How did we get here? The dumbing of America, from Reagan to Trump and beyond

[adrina]

https://www.salon.com/2023/08/31/ho...dumbing-of-america-from-reagan-to-and-beyond/

It would be easy to claim that all of this is new. But that would also be wrong. The seeds of today's political division and reporting began with Ronald Reagan.


While lying to the press, Reagan also set out to destroy it. He himself was quoted in the New York Times on Oct. 6, 1985, saying, "A substantial part of the political thing is acting and role playing and I know how to do that."


Of course that's literally all it is today.


What else is different?


Well, the press itself is different too. Reagan destroyed the FCC's "fairness doctrine" and encouraged media consolidation. Decades later, as social media rose to take the place of the corporate media's diminished role in providing vetted information, the slide accelerated.


People hiding behind anonymous handles rather than their actual names hurled insults and threats. Twitter offered "verified" names as a way to combat that — until Elon Musk took over and turned the verification process upside down, once again making anonymous insults and trolls fashionable.


Every tool used to legitimize and verify information in the last 40 years has evaporated under the push to make money. Fewer companies own most of the corporate media. Fewer independent news platforms exist — and they often get lumped in with bloggers and trolls.


The end result is chaos. Confusion. That's how America became stupid.

Hell the entire article is quotable.

 

[Lazaran]

https://www.salon.com/2023/08/31/ho...dumbing-of-america-from-reagan-to-and-beyond/



Hell the entire article is quotable.

•
That is the best thing I have read in a long time.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 wasn’t mentioned by name, but that was the knife in the heart of American journalism imho.

Corporate media is a national disgrace.

JFC

SAD!!!

 

[IrezumiKiss]

https://www.salon.com/2023/08/31/ho...dumbing-of-america-from-reagan-to-and-beyond/



Hell the entire article is quotable.

The article does not lie. At all.

 

[Bray123]

One party is led by a frail old man who should step aside.

The other party is led by someone who should never have been considered for any office at all.

The US press is entirely at fault, being more concerned with selling adverts to targeted consumers than any mission to inform. Contrast the UK where Fox was found guilty twice in 2017 for breaches of impartiality rules. It ceased broadcasting immediately (even before the official release of the findings) citing 'low viewership'. Hah! Like that was the truth.

The state of UK politics is not much better; Boris Johnson came to fame via guest appearances on TV shows where he came across as an intelligent person pretending to be a buffoon (the opposite to Trump). However he proved to be just a buffoon. He was followed by Truss who was selected by her friends on the basis of outrageously right-wing policies but luckily the outcry saw her off after 50 days in office before permanent damage was caused. At least the British press is willing to call out corruption and incompetence in high office.

The US really needs a new version of the FCC's "fairness doctrine" with a penalties for lies. Not financial penalties (although the Dominion case seems to have been effective) but a shut-down period. Shut the organisation down for a day for a false story, a week for a straight lie, permanently for trying to overthrow a national election. What real journalist would campaign against this?

Do budding journalists at college really think 'I want to spend my life telling lies to the public'?

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

The US press is entirely at fault,

Followed by

The state of UK politics is not much better;

methinks your thinking is lacking. Further, this 'abandonment of truth' by the press is scarcely an anglo issue, it is literally a world wide phenomena. Is Reagan to blame for that too? What a guy!

 

[Bray123]

Followed by

methinks your thinking is lacking. Further, this 'abandonment of truth' by the press is scarcely an anglo issue, it is literally a world wide phenomena. Is Reagan to blame for that too? What a guy!

There is no abandonment of truth by the UK press, they are obliged to maintain a level of impartiality.

That issue is mainly apparent in countries like the US, North Korea and China.

 

[Dribble]

I think this goes far deeper than media failing to be held accountable. Read newspaper articles from the 1860s...