Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by UncleEntity 1188 days ago
> …a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws.

The problem is whoever controls the government and controls the news is also the one enforcing the laws.

You want to see suppression of “fake news”, aka anything that makes the ruling party look bad, then look no further than government run media services.

I think they thought long and hard before they add freedom of the press to the bill of rights.

NPR does a half-assed good job of providing unbiased news (they unironically claim that title) as long as it isn’t some hot button issue like Roe v Wade. In those cases they go into full on partisan politics propaganda machine mode. My absolute favorite, as I enjoy the absurd, was trotting out some kids who grew up in foster care with the implication that they would have been better off if their mother had had an abortion. Just an example, not a statement of purpose.

2 comments

Summed up NPR pretty well. I listen to NPR, but sometimes it gets a bit much on the partisan stuff. However, they are still my choice for anything news related. I noticed a big change in them around the 2016 election when they shut down their comment section.

Since you brought up that abortion segment, here is another from last November when they ran audio of an actual abortion. Beware - it's brutal:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/03/1133790770/what-its-like-insi...

> The problem is whoever controls the government and controls the news is also the one enforcing the laws.

I know that it is not as applicable today, but you should really look into the whole 'separation of powers' thing.

The executive branch is in charge of enforcing the laws and is also traditionally the leader of the party.

Congress can pass all the laws it wants but they have no power to ensure they are being acted upon. And sometimes have no power to stop them from being violated like the whole Trail of Tears thing where a sitting president blatantly violated the law with no repercussions.

> The executive branch is in charge of enforcing the laws

What does the Judicial branch do again?