Most reputable news agencies report the truth, but it’s what they leave out that shoves many of them to the extreme right or left.
A perfect example is the recent settlement of the lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News. When the story broke, Fox barely referenced the blockbuster development on both its TV channel and its online portal. I just searched foxnews.com using the term "Dominion" and while the content of the single, very brief story was accurate, it was impossible to determine what Fox might have actually done to be compelled to fork over 3/4 of a billion dollars.
But then there are the opinion columnists and talking heads who are unrestrained and can say virtually anything they want and get away with it. This is where Fox got mauled - their opinion influencers flat out, knowingly lied to their audience and got busted. Will anything change? Probably not.
The news departments and the opinion sections of what are now largely entertainment empires have melded together in such a way that readers and listeners can't tell the difference between real news and spins that shred the truth and contort reality.
We all know that falsehoods abound on social media but when you add what were once honest and reliable news organizations to the mix, our society is in peril.
From fake “news” organizations, to social media, to anti-vax, to hard-core politicians (e.g., Jan. 6 2021, the Tennessee Three or Montana trans expulsion), we’re suffering a pandemic of fabulists. The title, fabulist, is given to a person who composes or relates fables, and is also used as a label for a liar, especially one who invents elaborate, dishonest stories.
Hannah Arendt, considered one of the most important political philosophers and thinkers of Central Europe during the 20th century, offers valuable counsel to distinguish between truth and lies, or between fact and fiction, in her 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the…