452
‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
452 points (98.7% liked)
politics
19089 readers
4231 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The blurred lines between accusation based on hearsay and whistleblowing is part of the problem. The Media is told the person is a whistleblower and mindlessly repeats it ad nauseam.
The term media is now diffuse, and actual journalism sparse. And so unless you're an avid critical consumer of diverse sources you have little idea of what model is approaching reality.
Most big players, with fox news showing the way to profit from it, have nearly abdicated their responsibility to judge truth claims.
Being breathlessly first in a way that's pleasant to your demographic's ear is more important than being right.
When the success of a media organization is bound to the rules of capitalism, it's unsurprising that their objectives becomes capitalistic. The responsibilities of the 4th estate and the incentives of capitalism are misaligned.
The catch-22 is that the solution to this is regulation by the government. But the 4th estate is itself a check on government. So if the government is given regulatory control over the 4th estate, you open up the possibility of neutering that check.
Then again, that check has already been neutered by capitalism so...
Unless impartiality under other systems can be demonstrated I wouldn't say that's a feature of capitalism.
In fact it was under democratic capitalism that the idea of an independent and impartial 4th estate was created.
Concentration of powers seems to be a global phenomenon regardless of system - in fact the capitalist societies seem to be the last bastions of such journalism.
I don't have any answers, just observations.
You can't unroll the internet, mobile computing or bite sized info-entertainment.
You may be able to regulate algorithms that promote addictive behaviours.
Good journalism needs better protections and incentive structures, but it's still trying to figure it out.
Let's hope it does before we get entertained to death.
Or worse, repeats it knowing the short-term gains and ignoring the long-term consequences. If the Japanese balloon bombing of 1945 happened today, I am almost certain modern media orgs would choose profit over safety and refuse to save lives by keeping it secret.