this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025

174 points (98.9% liked)

politics

19930 readers

3463 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News

• World News

• Business News

• Political Discussion

• Ask Politics

• Military News

• Global Politics

• Moderate Politics

• Progressive Politics

• UK Politics

• Canadian Politics

• Australian Politics

• New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

174

LA Times Flips Anti-RFK Jr. Op-Ed Into Pro-Kennedy Propaganda (www.techdirt.com)

submitted 1 week ago by floofloof to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But perhaps the most damning edit — made just before Soon-Shiong would falsely present the piece as pro-Kennedy — was the removal of this devastating critique at the closing of the piece:

Although RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other––via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence––seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.

Let that sink in: Reinhart explicitly warned that RFK Jr’s appointment could lead to the “preventable death” of “millions” — and the LA Times not only stripped this warning from the piece, it then used the neutered version to advocate for Kennedy’s appointment.

This isn’t editorial oversight — it’s literary gaslighting.

Brutal biased and unethical journalism. If the people cared they’d be really upset.

[–] breakfastmtn 42 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Came here to quote that same thing.

This is insane. If anyone hasn't yet, cancel your subscriptions.

LAT should maybe be banned here too. This is editorial not news but, if they're willing to completely reverse the meaning without acknowledgement or changing attribution, how can we trust a word in that paper? They've just discredited everyone who works there.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

It’s not going to hurt their bottom line, but as a matter of principle I deleted my bookmark for the LAT when their billionaire owner refused to allow the paper to endorse Harris/Walz. So this honestly doesn’t surprise me at all. Just add it to the list of reasons we need to tax billionaires out of existence.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

That's right, guys. Bend the knee.

JFC.

[+] [email protected] -25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Yeah, cool, we need more intergenerational warfare. That will fix this.

Also, I'd looooove for people to explain who is going to be doing any reporting on anything if the "legacy media" goes away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

First, intergenerational warfare is nothing new.

Here is a supposed quote from King Naram Sin of Chaldea, 3800 years B.C

"We have fallen upon evil times and the world has waxed very old and wicked. Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their parents."

Second, are you seriously defending the steaming pile of garbage legacy media is. Furthermore, are you also suggesting that without them we would have no way to learn about what is happening in the world.

Seriously though. At this point, I would rather hear hot takes from independence reporters than listen to the corporate approved line about everything.

The issue is not what is in the news, but who decides what is the news. This is really the crux of the issue and legacy media is definitely part of the problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Second, are you seriously defending the steaming pile of garbage legacy media is. Furthermore, are you also suggesting that without them we would have no way to learn about what is happening in the world.

Out of the more prominent things on Youtube and so on - who has the means to be doing any boots on the ground journalism? I see Young Turks trying to fund a few things here and there, and they are probably one of the longest-running and most popular independent things; they even pre-date Youtube, IIRC. But that doesn't even approach the level of what we are talking about.

Believe me, I'm no fan of the corporate media, but I'd be curious as to what will the fill the gap.

Right now, the situation is that we have a whole lot of parasites that basically feed off of mainstream news, going for the ragebait to get clicks, likes and subs. But that requires almost no budget whatsoever and it's only tacking on opinion and analysis (mostly just ragebait and ill-informed hot takes, but not always. The usual 80/20 rule applies to this, but the numbers here are probably more like 99% of it is truly just complete shit that makes those that consume such dreck even stupider, with algorithms set up to push the more inflammatory rhetoric even harder even if you don't seek it out.) onto actual content.

But suppose the "legacy media" completely withers away and dies. Who or what is going to fill that gap? I don't see anything poised to do so.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We no longer need monolithic entities to help create news. The cost to record and produce this stuff is a fraction of what it used to be and distribution is handled by the Internet.

I find your parasite comment a little appalling considering even mainstream news borrows most of their stories from entities like Reuters. It seems to ignore the basic foundation of communication and reduces it to a simplistic model of who stole whose story when it was never really their story to begin with.

I am not worried that this gap would be filled but perhaps curious as to what it would look like if mainstream news went south because everyone stopped paying attention to it. I think small independents would quickly pick up the slack, but I don't think the above scenario is really all that realistic.

Even if it was realistic how long before these independents grew and began resembling the legacy media they replaced.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I find your parasite comment a little appalling considering even mainstream news borrows most of their stories from entities like Reuters.

I'm considering Reuters (and AP) as part of that general apparatus.

Shrug, I dunno. I don't see any independent sources of information arising that comes anywhere close to the level of the current system. Do you have any examples? Honest question. I see shoestring operations out there like Amy Goodman or The Young Turks or The Hartmann Show, but most of that seems to be just a meta-layer put down over top of the bedrock of mainstream news.

Granted, what they do is more thoughtful (generally) than a lot of other stuff, but they are not really providing another source of news, they are just commenting on it. And I say this kind of thing is parasitic, because, without a source of information what are they going to be commenting and analyzing? I realize that a whole lot of cable, op-ed pages, radio, etc....is all in the same boat. Maybe 1% is actual news, the rest is weather, sports coverage, a whole lot of shout shows set up to be even sub-par compared to the likes of Jerry Springer as far as format and actual debate...

Not saying "legacy media" is perfect, I'm just saying what we are told is going to be a replacement doesn't seem to be happening, and the "social media" landscape is quite possibly far, far worse, due to how it is even further atomizing the populace and creating further alienation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

You mentioned YouTube and although it is a commercial platforms there is a lot of independent news media on it. I think you already mentioned the Young Turks, but here are some others.

Democracy now

Some more news

The Majority Report

The Evening Brief

Breakthrough News

TLDR news

Secular Talk

PragerU

Some of these lean more towards opinion and commentary but that is just the world we live in.

Outside of YouTube I like Ground News. Although not a publisher themselves they can really help to figure out what is going on all sides.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I think I've seen nearly all of these (I'm watching Adam Mockler right now. I just watched Secular Talk and The Majority Report in just the past hour. :) I'm well aware of a lot of commentary on Youtube, and honestly, I love it. I'm a cord-cutter going back 20+ years). Although some are offered via podcasts, too, I think if YT decides to cut them off - and a few podcast hosting platforms decide to do the same - they are truly boned.

I honestly wish it was otherwise. People have long grown used to - probably for well over a hundred years - for ads to fund their news. The expectation on the 'net about how information wants to be free has further driven revenues down along with general quality...and people are less and less willing to pay for newspapers.

I wish some other model would emerge. Some gigantic collective maybe operating as a B-corp that did actual hard news, in multiple formats, collecting some nominal fee from watchers, and was NOT beholden to even one corporation and no billionaires. I think it would do a lot to reset this country. I just don't know that anything like that exists.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Oh, and PragerU?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

First, intergenerational warfare is nothing new.

That was kind of my point. It's rather tired, and it's just used to set one portion of the 99% against one another. We shouldn't get distracted by such nonsense.

Reading something in long-form journalism is not something that is bad or tied to the elderly. If people just want hot takes and dank memes, that's fine, but it's no substitute for anything, and it also doesn't mean we should be advocating for erasing an entirely legitimate form of information. It's okay if it's not for some people because they lack what should be a normal adult attention span when it comes to reading comprehension.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Totally agree here, newspapers have been pushing garbage propaganda for decades now and have always been the mouthpiece for the wealthy that own them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You think it's any different for other media outlets? I'd say it's remarkably worse for most other media formats. Cable - that quickly was taken over by the oligarchs, even though it had some interesting working-class roots at the very nascent stages on local cable.

Local news - mostly all owned by Sinclair - terrible. And don't get me started on how "social" media turned out.

Actually, nearly all of media (newspapers, radio, TV, cable, Internet, "social media") has had a very similar trend, with more recent cases being taken over far more rapidly than print media was.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was just referencing newspapers. It is easy to study newspapers and their articles throughout history to see the bias they had because of who owned them. This can help inform us to how modern media is ran.

My wife studied broadcasting in college and I am acutely aware that all media stories come from a few select sources. The control is very real and there is shockingly little independence.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I remember Chomsky talking about how lively print media used to be (when he was younger, or something his parents told him about). I wonder what that would have been like. By the time I started reading any papers, it was already dominated by things like McClatchy...and hasn't gotten any better with time. WSJ was already radically right wing, at least on its op-ed pages but as Chomsky pointed out, they had to report mostly straight news as it pertained to business interests, because of who their audience mostly was - they need actual reliable information to run this system. Then Murdoch bought them. I doubt it got any better.

And then there is WashPo and NYT, supposedly the most liberal of liberal rags. I don't ever remember a time when that was true of either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I remember years of being told about left mainstream media. Like a mythical beast I have never seen it.

There was a lot more independence with journalism in the past, but it was also always tightly controlled.

I was around back when Bush senior took the presidency and all the media fell in line that it was not okay to criticize the President. There were of course exceptions, but for the most part it was clear dissent was no longer a real option.

I think Goodnight and Good luck is a great critical film to see how going back before I was even born that journalism had already been brought and paid for. Independence was always an illusion.