That broader takeaway I referred to in the previous post is just reiteration of what I've been telling people for years. The real problem isn't that various media outlets (to include many that, ostensibly, are reporting news or news-opinion) spread misinformation. They deceive, misled and sometimes outright lie. But they aren't the core of the problem. They're just filling demand - much like dealers selling meth, fast food restaurants serving salty fries, and bartenders pouring double shots.
People, whether they're self aware enough to recognize it or not, want to be lied to. Rather, they want to believe what they want to believe and they want to be armed with supposed facts and various narratives which ostensibly support what they want to believe. And they want that more than they want to know the actual truth or be well and accurately informed on various matters. Sure, if the actual truth and a fair understanding of reality support what they want to believe, then they're happy with those things. But if those things don't support what they want to believe, then they don't want them - then they'd prefer to be lied to or misled.
What people by and large want from their chosen information outlets is ammunition - ammunition to support what they want to believe, mostly to make themselves feel more comfortable in believing it but also, I suppose, to use to argue to or with others. People chose who they listen to largely based on their sense or who best provides them with that ammunition. If you're listening to Tucker Carlson, it's likely because he provides you with heaping portions of the flavor of bullshit you crave. Likewise, if you're listening to Lawrence O'Donnell it's likely because he provides you with heaping portions of the flavor of bullshit you crave. Regardless, we don't listen to those information sources because we want to have fuller and fairer understandings of reality - delude ourselves and try to convince ourselves otherwise though we may.
There are no doubt media outlets with overriding agendas that would drive them to push certain narratives regardless of what a potential audience might demand. But that isn't the real problem. The real problem is that we want those narratives to be pushed. There's broad and deep demand, so of course there's going to be broad and deep supply.
The people at the top of Fox don't, for the most part, push the narratives they push (accurate or otherwise) because of an overriding ideological agenda or a controlling intent to push the world one way or the other politically. They don't employ the personalities they employ for such reasons. They're just giving their audience what it wants, or they were. Not much could illustrate that point as well as this case has. The internal communications revealed in this case paint a pretty clear picture. Most at Fox didn't believe the Dominion claims. They realized the claims were BS and it was wrong - past some point, perhaps even dangerous - to push them. But it was what their audience wanted and they feared that, if they didn't give their audience what it wanted, that audience would go somewhere else to get it. They could already see that dynamic playing out.
So there was a struggle: How far down this rabbit hole do we go trying to indulge our audience? At what point do we get off this particular train and risk their defection? When is it safe to do that?
Fox knew this narrative was poppycock. The meth dealer knows his fentanyl-laced product is bad. McDonald's knows its McGriddles aren't the healthiest things people can eat. But this is what the customer wants. So this is what the customer gets. That's the business most businesses are in. You have to be really good to (successfully) be in the business of convincing customers what they should want instead of what they currently do want. Most can't pull that off or don't even try. Regardless, to the extent there's blame to assign, most of it should probably fall on the customers who want what they want - whether they're willing to acknowledge what they really want or not.
