SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Free press isn't free under White House's onerous rules (Editorial)
Muzzling the press is chapter one in the authoritarian ruler's playbook. By the Founders' design, the president of the United States is not a king or dictator. He doesn't control the media, or get to decide which reporters are assigned to cover him.
A free press isn't free if the government imposes rules on what reporters can ask and how they must ask it. That violates the First Amendment. Period.
Banning reporters from asking follow-up questions or challenging the president's statements, under threat of taking away their access to the White House, hobbles the watchdog function of the media. White House reporters will be looking over their shoulders, calibrating the consequences, every time they ask tough questions. Meanwhile, the president will be able to dodge accountability and lie to the American people with even more impunity.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @08:28PM (3 children)
The big difference..
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/ [politifact.com]
Pants on Fire, false and mostly False statements:
9+29+21 = 50 %
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/cnn/ [politifact.com]
Pants on Fire, false and mostly False statements
4 +14 +9 = 27 %
And no, press freedom is not freedom to lie.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:26PM
Actually press freedom is anything the press want to write. If it falls under libel or slander then the press can be sued.
You are correct though, there is a massive difference in the quality of news reporting here which definitely makes the comparisons not quite equal.
I'm glad these things are happening and being talked about, our society needs to have these conflicts in the system in order to figure out how to handle them. I think it is pretty unanimous around here that censoring actions are bad.
My question is: will the US right wing stand by their valuation of freedom when it is Trump (jackass of indefensible jackasses) doing it right now?
Do the right thing everyone and when the "other side" goes all totalitarian you will have the high road to fight injustice.
Simply pointing out that all political parties have bad shit is not helpful and emotionally misdirects outrage. It is on-point whataboutism, which isn't really whataboutism at all. Whataboutism is when someone brings up something hardly related to the point at hand, like unconnected criminal behavior by a disliked political opponent, in order to steer the conversation on to another path.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by deimtee on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:08AM
So, 50% and 73% correct respectively. I have a hard time believing any commercial news organization has standards that high. Politifact included.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DeVilla on Saturday November 24 2018, @09:43PM
Isn't Politifact the site that said "If you like your doctor/insurance you can keep your doctor." was pretty much true in 2008-ish only to eventually back-pedal and until it became "pant's on fire" false by 2013, while not taking down or updating the 2008 article still calling it true?
I'm afraid I don't buy someone throwing around numbers from Poiltifact as though they were some kind of objective truth.