Question about Freedom of the Press and current political climate.

[Averageman]

I was reading this today.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/09/...what-happened/
I also have been watching the deteriorating situation between the media and several political leaders.
As an example;

The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.
The spectacle began on Friday morning at 11:00 am EST, when the Most Trusted Name in News™ spent 12 straight minutes on air flamboyantly hyping an exclusive bombshell report that seemed to prove that WikiLeaks, last September, had secretly offered the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself, special access to the DNC emails before they were published on the internet.
There was just one small problem with this story: it was fundamentally false, in the most embarrassing way possible.

The story itself is of far less concern to me outside of only being "An Example" of what is now happening to journalism.
And from the same Story;

All of this prompts the glaring, obvious, and critical question – one which CNN refuses to address: how did “multiple sources” all misread the date on this document, in exactly the same way, and toward the same end, and then feed this false information to CNN?

It is, of course, completely plausible that one source might innocently misread a date on a document. But how is it remotely plausible that multiple sources could all innocently and in good faith misread the date in exactly the same way, all to cause to be disseminated a blockbuster revelation about Trump/Russia/WikiLeaks collusion? This is the critical question that CNN simply refuses to answer.

So the facts having been totally lost in this case, what is to be done.
And on a related note;
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...es-fake-photo/

1) The photo Weigel published was taken before the Trump rally began. And, as you will see below, Weigel knew he was publishing a photo not taken during the actual rally.

2) Weigel, who identifies as an objective reporter, is not only publishing a misleading photo, but the link at the top of his now-deleted tweet proves that he is responding directly to one of Trump’s tweets — in other words, he is publicly heckling the president personally.

3) By responding directly to the president in this way, Weigel is openly taunting Trump, even going so far as to troll the president with his own “packed to the rafters” comment.

Even if the photo had been a legitimate representation of the crowd-size, directly jeering the president in this way is still outrageous behavior from anyone who describes himself as a legitimate journalist.

So it would be logical then to me that the intent wasn't to accurately report on the event or the size of the crowd or the content of what was said by the POTUS.
Journalism has degraded itself in to a series of "Gotcha" moments and to hell with reporting the facts.

We are in an age of freedom without responsibility, there is little accountability apparently no oversight by an editor for these stories.
As much as I question the validity and honesty of some of our Politicians, with how do we get to the truth?
Perhaps more importantly do we leave this alone and how do we keep a "Free Press" in such turbulent times?

[lowprone]

There is no such thing as a ' Free Press ' they are a bought and paid for extension of the Marxist
Progressive movement that consumed the Democrat Party.

[Averageman]

There is no such thing as a ' Free Press ' they are a bought and paid for extension of the Marxist
Progressive movement that consumed the Democrat Party.

So if that is really the case, how do we fix the "Press" and still keep it "Free"?

[Dist. Expert 26]

So if that is really the case, how do we fix the "Press" and still keep it "Free"?

The internet is our only recourse at this point, though I'm sure that'll change.

[Averageman]

The internet is our only recourse at this point, though I'm sure that'll change.

And creating as many problems as it fixes.
As much as I use the internet to gather information and news, it's a quagmire of BS between sources of what you hope are true.
As you can see though, the problem is as much as the internet might have raised the bar in some cases, the MSM lowered their own.

Now we are handing the Courts over to the Court of Public opinion based upon the input from some highly questionable media sources like I cited above.
The greatest fear every politician should have is running afoul of a media so biased and blood thirsty that it is a Judge, Jury and Executioner. The facts be damned

[Dienekes]

I seem to recall that in the early days of the Republic the press was just as low and venal as now, if not more so. As bad as the " media" is, at least we have a helluva lot more information available now than in LBJ's day.

At this point it's an open question as to whether the sheep are too comatose for it to matter.

"More soma, anyone?"

[Firefly]

The press isnt a bunch of intrepid do-gooders out for the truth.

They just sell the right lies to the right people.

Honestly I woukd trust a rando livestream on a porno site of a black dude in a beanie cap going "Hey y'all check all this out! Man Trump be telling folks off. Let's ask this Puerto Rican chick what she thinks. Hey You whatchoo think?"

"Ay wassup papi! I tink Trump gonna kill North Korea. Check out my nails blog! And Lauro if you watching dis stop looking at dirty pitchers!"

"Thanks ma'am. Damn you fine.... Anyways stay tuned we got more news and The Message!"

....and that would have far greater integrity that CCCPNN or Faux News. I mean that sincerely.

The press has lost a lot of sway because of independent people with either an upfront agenda or no agenda.

If you have a smartphone, chances are you are already a better reporter than the lamewads who majored in Comminications and Broadcasting.

That scares the Journos because they could, in times past, force the national consensus into adventurism (Kosovo) or declare any intervention as "unwinnable" (Vietnam, GWOT)

[Averageman]

I'm all for bringing in some sort of legal recourse for stories so false that within minutes the bias and falsehoods are apparent.
False stories injure, if they can't stick to the truth, then something needs to be at jeopardy if they cannot back up the story.
It would keep opinion and supposition out of the story, just the facts please...

[LMT Shooter]

So if that is really the case, how do we fix the "Press" and still keep it "Free"?

Unfortunately I think that any "fix," if it were to be implemented by the government, would be impossible without taking away from the "free" part. The First Amendment is remarkably similar to the Second Amendment in this regard.

Other than the government "fixing" it, the only solution is for the citizens/consumers to fix it by staying away from the bad media. Unfortunately most folks don't know the difference. IMHO, we've all been fed so much BS for so long, the idea that any of us can have a good filter for the media BS, lies, and bias is highly questionable.

[LMT Shooter]

I'm all for bringing in some sort of legal recourse for stories so false that within minutes the bias and falsehoods are apparent.
False stories injure, if they can't stick to the truth, then something needs to be at jeopardy if they cannot back up the story.
It would keep opinion and supposition out of the story, just the facts please...

They could just claim to be that stupid and it was "an honest mistake," and many media folks have a track record to back that claim up.