The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.
It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.
This change has been coming since the 90s, ever since Reagan shut down the Fairness Doctrine in the FCC and the media cross-ownership rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States
After the 1996 Telecommunications Act, most of those rules were repealed and we began to see quick consolidation of media outlets. That’s why most newspapers and broadcast stations are owned by a single corporate parent. It has not led to greater competition and better journalism. Quite the opposite.
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Almost nobody gets any news from anything that would be covered by the fairness doctrine, which was only a possible federal power due to the FCC being in control of allocating radio frequency.
Stop preaching like it would have made any difference at all, because it functional died with the rise of cable TV anyway, Reagan or no Reagan.
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This entire thread is pure amateur hour. The ignorance on display here is very disheartening and speaks to how a lack of media literacy contributes to the larger dysfunction. People know something is wrong, they just have no idea why or how it’s gone wrong.
That’s an important factor, but another is the shift from print to the internet. With print you bought a paper then looked to see what was inside. You could know which papers had more reliable reporting. With the internet there’s no audience loyalty and most people are not paying, so they’re always desperate to get you to click on their article instead of someone else’s for the sake of the advertising views. So shock, outrage and clickbait win every time, not responsible reporting.