Page 4 of 18 FirstFirst ...
2
3
4
5
6
14
... LastLast
  1. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by Dadwen View Post
    I put fox news on the same level as the huff-n-puffton.. but in by attacking the "news" he didn't like he's did the same thing trump's doing (trumps just a bigger blow hard so he's doing more of it)
    I have to admit I don't have enough knowledge of the context to have an opinion on Obama's actions. What would your opinion be if he said Alex Jones was illegitimate? It's a somewhat rhetorical question, but the point I'm making is there's a difference between being against all opposing news organizations (which Trump appears to be) vs being against literal fake "news".

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Dendrek View Post
    I have to admit I don't have enough knowledge of the context to have an opinion on Obama's actions. What would your opinion be if he said Alex Jones was illegitimate? It's a somewhat rhetorical question, but the point I'm making is there's a difference between being against all opposing news organizations (which Trump appears to be) vs being against literal fake "news".
    I think he would have been better to just not pay him any attention (good or bad) people like that thrive off it and it would be an mistake to acknowledge him one way or the other.

    (in Obama's or trumps case they would be better off attacking the stories that think were fake an not the "news" sites themselves. Problem is it's not just the "news" companies it's the people getting baited easily by click and bait type stuff (outrage sales or gets clicks for a chance of ad clicks), and the "news" outlets playing into that $$. (People are getting so lazy they even want their news to make up their minds for them and not just report the news). *and it's not just an right or left issue, it's both sides of the spectrum.

  3. #63
    Trying to take away the press' freedom to gather and report information would constitute an assault on the freedom of the press. You might think it is distasteful to denounce them but that is part of freedom of speech.

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    Trying to take away the press' freedom to gather and report information would constitute an assault on the freedom of the press. You might think it is distasteful to denounce them but that is part of freedom of speech.
    We get it. You're the type of person Trump was talking about when he said he could execute someone in Time square and not lose a supporter.

    Trump isn't just expressing a private opinion on the state of the Press. He's the Chief Executive of our Country that lies about and slanders reporters, institutions, or really anyone who disagrees with him. Trump isn't criticizing a sloppy press he's throwing a tantrum anytime anyone says anything remotely less than positive. It has nothing to do with quality, truthfulness, or accuracy and entirely everything to do with whether or not it makes Trump look good. Now you, the sycophant that you are who's openly said you're okay with pretty much any criminal act as long as it scores political victories for your side, might be okay with that but normal human beings should take issue that a tactic literally used by the worst Authoritarian regimes in human history.


    Seriously that was almost step one was to undermine trust in media that was unfavorable to the Reich.
    “Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”
    "Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."
    Ambrose Bierce
    The Bird of Hermes Is My Name, Eating My Wings To Make Me Tame.

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by shimerra View Post
    We get it. You're the type of person Trump was talking about when he said he could execute someone in Time square and not lose a supporter.

    Trump isn't just expressing a private opinion on the state of the Press. He's the Chief Executive of our Country that lies about and slanders reporters, institutions, or really anyone who disagrees with him. Trump isn't criticizing a sloppy press he's throwing a tantrum anytime anyone says anything remotely less than positive. It has nothing to do with quality, truthfulness, or accuracy and entirely everything to do with whether or not it makes Trump look good. Now you, the sycophant that you are who's openly said you're okay with pretty much any criminal act as long as it scores political victories for your side, might be okay with that but normal human beings should take issue that a tactic literally used by the worst Authoritarian regimes in human history.


    Seriously that was almost step one was to undermine trust in media that was unfavorable to the Reich.
    Like I said, you might find it distasteful but that is really all it is. Hitler did not wait for two years after Hindenburg died, when he already had control of the Reichstag, to start cracking down on the press. Authoritarian governments also lack systems of checks and balances and elections. Even if you think Trump wanted to silence the press, the country would chew him up and spit him out if he did so. You are conflating the age-old populist tactic of denouncing the elitist press, which figures like Berlusconi did long before Trump, with actual authoritarian regimes trying to silence political opponents and critics. This shows a lack of knowledge of the history of the press and a puerile tendency for hyperbole.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    So ask yourself, if the President of the USA said "Christianity is all fake, it's not real, there is no God, Christianity is the enemy of the people", that this wouldn't be an egregious imminent threat to religious freedoms in the nation? Especially when said President is, simultaneously, pushing Scientology as the One True Faith Above All Else?
    The Republican evangelical base already believes this is happening wherever Democrats actually have a say in government, though... Just replace Scientology with atheism or even Islam.
    Last edited by s_bushido; 2019-02-14 at 05:50 AM.

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    Like I said, you might find it distasteful but that is really all it is. Hitler did not wait for two years after Hindenburg died, when he already had control of the Reichstag, to start cracking down on the press. Authoritarian governments also lack systems of checks and balances and elections. Even if you think Trump wanted to silence the press, the country would chew him up and spit him out if he did so. You are conflating the age-old populist tactic of denouncing the elitist press, which figures like Berlusconi did long before Trump, with actual authoritarian regimes trying to silence political opponents and critics. This shows a lack of knowledge of the history of the press and a puerile tendency for hyperbole.
    No, it really isn't.

    Long before these regimes took legal steps to restrict/attack the press they used "the bully pulpit". They didn't just leap right into law.


    You're conflating the fact that checks and balances are limiting his ability to coerce/subvert the press with a lack of a desire to do so. And you're quite honestly evidence that a sizable portion of the country would not chew him out and spit them up because here you are defending him. Trump attacks the press, even if they're 100% correct, because they disagree with Trump. That is a bad quality to have in a President. When the person who is lying claims the other person are the actual lairs and levies a constant barrage of propaganda so people trust him and not the truth that's an issue.


    Like I said you've drank to much of the Koollaid to be objective. One of the earliest acts passed by our own founding fathers, most of whom were vastly smarter and better men then the man-child Trump, was the Alien and Sedition act. It'd more than likely be struck down now, can't tell with the Right wing activist judges on the court now. My great great grandfather ran a newspaper in Montana during a time when all the copper baron's were buying up the local news to control the media spin. He refused to sell and as a staunch conservative was one of the people who fought hard for for the exact law at his state level you conservatives overturned in Citizen's United at a national level to keep monied influence out of politics. I trust neither you nor Trump, and I'd prefer a president who doesn't brandish anyone who disagrees with him a liar especially when the objective facts prove him wrong. Especially when supporters like you will believe him regardless of the truth.
    “Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”
    "Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."
    Ambrose Bierce
    The Bird of Hermes Is My Name, Eating My Wings To Make Me Tame.

  8. #68
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,905
    Quote Originally Posted by s_bushido View Post
    The Republican evangelical base already believes this is happening wherever Democrats actually have a say in government, though... Just replace Scientology with atheism or even Islam.
    The difference being that we're talking about overt, blatant statements by the President, in this case, not shadowy and imaginary conspiracies.

    And really, all it does is make the point that this same Evangelical base doesn't actually believe in principles like religious freedom. They just believe in their religious freedom. Which is the viewpoint of theocratic oppressors, not free thinkers. I know we're not disagreeing, I just wanted to underscore exactly how dishonest their cries for religious freedoms are. It's never "I should be able to practice my faith as long as I harm no one", it's always "everyone else should practice my faith, or fucking else, you sinful worthless fuckers."


  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Dadwen View Post
    Probably not as bad as Cheeto in chef but Obama had his run in with fox news with him or his administration calling them Illegitimate or destructive..
    And Obama was correct in that assessment, considering how often Fox peddles conspiracies, lies, and straight falsehoods without nary a retraction.

    Dontrike/Shadow Priest/Black Cell Faction Friend Code - 5172-0967-3866

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Dontrike View Post
    And Obama was correct in that assessment, considering how often Fox peddles conspiracies, lies, and straight falsehoods without nary a retraction.
    Makes me wonder if Glenn Beck and his chalkboard actually had the ratings to justify keeping his lunacy on the air. And if so, what that says about the idiots crying about so-called "fake news" while being the same people who watched his garbage just a few short years ago.
    Last edited by s_bushido; 2019-02-14 at 07:32 AM.

  11. #71
    The nature of the checks and balances on government is to make it extremely difficult for any branch (or for the government as a whole) to gain unrestricted power. It can be said that those checks and balances were setup as a complex web for this very purpose. Because, ultimately, it's very easy to subdue any individual stopgap to a rise in power, but it's very difficult to undo several overlapping ones. In order to accomplish the latter, you need to slowly erode the foundations of those restrictions on power.

    Some people will look at a certain restriction and think "Eh, it's not that big of a deal. Who cares if that one thing is violated?" And in that way, you get things like Executive orders being able to supersede Congress, or Federal departments being able to supersede State Rights, or judges being able to legislate from the bench. Keep snapping the strings that bind the government and see what happens. Eventually you'll get a government where all three branches are controlled by the same political party, where the executive branch is regularly engaging in borderline (or overt) criminal activity and the other two branches doing nothing to stop him. Oh wait, we already had that.

    Trump is trying to subvert one of the bigger checks to his power. A president can lie. There's no law against that. But the press will keep him honest. The fact he has succeeded in making so many people distrust the press is not something to be celebrated. He might not have the power to actually stop the press -- though he's actually admitted he'd love to do so -- he is still eroding one of the primary checks to his power. "No big deal" is exactly the kind of attitude that's needed to allow this erosion to be effective.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by Theodarzna View Post
    We are told these days that journalism is under assault, the freedom of the press is in danger in the Trump era. This is invariably because Trump sows mistrust and speaks ill of various press organizations. Often calling institutions like CNN and the NYT's 'Fake News'.
    Seems pretty cut-and-dry to me. The article you linked said Trump was threatening to revoke NBC's license (BTW you fucked up and put CNN in the title.) Doesn't matter how much verbal diarrhoea you use to spin it, that's quite blatantly an assault on the freedom of the press.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Theodarzna View Post
    I wasn't aware they were entitled to be considered friends of the people. Should we hold Mr. Stelter or Accosta as friendly? It seems you are still pushing for "They must be given some form of reverence."
    It's this kind of statement that makes your threads such a joke. Either you're being disingenuous in your inability to see there is a gap between considering an institute to be a friend and declaring it to be a enemy, or your grasp on reality is so tenuous that your opinions on the matter are not worth consideration.

  13. #73
    A liar calling liars liars is telling the truth. That doesn't mean they are trustworthy.

    You would have to be a little dense to not hold the press accountable for their mistakes, misinformation and lies by omission. The more integrity is called into question, the more you have to question if attacks on their integrity are entirely unwarranted.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Dhrizzle View Post
    Seems pretty cut-and-dry to me. The article you linked said Trump was threatening to revoke NBC's license (BTW you fucked up and put CNN in the title.) Doesn't matter how much verbal diarrhoea you use to spin it, that's quite blatantly an assault on the freedom of the press.

    - - - Updated - - -



    It's this kind of statement that makes your threads such a joke. Either you're being disingenuous in your inability to see there is a gap between considering an institute to be a friend and declaring it to be a enemy, or your grasp on reality is so tenuous that your opinions on the matter are not worth consideration.
    Well, Theo did claim that 'the media' called for violence against 'people like her' in the other thread, but has so far not elaborated on that. Maybe we will understand that point of view better when/if concise examples of that are given, because so far I am drawing a blank as to who might have done that to her.

    Quote Originally Posted by turboether View Post
    A liar calling liars liars is telling the truth. That doesn't mean they are trustworthy.

    You would have to be a little dense to not hold the press accountable for their mistakes, misinformation and lies by omission. The more integrity is called into question, the more you have to question if attacks on their integrity are entirely unwarranted.
    Calling out mistakes and misinformation is one thing and it is fine to do that. However, if you are the POTUS, you should really only do that. Call out precise examples of bad reporting and urge them to hold themselves to a higher standard. That would be fine. However, Trump has so far overstepped that boundary greatly. He uses 'fake news' much too ubiquitously, even in cases where it does not hold. He cited fake news about reports on his inauguration crowd size, for example, even though there are official pictures showing that those had more merit than his assertions. Or sometimes he misrepresents the contents of a news report in order to then call it fake news. For example, he once lambasted a news source as fake news for supposedly blaming him for traffic jams, when really the article was about how low gas prices got more people to drive. He does stuff like that quite often, which severely muddies the waters when he does point actual mistakes. At the same time, he usually fails to point out instances of misinformation and mistakes on media that aligns with his views, such as Breitbart or FOX News.

    If he only pointed out actual mistakes on all sides, it would be fine and just. But using 'fake news' as a cudgel to de-legitimize those that do not agree with him, so that he can freely tell half-truths or full lies without anyone checking him? That is the worrisome thing.
    A lot of people here do not exactly love CNN and the like. Prolly would not mind them going away for their issues in normal times. But now, he is turning them into kind of heroes for opposing his half-truths and falsehoods, whose dearth would strengthen him. That's why many are willing to overlook their mistakes and misrepresentation now, even though they otherwise would. Because supporting Trump in calling those out would also support his crusade against the reporting they get right.
    This is not a liar calling liars liars. This is a liar, who claims he is not a liar, calling liars and those who speak the truth liars.
    Last edited by Kiri; 2019-02-14 at 09:37 AM.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by CryotriX View Post
    Why are people so offended about this? As long as Trump has no power to do anything about negative press, he can cry about it as much as he can, in fact, it's fun to watch. just because the nazis or some commies used it in the past is nothing, Trump is known to have a very limited vocabulary and he basically speaks in memes.

    Just make sure the powers that be cannot do anything about the press. It's all that matters. But if they want to smear the press that smears them, it should be game, why have respect for it?!?
    What do you suggest - cutting his microphone so he can't rile his base to attack journalists? Get a neutral body to handle White House press passes so he can't punish outlets or reporters that offend him?

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Kiri View Post
    Calling out mistakes and misinformation is one thing and it is fine to do that. However, if you are the POTUS, you should really only do that. Call out precise examples of bad reporting and urge them to hold themselves to a higher standard. That would be fine. However, Trump has so far overstepped that boundary greatly. He uses 'fake news' much too ubiquitously, even in cases where it does not hold. He cited fake news about reports on his inauguration crowd size, for example, even though there are official pictures showing that those had more merit than his assertions. Or sometimes he misrepresents the contents of a news report in order to then call it fake news. For example, he once lambasted a news source as fake news for supposedly blaming him for traffic jams, when really the article was about how low gas prices got more people to drive. He does stuff like that quite often, which severely muddies the waters when he does point actual mistakes. At the same time, he usually fails to point out instances of misinformation and mistakes on media that aligns with his views, such as Breitbart or FOX News.

    If he only pointed out actual mistakes on all sides, it would be fine and just. But using 'fake news' as a cudgel to de-legitimize those that do not agree with him, so that he can freely tell half-truths or full lies without anyone checking him? That is the worrisome thing.
    A lot of people here do not exactly love CNN and the like. Prolly would not mind them going away for their issues in normal times. But now, he is turning them into kind of heroes for opposing his half-truths and falsehoods, whose dearth would strengthen him. That's why many are willing to overlook their mistakes and misrepresentation now, even though they otherwise would. Because supporting Trump in calling those out would also support his crusade against the reporting they get right.
    This is not a liar calling liars liars. This is a liar, who claims he is not a liar, calling liars and those who speak the truth liars.
    I agree, for the most part. There is no doubt to any critically thinking person that Trump is a liar. That he favours news outlets that use the very methods he condemns CNN for is the simplest of many factors. His statements are blunt and stained with obvious favouritism. He is a known liar, and it's hard to trust that there is even the slightest hint of truth in anything he says.

    But he is not entirely wrong about modern media's penchant for fake news, for snipping away at the truth until it is palatable for an audience. It benefits him to call them out, though by his contradictory actions he damages his own reputation. I'm simply not afraid of anyone who believes everything Trump says wholesale. I do worry, though, when intelligent people complain for the poor media for being singled out on their behalf when there are obvious breaches of journalistic integrity across the political spectrum on very influential news channels.

    People's faith in modern media is low for a reason. My point is simply that it benefits everyone to take fake news and the state of modern media in the internet age seriously, even when an idiot is the one pointing the sharpest fingers.

  17. #77
    The Insane Acidbaron's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Belgium, Flanders
    Posts
    18,230
    CNN only has a bad track record when it comes to rushing things to be the first on a story. When they realize they are wrong they correct and apologize for their mistake.

    So CNN is not fake news as what is false is corrected afterwards and is not done from the intention to deliver fake news to spin a narrative something all right-wing news agencies do seem to do in the US, what is no surprise since it's hard to tell the truth and have a positive message, the right in the US also thrives on fear and fear cannot be created by the truth.

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by Grapemask View Post
    Telling people to be more mindful of their news is one thing. Your highest leaders falsely stating that your news media is fake is another altogether. Let's not drift into disingenuous horse shit.
    CNN has been caught fabricating news in the passed so at the time they really where Fake news and deserved to be called out for that

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Aenigma84 View Post
    CNN has been caught fabricating news in the passed so at the time they really where Fake news and deserved to be called out for that
    But did they fix it? See, Fox on the other hand would just go "We're real news, YOU are the fake news!" If they fix it then they do not become fake news.

    Dontrike/Shadow Priest/Black Cell Faction Friend Code - 5172-0967-3866

  20. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by Aenigma84 View Post
    CNN has been caught fabricating news in the passed so at the time they really where Fake news and deserved to be called out for that
    No, "gotcha" games of news that turned out to be inaccurate and was corrected as is appropriate in journalism does not count.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •