Right-wing media are pushing a lie that Democrats are threatening to shut down the government over “free health care for illegal immigrants” and want to “blow up the budget” for “illegal aliens” even though undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federally funded health benefits.
The Democrats are actually pushing to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act without which millions of Americans could face significantly higher health care premiums and lose access to health care. Additionally, Democrats are pushing to reverse cuts to federally funded health care that were passed under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July.
Yes, the problem is free press, not the ten or so ghouls that collectively own mainstream media. 🙄
I don’t consider spreading literal lies to have much inherent virtue.
Capture of the media is a separate issue and falls under the broader umbrella of capitalism being fucking awful.
And you’ve got an impartial way to decide what is and isn’t a lie, I’m sure?
Are you being obtuse just to bait?
There were already systems for this kind of thing. If you published something that was incorrect, you’d retract it and issue a correction. Freedom of press shouldn’t mean freedom of consequence. Putting a skew on something to fit a particular agenda is fine, if a bit scummy. Talk about how a bill that suggests we feed school kids is an “expensive investment better put elsewhere” all you want, just don’t make up shit like “the bill also means we’ll grind up pregnant women and their foetuses as feed” or whatever, that’s the sort of accountability people want.
Via sources that were basically gifted to them by the general public (at the governments behest) so that they could present an unbiased source of information for that same public.
Free press doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want with no consequences, it means everyone is given equal footing when presenting journalistic media. That includes those critical of leading so-called journalists.
Yes, a problem is the ghouls who own most of mainstream media. It’s also the lack of pushback from both the general public and their representatives in the government.