@everyone Daily Question 🔖

Should journalists that knowingly report false news stories lose their right to work in that field by law? If no, what should the response be?

depending on wha you define as "false news"

If any misunderstanding happened when reporting then little to no reprimanding should occur

no, it brushes the stroke too broad and the truth is a living thing not set in stone forever; all details about a particular subject don't immediately come out. In fact, I'm pretty sure we didn't find out why Elvis died until last year (he died in 1977)

rather than lose their right to work, reprimand their organization/workspace. solves a lot of problems

Problem is, the Legacy Media knowingly publishes false information, then retracts it later after the damage is done. They do it all the time to drum up outrage over the favored cause of the day.

It would be one thing if there were genuine inaccuracies, but generally speaking, the papers and cable news are more than happy to play fast and loose with the facts, then play coy afterwards.

of course they should (making emphasis in **KNOWINGLY**)

The problem is it'd be either very hard or flat out impossible to prove these people did it with that intention on the spot

Yeah, years later after the damage was already done

Lets take CNN blatantly lying on the primaries for example reporting estimates that were waaaaaaay off

Was it intentional? Was it not? No way to make sure

But even with this, it'd be worthy to see this enforced

Media should be controlled by the state.

If you're willing to take the risk of completely biased and censored news

all current news is biased and censored

Ofc, private media has the problem of yellow journalism
but with a free market system the more objective news outlets have the chance to thrive while public distrust obviously biased ones

the free market is doomed to be dominated by a single group

and what it most consumers distrust the group and stop buying their products?

that probably won’t happen, if the real world is anything to go by

maybe they will start listening to the same people called something different but that seems to be the extent of it

That would be impossible to enforce in a country like America without infringing on the First Amendment. Anyone can engage in the activities of the press. Write a blog, make a YouTube video, hell even tweet live from an event.Becoming a journalist has no legal requirements, or restrictions.

The best response to fake news, and those that create it, is simply to call it out. I archive shitty articles and when I do, I alway put their name on it, and the name of the news outlet. Over time companies and people become tainted by their actions. Think about CNN. That brand has been devastated in the past few years.

If anything should be done legally, maybe make slander and libel laws stronger.

the question didn’t say that the answer had to be constitutional

Yeah, but then why would you prefer a state-controlled media when this is virtually impossible instead of the latter when there's at least a chance in your hypothesis of an absolute monopoly?

I know. @Deleted User I just thought I’d comment about it in the context of the country I live in.

I mean if both are corrupt to the teeth and have control over the field, what makes you pick one over the other?

id prefer a state that wasnt corrupt

which before anyone says otherwise, is very possible, and has existed

but if both are corrupt, it is better for people to choose the state over some malicious interest group exploiting capitalism

unfortunately in america both of these options may as well be the same when it comes down to it

journalism shouldn't be regulated by the state

@21tagtmeiern join vc

can't rn

gay

u can listen to it after its done

@Deleted User Losing they’re rights is far too much, maybe defamation or slander charges youth

I don't really have much to add to this qotd, other then news should be kept as a private business, and the only recourse that should come from fake news is the public not believing you. if the public won't take the time to check your shitty stories then they deserve to be lied to

what about when news organizations become large corporations? should they still be privately run then? i'd think some kind of democratically influenced government regulation would be preferable in that case

I think especially then, I don't want the government involved in the people that are supposed to be talking about them

i'd be supportive of some kind of unionized media surveillance, alongside some law that penalizes journalists for spreading false information while there's reasonable basis for determining that it was intentional

also some sort of legislation that criminalizes large corporations and government agencies from bribing news groups