Mental Health Warnings

[poliphilo]

I'm all for freedom of the press, but maybe newspapers ought to come with warnings (printed across the front page in banner headlines) like those that are now mandatory for cigarette packets.

For example:

This paper is owned by tax exiles and contains Conservative party propaganda

or

This paper is written by and for left-wing people living in Islington

or

This paper is howlingly right-wing and once supported Hitler and Oswald Mosley.

or

This paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch (nuff said)

Most of us buy our newspaper for things other than its political bias; we buy it for the footie or the women's page or the arts coverage or the pictures of celebs- but the bias comes attached- like a virus- and- unless we're extremely self-aware- it'll infect us. I think we should be alerted to the risks we run.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think all media outlets- so radio and TV too- plus things like Thinktanks and other groups that presume to to inform the public should at the very least have to disclose where their funding comes from.

[matrixmann]

I only had a bad feeling for the typically sharp left-wing newspapers, but on the other hand - who knows what would happen if every conservative newspaper with transatlantic-minded journalists did have to apply this openly to their foreheads?
Let's say, people notice anytime who's got the higher hit ratio for rightness.

Edit: The only people where this would become very problematic are those people which in general already have to hide because of the political persecution of their kind. (Yes, in Western States such things exist. Talking about hatred towards communists, and these days "people which admit that Putin sometimes is right".)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Every society has its heresies. I myself subscribe to the
view that Putin may not always be wrong.

So burn me....

[matrixmann]

Don't know how much that is an issue on the island, but in German journalism it seems like "Fuck, how dare you!!" - lots of talking of the great newspapers about (paid) Putin trolls, only that the blogsphere which speaks it out the most doesn't seem to have gotten richer of it and they seem to be way better doing their journalistic homework than the established ones (talking about the several hoax sightings of Russian tanks which through a simple picture search that even Google offers turn out to be made during the last conflict with Gruziya).