source injects a bit of spin in its stories, that’s the management of the news agency telling you who they are.
ETA: Musk buying up Twitter and Bezos directly intervening in the management of WaPo should serve as warnings that the owner class is actively trying to suppress free and fair journalism. We also used to have a lot more investigative stories than we do now.
Share links to stories that tell the truth.