What’s needed is publicly accountable media. Wikipedia was the great hope, so of course the mainstream propagandists started stealth operations like “Philip Cross”. But at least the alternative media are making them have to work harder.
But the proliferation of conspiracy theory on our side is just muddying the waters massively; the waters on our side. So what we need now is a set of principles everyone agrees to, by which all of us can hold each other to account.
Which gives me an idea. One reason the hopelessly inaccurate corporate media continues to thrive is that people don’t have time to check the news, follow stories to sources to check for both deliberate corruption and accidental incremental distortion, exaggeration etc., then look up opposing angles, and apply critical thinking. Responsible use of alternative media news is hard work and time consuming.
But now we have covid-19 with the social restrictions and unessential business shut down – well, this could be the ideal opportunity to encourage critical news analysis among the general population. Plenty of people are bored and stuck at home…
We need to start hammering out a set of principles for news analysis.