Summary:
Ms. Sanders said today that the polls show that no one cares about the issues surrounding the Trump/Russia investigation. However, as a quick google search would show, this statement is clearly false. Sanders is just trying to tell the public to stop worrying about this issue and instead focus on issues that directly impact our country. Unfortunately, this tact is probably going to work because Trump's campain is based on convincing Americans lies like these. The article mentions the problem with our journalists in the room is that they can't just tell her she is lying because then they will never be invited back. A reliable poll that the author of the article found stated that in reality, 49% of Americans care about this issue.
Opinion:
I can't believe blantant lies are allowed. Let's make some law or something to prevent it. It's too bad that there are a lot of people in America that believe this crap. We as a country need to find a way to fix our media system so this kind of deception isn't spread. I think one possible solution would be o create a governmental media service that won't report lies.
Questions:
What do you think is a solution to this problem of unchecked lies in our government?
What are your opinions on Ms. Sanders.
6 comments:
I agree with Matthew that we need to find a way to stop blatant lies like these from being stated as fact in our federal government. Sanders is straight up lying to the public, and no one in the room or anyone else want to let the general American public know that she is lying. Even though people in the room do not want to say anything with fear of not getting invited back, that is not a good enough reason as their job is not to stay in good standing with the government. Their job is to ask the tough questions in the best interest of the population, and by not calling out Sanders, it allows her to continue to lie without any repercussions.
Holding public office and reporting such blasphemous lies is ridiculous and needs to be addressed. The government does have a media service in the form of NPR, but it is largely neglected in favor of companies in the private sector. Creating a law that would restrict out right lies in public settings would be difficult as people would claim that that they were misinformed, even if it is their job not to be. Publicizing that the words of Sanders is not credible will hopefully get people to question what authorities are saying and find out information on their own. Being proactive in the search for the truth and legitimate facts is the silver lining in this whole ordeal and will hopefully teach the American people a valuable lesson to question everything.
I agree that action should be taken in order to prevent or at least dissuade the Trump administration from spreading such falsehoods. Although this lie about current opinion polls is rather blatant, I’m not particularly surprised by Ms. Sanders’ statements; the Trump administration -- and especially Trump himself -- is pervasive in this type of behavior. I believe that a law to eliminate misinformation in the media would be difficult to implement and rather subjective. It may be more worthwhile to give the journalists in the room more free reign in evaluating Ms. Sander’s statements without the threat of not being invited back, though the probability of this occurring in the Trump administration is doubtful.
Trump administration simply understands the people, the system, and the media too well. The administration is taking advantage of all of country, which is smart on their part. People who support him will believe him, people who don't may be tricked by him, and the rest wouldn't support him anyway. Trump has the right to lie as long as it is not slanderous, and so he does. These lies don't really hurt anyway, even though it is a bit shameful for him in the eyes of those who oppose him (for example, most of California and other liberal powerhouses). One cannot blame his administration for being smart, and it is how the system works, with no better possibilities.
If people want to to make the government stop making lies, the people need to work together to call out all of these "fake news." The government was not made to stop people from lying as the Constitution does not really state anything major concerning lying towards the public. The Supreme Court can try to crack down on political liars, but it only has a limited authority concerning this. Even if Supreme Court justices start to go after these liars, the supporters of the liar(s) would only hinder the judicial process. Government officials in Congress or the Executive branch rely on the public to obtain power. Thus, the citizens are needed to go after these lying politicians, which, in turn, will help curb this uncontrolled amount of lies in the government.
I don’t know if I agree that journalists should be the ones speaking out at these press conferences. I think they are more the carriers of information and shouldn’t hinder the press conference too much. I do see the problem with lies like these perpetuating, but unfortunately, like Michael said, those who support him will keep believing him, those who don’t support him will continue not supporting him, and these lies will most impact those who are on the fence and are trying to think for themselves, but have false information to base their opinions on. Obviously lies are a problem, but I don’t see a feasible solution to stopping them at the source, and can only advocate for more education to teach people to check facts for themselves and not just blindly follow what they hear/read from one source.
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