free press in a free society

[LovePrevails]

My associate said - the British Press is hardly regulated at all

 

in fact the government is trying to introduce more regulations for it because no one likes them

 

yet, the tabloid provide such a poor quality of news coverage, in fact they make stuff up

and sell bigotted views on immigrants and crap economics etc.

 

how do you think the press would look in a free society and why?

 

what would motivate good quality reporting over propaganda?

 

I know newspapers might not be around forever, but out of curioity

[Mishelle]

I think we are seeing the trimmings of this right now in the alternative media.  Investigative reporting is calling, craft, skill, for some, and it is the desire to uncover, to find truth, the commitment to excellence and exceptional critical thinking skills and strong sense of honor that drive the best of these reporters--Jon Rappaport,  James Corbett, Richard Grove and so on, --and then those names rounded off with the experts and thinkers of their fields, like Stef of course, and Dr. Colin Ross, John Taylor Gatto, all the whistleblowers coming out of the woodwork--this is the way it's supposed to look, imho!  If we can keep up this momentum and this relative freedom, the dam will burst and that will be the new normal around the globe, because people recognize excellence and justice and want that for themselves.

 

what are your thoughts?!

[LovePrevails]

one thing that has been causing trouble is that journalists supposedly "don't have time" to do real investigative jounralism any more

it's too time consuming and expensive to compete with the lowest common denominator drivel

 

 

one thing in our favour is the fact that critical thinking skills would be so important in a free society that they would make up part of everyones education

[Phuein]

I suspect that this might be relevant to the discussion.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHckJbHEYU

Mediastan - Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks team.

 

They go through Central Asia and see how local big news reporting companies respond to the option of publishing leaked cables that discuss their countries and regions, specifically. Finally, they check how the Western media responds to the issue of censoring the cables. Quite fascinating.

[LovePrevails]

1) most news is about politics so a lot of that would no longer b necessary

2) there is not much in the way of critical thinking or reasoning taught in education until the tertiary level, but these are such integral skills - especially in a free society - that no education in a stateless society would not encompass them.systems of contracts

3) No government to ensure that media doesn't lie so people would want third bodies to regulate this more

-> what is more, they will have contracts with DROs, and it's big trouble for companies that advertie if they are associate with poor media

4) Newspapers may easily be done for fraud under voluntarist  -

5) If people believe media lies and damages are caused by them they can raise the greivance with their DRO,

who know the consequences

6) there may not even be press by then with the internet and whatnot beause a stateless society will be long in the future

 

 

if anyone wants to refine these arguments, add to them, or add new ones, then I'm curious to read

[gwho]

news paper is not the only press.the cycle of government predation:1) regulate businesses, causing businesses to need and want to control government2) cause monopolies and all of its bad effects thru mercantilistic government preferences.3) blame it on the free market, introduce more regulations4) cause poverty and inefficiency after taking more control.5) blame poverty on free markets6) implement more control to ultimately fuck people politically, and militarily, not just economically.The ones in causing this mess stay on the right side of all of these processes to increase wealth and control every step of the way.

[PatrickC]

I think we are beginning to see the emergence of how news outlets will eventually look within the current alternative media on the internet, of which stefan is very much a part. Of course many of them are driven by ideology, whether religious or poltical. For the most part they have to show themselves to have integrity and attempting to honour the truth of things. There has been a huge upswing in the different types of alternative media available and people are beginning to trust it a lot more. They can also decern BS within certain outlets, which is all great signs of things to come.

 

I'm very curious to see where the MSM will be in 10 years time. We live in a fascinating and exciting era of history I think.

[LibFedDemRepCon]

I think in a free market society you are going to see a lot of the things that exist now.

 

For instance, newspaper/magazine companies exist to make a profit like any other business and thus will continue to be concerned with sales and driven by circulation numbers especially in today's environment in which there is a shift to online media.

 

Tabloid magazines will continue to work as a business model because there is such consumer demand for light celebrity entertainment. A lot of people don't like celebrities or the media circus around them but will continue to buy into the system by either bying magazines about them or clicking on online news stories about them. For example, Miley Cyrus at the VMA's everyone said how stupid it was but people kept reading stories about it, looking at photos about it online, making jokes and talking about it.

 

Tabloids and trashy magazines have a strong appeal to humans. If two stories were posted on BBC one saying "Snooki and Miley Cyrus make out in a nightclub" and another that says "Arguments against Statism" I guarantee you that the first article will receive an absurdly larger number of view than the second one. To illustrate this point I just logged onto my facebook and the first story in my newsfeed is a video of Miley Cyrus at the MTV music awards and it had 4,500 likes and it was posted 20 hours ago.

 

Because of this media companies will print trashy stories like this rather than more complex pieces that require critical thinking simply because people buy papers when Miley's in it and not when it is a heavily academic discussion of economic theory.

 

2. I think that in the online space we will see niche publications that cater to a demographic with a specific viewpoint.

 

For instance, I think that it is likely that Christian publications for Christian people will form online and communities will form to discuss issues regarding Christianity. I think a risk of this is that because the reason people buy these publications is because they confirm their beliefs they will become narrowly focussed on their worldview and unable to appreciate other's perspectives and become so use to seeing only their viewpoint that they become intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them.

 

If you were the publisher of a Christian online magazine and your readers were comprised of people who believe that the Earth was 6000 years ago and they buy your product because you tell them that it's alright to believe this and that God will provide for all, what incentive would you have to offer them an alternative (and correct perspective)? These people want to hear what they already believe and will complain and might even stop buying your publication (and thus you lose money) if you suggest that hey perhaps the Earth's been around longer than that and fossils prove that.

 

There is a conflict of interest for the editor between providing what the readers want to hear and the truth.

 

FDR could be trapped by this problem as well (hopefully not)

 

Let's say that Stefan finds out conclusively or that it is actually more likely that having a state is the best way to provide for the needs of the population (I'm not suggesting it is but let's say hypothetically). What would he do?

He earns his entire income from telling people that statism is not the solution and selling the idea of a better future and post-state society. If he were to say to everyone "Hey actually guys the state is the best solution" then people would feel

1. He's sold out (Even though he's telling the 'truth')

2. That there isn't any longer hope for a better society and that they should just work with what we currently have

3. These negative feelings might mean they don't listen to or donate to FDR anymore.

 

It would go against Stefan's self interest in this hypothetical scenario to tell the truth. Financially, his best option would be to continue espousing non-statist ideologue even though he knew it not to be true (hypothetically)

 

Confirmation bias, which is people's tendency to favour information that supports their beliefs or hypotheses means that publications may have to sacrifice telling the 'truth' in order to cater to the beliefs of the consumers so that they can keep selling stuff and continue to make a profit.