(01-31-2018 11:36 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Since we can now point out every person that disagrees with us as snowflakes, would that not make you a snowflake as well?

It's a stupid word. About as ridiculous as Fake News.

I've always hated the term Fake News. It was trumpeted as some kind of revelation. Journalism has never been the beacon of integrity those in the industry would have you believe. Most "news" outlets are opinion blogs masquerading as such. They are for the most part factually correct. But it's not the facts that get in the way of the truth. It's how those facts are presented, lead, and spun into whatever they want you to think that's much more insidious. The conclusions Fox News and MSNBC want you to arrive at with the same facts are very different, though their agendas, and the agendas of every media outlet, and every business, are the same: to maximize profits. Why would it be anything else? When there's that much money involved, the needs of the consumer, and the needs of the provider have obvious differences. Media outlets maximize profits primarily through ad dollars and investors. More clicks, and more viewers (ratings) equal more ad dollars. They only care about you as far as they can make money off your statistical contribution to their ad reports. Ad giants are the ones indirectly curating the "news" you consume. People like Paula Dean aren't fired because companies want to do the right thing, they are fired because it makes the most sense financially. Pressure from aforementioned advertisers and investors fuel these "public acts of altruism". It was never about you, it was always about the money.

bull**** is defined as "stopping just short of a lie" - Harry Frankfurt's On bull****

There's the rub about "Fake News". It's not about the facts, but how they are presented to drive you to the conclusions they want you to have. People fall for it everyday because it's incredibly easy, even for more intelligent people. The media has it down to a science. After all they've been doing it since the mid 1800's and later, when the Yellow Press was thriving at the turn of the century. Fun Fact: One paper actually conned hundreds of people into believing that the Civil War wasn't actually happening, and that it was a political maneuver. This has been happening for a long, long time. Big money leaves a stain on everything it touches, and you can never, ever assume altruism or humanity.