There's a big difference between feeling in your gut that mainstream news media is failing on delivering "news you can count on" and having an insider, like you, explain the processes of that failure.
As Jen always asks, is there anything we can do to demand reliable news other than subscribe to The Contrarian?
Thank you! That's why I created They Stand Corrected. I'm over the "attention economy" -- I have no personal desire to join millions of people in saying, "Everyone listen to my podcast!" But this doesn't exist anywhere else - fact checking the media. It's my offer for "anything we can do." joshlevs.com/the-podcast
To say that the American media has not stood tall for democracy is a gross understatement. Yes, to me it is true that many in America distrust the media. You constantly see our media:
Mitigating and clouding our countries attack on its democracy.
Flood itself with "Whataboutism".
Refrain from standing tall for democracy.
Minimize autocracy
Ignore outright incidents of Fascism.
Failure to point out Trumps dictatorial posture and connect it with many other numerous examples in the recent past.
Show no interest at all in attempting to expose disinformation.
If this country is to fall, it will fall in my opinion because the media simply did not give a damn.
I would add that the MSM puts its finger ever so lightly on the scale in favor of Republicans. They do it by clever use of prose and descriptions. They compliment Trump's appearance and mischaracterized Biden's appearance. They invariably take things out of context, or with Trump, they find one tiny high note and then make it seem like it was entirely like that. With Biden, the MSM would find one misstep and make it seem like it was a series of missteps. They do the same with images and film editing for stories. It is subtle, but very effective. You're right that the Fourth Estate bears a huge amount of blame for Trump's ascendency to power.
The media too often glosses over or actually change facts. WAPO stated that Zelensky was "scolded by Trump and Vance" in their Whitehouse meeting, which is a bald-faced lie. He was verbally attacked and the body language that Vance displayed was thuggish. They really have no credibility left as they are stifling opinion writers and letting the corporate owners dictate which way the wind blows too much of the time. All major media is pretty much are in cowardly lockstep with Trumps new fascist regime and make no bones about it. People are noticing this. They are misreading the public as they always do. I guess that is why I and others are here at the Contrarian.
"What if news agencies—shocking idea—pre-recorded interviews and only aired them with fact checks?". I like this idea very much. But news reporters could also do their homework so that, in live interviews, they can "correct" any falsehoods that come up. Average citizens do it all the time. Perhaps before being allowed to interview, these newscasters should have a citizenship and a history and current events test.
Exactly, but I think that's the crux of the problem. They wouldn't have access to most republicans of which Mullins is only one example. And they want to preserve their access.
This is SO important, but how to implement? Pre-recording would work, but the liars will resist I imagine. For the internet I've wished we could have "truth bots" which would respond whenever a blantant lie was posted...if you can have bad bots, it seems you should be able to have good bots too. Maybe speaking the truth as loud as the lies in more open venues?
We need big, powerful news agencies, with millions of dollars, to transform so that they become trustworthy sources of truth at all times. Their failures are a big part of the reason we are where we are.
Josh Levs commentary, on the surface, seems obvious. Yet, it gets to the heart of the matter. Truth is the foundation of every solution. Not only the news media, but also, each of us, as individuals, needs to speak truth. We must rise to that standard, when we have a large viewing audience, as well as with each personal interaction. That includes our interactions with our young children.
If we can do this, then we will become more discerning consumers of news. We will also develop the moral clarity to challenge power.
Freedom of the press forever, but ultimately the corporations in charge of our legacy media need to be made extinct. Either Americans learn to give up some things (like cable news), or we can just going around in circles for a hundred years.
YES! A lifetime as preacher’s daughter, preacher’s wife, teacher, principal, and dean of education, I KNOW that, when two sides are taking extreme positions at the tops of their voices, the truth can lie somewhere between the two extremes. We have a lot of that going around. However, that applies to beliefs and opinions. Sift through all that, and we find facts, evidence from a leader’s own spoken or written words. Those facts should be the basis for decisions. If a person must rely on lies to influence others, the person’s position is weakened. We should be skeptical about that person’s decision or recommendation. If all of us were looking at real truth, we would find a lot more common ground and much of our shouting would stop in favor of reasoned solutions.
I hear you! I tell people it can be hard to set aside emotions and subconscious mental processes and focus on facts. But think about what happens when a loved one faces a medical crisis. You're having all those emotions, but you engage your rational mind to try to find out all the *facts* you possibly can so the problem can be fixed. Facts first, always. That's what They Stand Corrected is all about.
Is there a way we can influence the media to start doing more live fact checking? One problem, I assume, is that Republicans lie so much, the interview wouldn't get very far and the interviewee would get hostile. Is there a way to do fact checks in real time that don't deep six the entire interview?
Broadcasters have a nonsensical obsession with doing interviews live. Pre-record interviews and then only air them with fact checks! Text-based agencies (wires, papers) all too often also serve as open mics by just publishing what people say without fact checking them. There IS a much better way: https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/its-time-to-end-news-open-mic-nights
It would be better if they filmed the liars and cheats and back alley backstabbers jumping up and storming out of an interview as every word that oozed out of those anuses under their noses was fact-checked. Prove them the liars they are. Make them hide from the truth like the sub-morons of the congressional GOP hide from town halls now.
Amen. Didn't Wales just make it illegal for politicians to deliberately lie to the public? Seems like it would be hard to enforce, especially here, but truth telling is the bedrock of morality. This "post-truth" landscape is so disheartening.
I think the difficulty in finding truth is that we are as complicit as those whom we do not trust. How many Contrarian readers look at news with different political views? Can I say I know/understand different views? My best attempt is to read AP, Reuters, NPR, NYT, BloombergNews, WSJ, and to watch C Span, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC. Whether that is enough to arrive at truth, I cannot say with certainty. Political humility is not a bad virtue for anyone.
I hear you. The key is to put facts first *always*. I correct left-wing lies in the media too, which is another reason people across the spectrum are joining the They Stand Corrected community.
I also avoid "both-sidesism." It would be both-sidesism to pretend that the two parties lie equally these days; Trumpism is different from anything I've seen in recent U.S. history! Fixing this problem requires removing the political lens, the topic of Episode 45. Here's an issue of my newsletter that includes it: https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/is-massively-faulty-ai-measuring
The right-leaning partisan slant to the headlines and language in the NYT lately is bad enough... very bad, but the outright falsehood printed today, written by Lisa Lerer, that "Elected Democrats aren’t sure how to battle a president whom more voters wanted than didn’t." is intolerable. More than half the voters did not want Trump. If I don't see a retraction I will no longer read the NYT and will encourage others to do the same.
Facts won't changes the minds of those who already hold "alternative" facts. We need to hear directly from the people impacted by the Dumpster's policies. Stories that touch our common humanity maybe the only thing that works.
Exactly. That's why we need a truth countermovement. I also discuss the way we raise children in society. We need to teach them that searching for facts is a much bigger sign of intelligence than arguing for an opinion. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sufTF4oenTRNhDkoGt9P4 episode 40, wherever you get podcasts!
Yes! I always tell students in my philosophy classes that the point is not to win, but to learn. It's beyond frustrating that so many of the most disingenuous republicans went to fancy law schools and only use it to twist or obfuscate the truth.
Thanks much. We need to fight the good fight for truth.
Thanks so much for this article.
There's a big difference between feeling in your gut that mainstream news media is failing on delivering "news you can count on" and having an insider, like you, explain the processes of that failure.
As Jen always asks, is there anything we can do to demand reliable news other than subscribe to The Contrarian?
Thank you! That's why I created They Stand Corrected. I'm over the "attention economy" -- I have no personal desire to join millions of people in saying, "Everyone listen to my podcast!" But this doesn't exist anywhere else - fact checking the media. It's my offer for "anything we can do." joshlevs.com/the-podcast
To say that the American media has not stood tall for democracy is a gross understatement. Yes, to me it is true that many in America distrust the media. You constantly see our media:
Mitigating and clouding our countries attack on its democracy.
Flood itself with "Whataboutism".
Refrain from standing tall for democracy.
Minimize autocracy
Ignore outright incidents of Fascism.
Failure to point out Trumps dictatorial posture and connect it with many other numerous examples in the recent past.
Show no interest at all in attempting to expose disinformation.
If this country is to fall, it will fall in my opinion because the media simply did not give a damn.
I hear you! I discuss all this and more on They Stand Corrected.
I would add that the MSM puts its finger ever so lightly on the scale in favor of Republicans. They do it by clever use of prose and descriptions. They compliment Trump's appearance and mischaracterized Biden's appearance. They invariably take things out of context, or with Trump, they find one tiny high note and then make it seem like it was entirely like that. With Biden, the MSM would find one misstep and make it seem like it was a series of missteps. They do the same with images and film editing for stories. It is subtle, but very effective. You're right that the Fourth Estate bears a huge amount of blame for Trump's ascendency to power.
The media too often glosses over or actually change facts. WAPO stated that Zelensky was "scolded by Trump and Vance" in their Whitehouse meeting, which is a bald-faced lie. He was verbally attacked and the body language that Vance displayed was thuggish. They really have no credibility left as they are stifling opinion writers and letting the corporate owners dictate which way the wind blows too much of the time. All major media is pretty much are in cowardly lockstep with Trumps new fascist regime and make no bones about it. People are noticing this. They are misreading the public as they always do. I guess that is why I and others are here at the Contrarian.
Corporate owners are a huge, and perhaps the biggest, part of the problem. https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/media-money-mess
The irony is that if a news agency took on the mission of ONLY reporting truth, it would probably be a wild financial success.
Probably nobody would believe them
"What if news agencies—shocking idea—pre-recorded interviews and only aired them with fact checks?". I like this idea very much. But news reporters could also do their homework so that, in live interviews, they can "correct" any falsehoods that come up. Average citizens do it all the time. Perhaps before being allowed to interview, these newscasters should have a citizenship and a history and current events test.
Yup. But also think about how different interviews would be if guests knew they were going to be fact checked!
Exactly, but I think that's the crux of the problem. They wouldn't have access to most republicans of which Mullins is only one example. And they want to preserve their access.
This is SO important, but how to implement? Pre-recording would work, but the liars will resist I imagine. For the internet I've wished we could have "truth bots" which would respond whenever a blantant lie was posted...if you can have bad bots, it seems you should be able to have good bots too. Maybe speaking the truth as loud as the lies in more open venues?
We need big, powerful news agencies, with millions of dollars, to transform so that they become trustworthy sources of truth at all times. Their failures are a big part of the reason we are where we are.
Yes, but maybe in the mean time we could get Tom Lehrer (or his protege) singing the truth?
😂
Check out Jesse Welles (kind of a cross between Guthrie and Lehrer)
Truth is so very much needed in news reporting, and falsehoods should be questioned and corrected immediately.
Amen!
Josh Levs commentary, on the surface, seems obvious. Yet, it gets to the heart of the matter. Truth is the foundation of every solution. Not only the news media, but also, each of us, as individuals, needs to speak truth. We must rise to that standard, when we have a large viewing audience, as well as with each personal interaction. That includes our interactions with our young children.
If we can do this, then we will become more discerning consumers of news. We will also develop the moral clarity to challenge power.
Beautifully put!
Freedom of the press forever, but ultimately the corporations in charge of our legacy media need to be made extinct. Either Americans learn to give up some things (like cable news), or we can just going around in circles for a hundred years.
YES! A lifetime as preacher’s daughter, preacher’s wife, teacher, principal, and dean of education, I KNOW that, when two sides are taking extreme positions at the tops of their voices, the truth can lie somewhere between the two extremes. We have a lot of that going around. However, that applies to beliefs and opinions. Sift through all that, and we find facts, evidence from a leader’s own spoken or written words. Those facts should be the basis for decisions. If a person must rely on lies to influence others, the person’s position is weakened. We should be skeptical about that person’s decision or recommendation. If all of us were looking at real truth, we would find a lot more common ground and much of our shouting would stop in favor of reasoned solutions.
I hear you! I tell people it can be hard to set aside emotions and subconscious mental processes and focus on facts. But think about what happens when a loved one faces a medical crisis. You're having all those emotions, but you engage your rational mind to try to find out all the *facts* you possibly can so the problem can be fixed. Facts first, always. That's what They Stand Corrected is all about.
Is there a way we can influence the media to start doing more live fact checking? One problem, I assume, is that Republicans lie so much, the interview wouldn't get very far and the interviewee would get hostile. Is there a way to do fact checks in real time that don't deep six the entire interview?
Broadcasters have a nonsensical obsession with doing interviews live. Pre-record interviews and then only air them with fact checks! Text-based agencies (wires, papers) all too often also serve as open mics by just publishing what people say without fact checking them. There IS a much better way: https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/its-time-to-end-news-open-mic-nights
It would be better if they filmed the liars and cheats and back alley backstabbers jumping up and storming out of an interview as every word that oozed out of those anuses under their noses was fact-checked. Prove them the liars they are. Make them hide from the truth like the sub-morons of the congressional GOP hide from town halls now.
Amen. Didn't Wales just make it illegal for politicians to deliberately lie to the public? Seems like it would be hard to enforce, especially here, but truth telling is the bedrock of morality. This "post-truth" landscape is so disheartening.
I did an episode and newsletter about that! https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/would-it-be-patriotic-to-ban-politicians
I think the difficulty in finding truth is that we are as complicit as those whom we do not trust. How many Contrarian readers look at news with different political views? Can I say I know/understand different views? My best attempt is to read AP, Reuters, NPR, NYT, BloombergNews, WSJ, and to watch C Span, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC. Whether that is enough to arrive at truth, I cannot say with certainty. Political humility is not a bad virtue for anyone.
I hear you. The key is to put facts first *always*. I correct left-wing lies in the media too, which is another reason people across the spectrum are joining the They Stand Corrected community.
I also avoid "both-sidesism." It would be both-sidesism to pretend that the two parties lie equally these days; Trumpism is different from anything I've seen in recent U.S. history! Fixing this problem requires removing the political lens, the topic of Episode 45. Here's an issue of my newsletter that includes it: https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/is-massively-faulty-ai-measuring
The right-leaning partisan slant to the headlines and language in the NYT lately is bad enough... very bad, but the outright falsehood printed today, written by Lisa Lerer, that "Elected Democrats aren’t sure how to battle a president whom more voters wanted than didn’t." is intolerable. More than half the voters did not want Trump. If I don't see a retraction I will no longer read the NYT and will encourage others to do the same.
Facts won't changes the minds of those who already hold "alternative" facts. We need to hear directly from the people impacted by the Dumpster's policies. Stories that touch our common humanity maybe the only thing that works.
How to we reach beyond our choir?
Exactly. That's why we need a truth countermovement. I also discuss the way we raise children in society. We need to teach them that searching for facts is a much bigger sign of intelligence than arguing for an opinion. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sufTF4oenTRNhDkoGt9P4 episode 40, wherever you get podcasts!
Yes! I always tell students in my philosophy classes that the point is not to win, but to learn. It's beyond frustrating that so many of the most disingenuous republicans went to fancy law schools and only use it to twist or obfuscate the truth.
Watch how Abby Phillip handles lies on her CNN show. She's a master at it because she studies the facts at hand.