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The framing of the Who is Joe Rogan section is one of the reasons the fake news meme has legs. One need only to have listened to a few episodes of JRE to appreciate how manipulative this explainer is. /1 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52736364">https://www.bbc.com/news/ente...
More people now understand news reporting is laden with moral theories and rhetoric designed to persuade readers to adopt a particular moral perspective, to join a particular moral tribe. It has always necessarily been so. /2
Even when a reporter deliberately tries for a neutral stance and seeks to deliver a balanced account, they cannot escape their personal perspectives encapsulated in the web of theories they accept as knowledge. /3
Consider for a second how a reporter chooses what to report on? That process itself is invested with theory about what the reporter considers important and interesting. /4
Nowadays, news outlets are seduced into delivering material that generates the greatest response from readers because now that is how they achieve return on investment. Revenue from classified advertising once subsidised news reporting, but no longer does. /5
Metrics of engagement are collected for each and every article and headline, and these inform strategy and tactics to further increase engagement and revenue. /6
In doing so, nuance is abandoned, alternative interpretations of the facts of the matter a kept hidden or framed as morally corrupt. This is the mechanics of polarisation in a world where people are exposed to news from diverse perspectives. /7
This fake news, or truth in reporting crisis has not arisen because news reporting has suddenly become biased. It has become more biased by some measures, but it has always been so to some degree. /8
The crisis has arisen because a widely held idea that news is an institution for truth has come into conflict with reality. /9
The unregulated world wide information promulgation network we call the Internet has forced conflicting ideas expressed by oppositely biased media outlets to collide, especially in social media channels. /10
For those who most invested in the truth in news reporting myth are forced to confront the contradiction. If two purported organs of truth deliver conflicting accounts, they cannot both be objectively correct. /11
The first inclination is to declare a segment of media landscape imposters. Parasitic, opportunistic, politically motivated, disingenuous imposters. /12
Yet, as a population we cannot agree which segment of media fits this characterisation. Some people point their finger in one direction, whilst others point in another direction. Of course, this is what polarisation looks like. /13
And it isn& #39;t all along party political lines, although there is a tendency at the moment to sort that way. /14
Is the undoing of the truth in news myth inherently bad as many claim, lamenting the loss of balanced trustworthy news sources? No, I don& #39;t think it is. /15
Now and in the immediate future society is working through kind of grief cycle -- confusion and fear; frustration and anxiety; overwhelming helplessness and hostility. We are starting to see shoots of reform, people are searching for answers to fill the void. /16
We will reconnect with others separated by the polar divide. We will share our stories, perspectives and theories. We will understand this great undoing of an epistemological myth and we will explore options to make our politics better. /17
We will find ways to improve and progress in ways the old system could not allow for. We will find betters ways to solve our problems. People being universal explainers are universal problem solvers. /18
To solve one problem is to reveal others. This is our condition that we should accept and celebrate. /19
Nb: I chose the article on Rogan to introduce this thread because on the surface it is not obviously political. It is filed under the Entertainment and Arts section for a start. /20
However, it is an example of how moral theories are woven into all narratives, not just news reporting. And it is an example of how the internet evolves in unpredictable ways, like all cultural products, sometimes with far reaching implications. /21
