For example: let's suppose that I am a conspiracy theorist and commentator, my job is to report what goes on in the world of politics, social media, and give my opinions.
Is it self-defeating to tell my followers: “you shouldn't believe or trust anything the media tells you because all they tell you are lies”
Or am I just being bias?
Journalism and journalistic ethics is an interesting topic for philosophy, one that should be considered more. The propagandist attitudes of Hitler's & Stalin's regimes assumed that control of news was an essential function of the power of the state. That gave rise to samizdat media and literature, illegal radio stations and so on. Against a background of tightly controlled mainstream media, for instance in France & the UK & their widespread censorship before WW2, this made sense. But, there is always a 'black economy' of media, where censorship occurs. That has frequently included outrageous fakes like the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, as well as greats of literature & reportage like The Gulag Archipelago - the original Encyclopedie in France was banned by the Church I think three times, but that undermined the Church more than that project. The DPRK still follows such a propagandist approach, they are really hostile to cross-border radio transmissions (cited as cause of recent military action against South Korea). It's notable that while there are some gains for a government (inc Church) in tight media control, there are also costs to trust and percieved integrity.
It's good to look at the early history of mass-media. Historian Niall Ferguson makes the fascinating case for a parallel between the early days of the printing press & and our early days of the internet. Early pamphleteering helped create the witch panics of the 17th century, and helped fuel religious disputes related to the 30 years war, long before contributing to the enlightenment. We can relate this to a need for critical thinking and education to become much more widespread, & an iteration of that now. Citizen journalism presents a powerful challenge to the old model of a kind of 'guild' of journalists, initiated into emergent cultural niceties long before being able to see their words race around the world.
Journalism has always had to balance sensationalising and embellishing, with integrity and perceptions of authenticity. Increasingly I'd say - perhaps all along- it is individual journalists, especially as commentators, who count more than platforms, on contentious issues.
Chris Hedges is a fascinating case, he quit the New York Times where he led the Middle East desk, after getting a written warning for speaking out about the invasion of Iraq. His team won the Pulitzer for their post 9/11 coverage of terrorism. And he was arrested for refusing to be controlled by the US system of embedding war zone journalists with military units, & limiting where they go. He went on then to write longform about some of the most serious issues facing us today. So, he represents to me both the strengths and weaknesses of our system of journalism, the endless compromises of the work, which he frequently refused, but also the vocation, sense of mission, and the moral compass of a great journalist. He speaks on the death of journalism here.
The perception of a news source will be defined by it's reaction to critical moments in news. Like Wikileaks was able to lead on various stories and generate that profile, but was then manipulated into a partisan position on the Clinton-Trump election, that greatly undermined them. This kind of infrequent high-stakes testing is exactly what integrity is all about, and why human culture has developed 'detective' skills for evaluating integrity. I would argue this is a big part of why elections tend to focus on personalities rather than policies too. It is notable that Al Jazeera is (arguably) the first uncensored news outlet in the Arab world starting in 1996, which can be related to politics more widely there (and a parallel drawn to the situation in Europe, of the much earlier era this de facto emerged there).
Alex Jones basically started a witch hunt against the parents of children that died in the Sandy Hooke school shooting, and was succesfully sued for it. David Icke recently got kicked off Twitter for saying covid is a conspiracy, as well as 5G, all after a long era of dressing up antisemitism by talking about lizard-people. Sargon of Akkad & PewDiePie got demonetised on Youtube. These are emergent boundaries in our modern media environment, cases of people going too far for our emerging consensus. A great deal of contention happens around this, and the difference in stance between Twitter, who censored many of Trump's Tweets, and Facebook which did not, is notable. It's not a democracy. And at some random point, the governments of major markets for these companies will weigh in. Pizzagate motivated an armed assault, and there comes a point where freedom of speech must be balanced against the need for rule of law, when people call for violence.
Some topics are uncontentious, like weather forecasts (though I can assure you market gardeners who they have more consequence attached, keenly scrutinise & tabulate who's forecasts have been most reliable). Many topics are matters of opinion, like whether we should have invaded Iraq - and we really rely on specialist knowledge, powerful arguments, and knowing a commentator has a moeal compass, to get the best advice there. Inbetween, it's a lot about who has journalists where, Reuters & the BBC have people everywhere, and rely on trust on prestige to sell that on, though it could be argued as a result they have to be timid about how they interpret the events - you can see BBC controversies here, and the much shorter list of Reuters criticisms here
Saying “you shouldn't believe or trust anything the media tells" is made ludicrous by the weather forecast example. It makes it look like a motivated statement: listen to me, don't listen to them. And in practice people know that, and make distinctions - an earthquake in Turkey won't get the same scrutiny & critique as who won the election in the USA. What is easily falsfied, whether an event happened & the number of dead, is different to what is not easily falsified, eg 'the media's hostility stopped Jeremy Corbyn getting elected in the UK'.
I'd say journalism is a vocation, in flourishing societies. It's a net-benefit to have accurate reporting of facts & events, and especially around contentious topics & events sources with prestige & integrity who have reported accurately before will have disproportionate influence. There are contending forces, press-baron hegemonies, state medias, online platforms & their focus on 'engagement' regardless of social costs. A Pew Research Centre study suggests even on mobiles, people very much want long-form journalism, and there is evidence some long-form journalism is highly shareable on Twitter.
I am inclined to see it as an ecology, with different scales, and types of process & events. I would say in critical moments, when we doubt givernments & leaders, & major corporations/platforms, journalists with a history of integrity will win-out over conspiracy theorists like Icke who always go for predictably easy answers. Historically with the printing press we all had to become critucal readers & news consumers. With the internet we perhaps all have to become critical writers & news producers - and that might involve some major chaos while the norms & peer pressures evolve. Fundamentally, that, is on you. What do you think? That's the only real answer.
