Thursday, September 23, 2021

When Are We Going To Stop Giving Cranks Platforms?

There's platforms, and there's platforms.

One kind provides nothing but misinformation. 

The other kind provides facts and real news...up to a point.

Misinformation has become so popular Trump and his minions have crossed the Rubicon and bled into the mainstream news. People who should be locked up for their own safety, are guest hosts on national news and cable TV outlets.

Go back 20 years ago when someone like the Pillowclown, Mike Lindell, would have been laughed at so hard he wouldn't have been able to show his face in public for the rest of his life without being mocked.

Fast forward to Lindell today, a crazed conspiracist predicting Trump will become the president again on Thanksgiving. His prediction was picked up by the mainstream media.

It's bad enough that the other hate platforms like Fox, Newsmax, Oan, etc., exist to carry outrageous lies to extreme right-wing consumers, but crossing that line between fact and fiction is more than worrisome. It's dangerous to democracy.

Why would any serious news group want to promote a lunatic by giving them airtime?

The cynical answer is that people watch them (for whatever reason) and that equates to money. The almighty dollar gets bowed to more than anybody's god in the 21st century.

As a former newspaper editor and publisher, I've watched with growing dismay as the legitimate news business has become another whore to the bottom line.

What happened to integrity? Using common sense? How have facts suddenly become debatable?

It's not impossible to turn this around. Instead of being carried with the legitimate news, all crank features and Trumpworld news could be broadcast after the serious news is over. 

The news platforms could name the program "Today's Crank Fables" with the motto, "Don't Believe What You See and Hear - Unless We Say It."

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