this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Are you opposed to freedom of the press? Because what that gets you is press that exclusively peddles whatever the government (which is evil and seeks total domination and control) wants. Perfect for totalitarians in exactly the same way Lenin is saying a free press is perfect for the bourgeoisie, except to a far greater extent.
You might also argue for no news at all, but that also seems like an opportunity for the government to craft any narrative they want.
The best solution is to keep the government out of it and allow people to choose whichever news source they want. Allowing people to provide financial support to sources they like could even help that source grow and reach new people. The result is a flexible, continuous, and democratic system of determining which news source best satisfies the interests of the people. This is just applying capitalism to the news.
Granted this isn't a system without its issues, but those issues can be handled by people realizing one source is corrupt and switching to another. The issues in other systems (which are really the same issues, corruption and biases) are entirely uncontrollable and without solution.
While I agree, the issue we're having with " by people realizing one source is corrupt and switching to another." Is that people aren't agreeing with what their propagandists of choice say and therefore leave for those that do say what they want to hear. (See: Fox & Newsmax.) So that check doesn't work as it would in theory. Those people just want to hear that they have all the answers and that their thoughts were correct.
Then there are those with no option as well, what news sources are out there that don't cater almost exclusively to the 1%? Those of us far enough on the left don't follow any of the corporate media as they are exactly what the meme is discussing.
If you're a "centrist" that is totally ok with the status quo then current day corporate media ecosystem works just fine for you. All that said, I don't disagree that removing freedom of the press just leaves the government to fill the gap and no one should want that.
I guess I can't imagine a better system.
If people want propaganda there's literally nothing that could stop that.
Sure, every major news outlet is biased, but people can read what a variety of outlets have to say and synthesis the truth from that (there was an AI that did that a while back that was pretty cool) or people could much smaller sources (even one person) that's good at research that they somewhat trust and get their news there. The important thing is just that the government doesn't interfere and everyone's free to say whatever they want.
I don't like that news sources are corrupt, but they have so much power and influence that someone's going to figure out a way to bribe them no matter what.