Good read, but just a jumping off point. Some very good posts above.
The news media, while trying to tell people what they need to hear, must compete for ears, eyes, and clicks, and so are also forced to ask them what they'd like to hear.
There are more sources of misinformation than ever today between social media, questionable internet sources and partisan entertainment masquerading as news. We have far more information than ever, but facts are harder to find? It’s no surprise more people are uninformed now.
But it’s not solely the fault of media. “We” are a big(ger) part of the problem. We collectively could discourage misinformation, but we won’t.
There are a few networks that shouldn’t even exist IMO but they’re very popular and I’m under no illusion they’ll ever lose viewership, that’s viewers fault, not the networks. And though I’m disappointed in many supposedly real news sources, ultimately the viewers determine what they’re fed. If we didn’t click on bogus sources, and didn’t watch networks who present politicians and celebrities over actual experts, we wouldn’t be flooded with so much misinformation. ‘We (collectively) get what we deserve.”
And consumers of (mis)information disseminate it widely almost instantly. We can mislead hundreds or thousands strangers a half a world away now, we simply couldn’t do that before the internet. “Influencers” can mislead millions. Misinformation didn’t go “viral” in previous generations like it does now. Even professional journalists fall prey to misinformation showing us tweets from unfamiliar sources daily.
I’ve been a fan of PBS Newshour for years, but they’ve been guilty of very poor journalism regarding coronavirus in the past few weeks.
