What divisions should teach us, and why it's spiralling now

[orthodox]

That all said, I am all for bringing back something akin to the fairness doctrine. If given teeth, it would cut several television networks, web sites, and even entire business models off at the knees. I mean, let's face it, nobody loves Facebook but Facebook. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Since the present media is global, the question arises: whose fairness would the doctrine serve on the international scale? There is so much diversity in public opinions between different parts of the world. It's so easy to use fairness as an excuse and declare other opinions as not credible.

[integerpoet]

That all said, I am all for bringing back something akin to the fairness doctrine. If given teeth, it would cut several television networks, web sites, and even entire business models off at the knees. I mean, let's face it, nobody loves Facebook but Facebook. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Since the present media is global, the question arises: whose fairness would the doctrine serve on the international scale? There is so much diversity in public opinions between different parts of the world. It's so easy to use fairness as an excuse and declare other opinions as not credible.

The fairness doctrine wasn't about eliminating viewpoints; it was about obligating time for opposing viewpoints. It didn't operate at the level of people or parties; it operated at the level of topics. So let's say some political saboteur starts trying to advance a bad-faith argument about a non-issue. A publisher can simply decide that such a manufactured topic isn't worthy of being covered from any viewpoint at all. Or, if the publisher is corrupt and wants to play along with the saboteur's agenda, it knows it must give equal time to an opposing viewpoint, which tends to take the wind out of the saboteur's sails because manufactured topics don't stand up to scrutiny. This is by no means perfect, but it helps. Legitimate topics with legitimately opposing viewpoints tend to get more time.

[orthodox]

So let's say some political saboteur starts trying to advance a bad-faith argument about a non-issue.

Thanks, now I see how it works.

[platzangst]

The fairness doctrine wasn't about eliminating viewpoints; it was about obligating time for opposing viewpoints.

The game that is often played these days is a parody of the fairness doctrine, where a news organization has a definite slant on a particular issue (pick a direction, it doesn't matter), and to "discuss" the topic they pick a representative for their own point of view who is clear-spoken or witty or otherwise well-prepared, and then for the other side they pick as wild-eyed a radical as they can find that they think they can pass off as representative of the opposition. In this way they can pretend to fairness - they're presenting both sides, after all! - even though they're manipulating the message in a definitely unfair manner.

[integerpoet]

The game that is often played these days is a parody of the fairness doctrine, where a news organization has a definite slant on a particular issue (pick a direction, it doesn't matter), and to "discuss" the topic they pick a representative for their own point of view who is clear-spoken or witty or otherwise well-prepared, and then for the other side they pick as wild-eyed a radical as they can find that they think they can pass off as representative of the opposition. In this way they can pretend to fairness - they're presenting both sides, after all! - even though they're manipulating the message in a definitely unfair manner.

Yup. And at this point if that were the worst thing happening it would be an improvement.

Another variant of badness is something I call performative objectivity, in which a publisher (broadcaster) introduces a crackpot "viewpoint" to briefly "oppose" some set of effectively uncontested facts so as to avoid losing a few crackpot readers (viewers) who might be just as swayed as anyone else by the upcoming ad for greasy junk food. Similarly, if this were the worst thing happening, it would be an improvement.

Instead, at the moment, we have prominent public figures who are either completely unmoored from reality or don't even care whether anyone believes them as long as their bleating causes chaos — or both! And it's possible for them to command sustained attention in no small part due to the groundwork laid by years of unchecked lesser crackpottery of the sort described above.

Expertise matters. Truth matters. Reason matters. (see what I did there?)

[demt]

More than 1 answer and the ability to waffle for a couple of hours without obviously contradicting or repeating yourself and you've ended the world with sheer boredom
The ability to listen seems to take single printed answers in the short term.all we need is time. Isle c u tomorrow!