From Real News (and Walter Cronkite) to Fake News (and Donald Trump)
On March 6, 1981, Walter Cronkite closed his final show as anchor of the CBS Evening News.
In 1981, the cost of public college and the cost of living were equal. From that year forward a dramatic deviation. From 1980 to today there has been a 500% increase in college tuition.
In 1987, the FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine, that holders of broadcast licenses present news in an “honest, equitable, and balanced” manner. This essentially allows broadcast networks to say anything regardless of facts.
On May 21, 1992, MTV began airing Real World, the first “reality television” show.
In 1995, private service providers take over the backbone of the ARPANET, now dubbed the Internet. Public usage of the Internet becomes the primary platform in which people communicate.
On October 7, 1996, Fox News began broadcasting.
In 1996, The Drudge Report begins publishing “conservative news”.
In February 2004, Facebook is launched, allowing people to share their daily thoughts and daily activities with Friends and Everyone.
In 2005, Andrew Breitbart founded the Breitbart News aggregator and in 2010 told the AP that he was, “committed to the destruction of the old media guard.”
In March of 2006, the Twitter platform is created, allowing people to “tweet” any 140 characters to their “feed”.
In 2013 Jestin Coler began publishing “fake news”, primarily to conservative voters.
It seems that, in hindsight, the downward state of information dissemination was inevitable.
The retirement of trustworthy and ethical news anchors was the beginning.
This was followed by increase in cost of a college degree, placing a clear class separation on education (those with money get it in any college they want, those that don’t have money don’t get to go to college).
The FCC, run by conservatives, removes the Fairness Doctrine, allowing any broadcast network to disseminate misleading, untruthful information without regard for the general public interest.
Reality television begins to distort and dramatize real life, making a large profit in the process. Dramatization Marketing becomes the default position of most cable news networks. MTV no longer plays music videos.
Fox News begins broadcasting misleading and often false stories, but also captures an older audience with a conservative social bent.
The Internet makes all information instantly available across the world, regardless of fact-checking or intent.
The combination of the Internet, a public disregard for fact-checking, and a “bubble” mentality (people only accepting information that fits their world views), and Fake News creates a level of disinformation not seen since World War II and Nazi Germany.
Donald Trump; a tax-evading, misogynistic, multi-bankrupted real estate developer with financial interests around the world is elected President and begins placing people in charge of government that either have no background for their appointment or have a willful disregard for the organization they’ve been asked to lead. Many of these appointees are billionaires, friends, and bankers.
The risks associated not only with our newly elected officials but with the resulting changes and the continued dissemination of misinformation could lead one to believe we are headed for the destruction of our democracy.
I’m generally an optimist, but I see no path forward unless people begin to actually care about their citizenship and vote for their best interests, trust government to do good works, and get involved in government to make sure that it follows through on its promises.
If we continue to allow corporations and billionaires to run our country, we will solidify as an oligarchy, then very likely turn to fascism, then anarchy.
