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) by takyon on Friday November 23 2018, @11:30PM (3 children)
I highly doubt that anyone is getting paid to post here. Not enough impact. I suspect there are very few, if any, shills at Slashdot either, since the site is less influential than it once was.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)
oh it is
its just that the market there is not as intellectual, wealthy, and intellectually wealthy.
the masses are more receptive to advertising; they now are just sort of an in between placed above reddit and below wired. neither of which are shining lights of brillant journalism or news.
reddit just has too much noise and wired has and always has been a shill that tries to promote itself in whatever the current generation of 20 something discretionary incomes seem to like to see on screen. go back to mondo 2000 and up through today and its always been a junk tech ezine.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 24 2018, @03:38PM
Reddit has noise, but specific subreddits do a good job of cutting through the noise and giving you what you want. Maybe you have to do a little work to find valuable content there, but it's there.
Wired on the other hand has its own problems [salon.com], but it has nicely closed itself off from the outside world with a paywall. If we're lucky, it will wither and die like other magazines (print and online) have.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 26 2018, @09:32PM
My guess is SN is a high level target. Simple canned responses don't work that well here, but influencing the opinion of users here will cause a ripple effect. If I were running a shill-farm I would 100% get the best trolls on Slashot, Hacker News, and SoylentNews. Basically any site on lists like this one https://alternativeto.net/software/slashdot/ [alternativeto.net]
It isn't hard to manage, just set up your shill with a news feed and have them jump into any discussion where they can push political angles. On top of that it was noted that shills targeted conservative leaning sites and SN definitely fits the bill there.
I remain skeptical, and part of doing so means keeping in mind that there could be true shill accounts around here. Various narratives have been pushed and it is difficult to tell where exactly they come form. Maybe they are coming from true idiots, but possibly they are coming from organized groups trying to make the true idiots into their own useful idiots.