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Originally Posted by washoe
yeah and you know why that is?
Yes, because they were being sued.
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Originally Posted by washoe
I can only assume but I assume this very heavily, it liability. given this is America, the land of the law suits, and that Alex Jones just got fined 1 Billion dollar, or whatever, a crazy high amount, I think this is safely net they build to fall back on.
While the US could definitely be argued to be the "land of the law suits", and the Alex Jones lawsuit judgement (not a fine) was extremely high, that lawsuit was very well-founded. In a previous post you put him in a category with others in which he definitely didn't belong. Jones clearly runs with any nutty conspiracy theory he likes if it will get him viewership, and he doesn't give two shits about truth or who his complete bullshit hurts. Now he's paying the price.
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Originally Posted by washoe
while in theory it might be possible that some bonehead snakecharmer was taking over American news television, I really doubt that is the case here.
In a country where this is the case:
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Washington, we have a problem — politically, informationally and societally — when 15 percent of Americans agree with the QAnon statement that the U.S. government, media and financial worlds “are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
Or when 20 percent agree with this statement: “There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.”
Or when another 15 percent agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/mee...ories-n1268722
And 11% of people believe (5% strongly, 6% somewhat) that the moon landing was faked, it's not even slightly difficult to imagine that 1% of the US population would be watching "some bonehead snakecharmer". As for "taking over American news television", he isn't. Unfortunately US news has become very tribal in recent years, and Fox has staked a claim to a lot of the conservatives. Carlson was top of the heap there for a while; apparently "The Five" has surpassed him now.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...-ratings-champ
So he's far from taking over US news television. And then consider how fragmented programming has become, and that cable news is less relevant all the time with the many online sources available; he's not taking anything over.
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Originally Posted by washoe
please tell me if you know where this has ever happened in the history of the US or Canada or anywhere. I picked US and Canada because I know this is what you are familiar with.
no snakeoil salesman (liar and nutter) ever took over and dominated the news sector. thus you have to trust the people imo in their judgement.
and this in interesting because now we are in a complete different time.
the time of information, the internet.
or as some call it the war of information. some call the war of misinformation.
You explain the first two paragraphs with the last two. No, I don't think a news commentator this partisan has been this influential on cable news before. But times are indeed changing; the US is divided like never before, and news "sources" being extremely partisan has become more normalized. And thus there is no reason to blindly assign credibility to a news personality simply because a few million people watch them.
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Originally Posted by washoe
whatever, the point being is that now is better. now people really can really access information, fact check it and really make up their own minds and nothing can really get hidden from them.
Yup. And as a result, millions of people believe the most ridiculous things, like this:
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Originally Posted by washoe
so yes, one news show outperforming the other should mean more honesty and more credibility for the winning show.
Nope. But sadly, you aren't the only one who believes silly things like this, and that's part of the problem.
