[ethbro]

You can only have both as long as you have a dispassionate electorate driven by logic and willing to research issues with the aid of a well-funded and independent press.

Given that I don't think we've ever had those conditions... lesser transparency for more cooperation seems a decent bargain.

[naasking]

Like I said, mandate factual reporting standards and the news agencies will do the research for the people. That's their purpose after all.

Studies have shown that moderate positions need evangelists just as much as extreme positions, as people tend to cluster around the positions with evangelists. Mandating factual standards ensures evangelists at least have justifiable reasons for their positions.

[gnaritas]

> Like I said, mandate factual reporting standards and the news agencies will do the research for the people.

You can't mandate factual reporting and still call it a free press as those enforcing the "fact" standards now control the press. You seem to think that you can't lie with facts, but it's quite easy, watch fox news they do it all day long. Free press and free speech mean just that; free and that includes lying and the supreme court has affirmed this to be true. You're talking about essentially removing the right to a free press.

[naasking]

> You can't mandate factual reporting and still call it a free press as those enforcing the "fact" standards now control the press. You seem to think that you can't lie with facts, but it's quite easy, watch fox news they do it all day long

They're often quite non-factual actually. And you can't call it "press" unless it's factual, free or not. You can't just ignore one factor in favour of the other.

Furthermore, you seem to be assuming quite a bit about what I mean when by factual standards. Anyone can broadcast whatever opinions they like, so free speech remains intact, but to call yourself a news organization requires satisfying stricter criteria on fact checking, data sourcing and biased presentation.

Perhaps one thing that's ignored a lot: equal time/space should be given to retractions due to factual errors. That better aligns the incentives to get things right the first time.

[gnaritas]

I sympathize with your goal, but you can't legally enforce journalistic ethics. And yes of course Fox is often non-factual, my point was one can be misleading with nothing but the truth and they demonstrate that constantly, stopping them from lying isn't going to stop them from misleading their audience.

The solution to bad speech isn't to ban it, it's just for others to put out better news. However, people don't seek out real news, they seek out confirmation of their existing beliefs so no amount of fair and accurate fact based reporting is going to change that, they'll still seek out whatever organization offers them confirmation of their biases whether it's called news or not. Fox is popular because it lies. The audience doesn't want real news; they want to believe what they believe and have it confirmed, nothing more.

[naasking]

> And yes of course Fox is often non-factual, my point was one can be misleading with nothing but the truth and they demonstrate that constantly, stopping them from lying isn't going to stop them from misleading their audience.

Solving a problem doesn't always mean requiring something bullet-proof. Good enough can be enough. It won't stop some people from misleading with the truth, but a lot more people will be better informed than they are now, which is an important step.

> However, people don't seek out real news, they seek out confirmation of their existing beliefs so no amount of fair and accurate fact based reporting is going to change that, they'll still seek out whatever organization offers them confirmation of their biases whether it's called news or not.

Exactly, which is why factual standards are important to classify as proper journalism. They can still seek out their confirmation, but it will be more difficult to find it, and more difficult to convince others of their distorted realities.