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Todd Class's avatar

This discussion about "the media" deserves more clarity. We can appreciate good reporting the media does, and an intelligent reader capable of identifying ideology and "de-biasing" articles can learn a lot from the MSM. But this is different from the question of what effect media has on society. In addition to simply informing the public, the media plays some role as the information or propaganda arm of the state (and is thus responsive to state power, e.g. the military-industrial complex). The liberal media is also a consensus forming instrument that bridges ideas from politics, culture and academia in creating the evolving liberal consensus. In playing these roles, the media uses (correct) facts but reports them in a highly selective way to develop particular narratives. I would argue that these narratives, in the long run, are more important than factual reporting. Certain narratives have been quite destructive (anti-nuclear, COVID panic, root causes). I think the correct approach is not to attack the media per se as an institution but ban certain narratives, the "DeSantis strategy."

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Darij Grinberg's avatar

James Miller is actually making a great point. I had forgotten how badly European media had mangled the Fukushima aftermath; most likely Merkel wouldn't have closed down nuclear plants if not for the media outrage (which, to her, has always been indistinguishable from the vox populi). German MSM is a net-negative actor for the world for this reason alone.

Has US media been better on this? I wasn't paying attention back then; by now the wind has turned and we're seeing fairly positive coverage of nuclear power.

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