Make no mistake, no matter where your political loyalties lie, our media has become a Soviet-style, propaganda organization that no longer serves the public by sharing information so the people can decide.
People who are looking at President Trump, Joe Biden, the two-party system, or political disagreement, in general, as the main problems causing our divided nation are wrong.
We are a divided nation because we’re not all getting complete information, and we’re not all getting the same information.
Our media has one purpose, to seek and provide the important information necessary to maintain an informed public, and they’re no longer serving it.
However, I think there’s a solution.
As a conservative, it’s very rare that I would turn to the government to solve the problem, but I think that’s what has to happen.
I think the government has to own the 5:30-6:30pm time slot on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox networks and give 30 of those minutes to the Republican Party and 30 minutes to the Democrat Party so they can provide their own newscasts.
The parties can each then hire their own reporters, newscasters, and production teams to do with those 30 minutes what they like (in the context of news programming). Whether or not one party got the first or second slot would be randomized so people would have a chance of seeing either.
This idea is inspired by the British newspaper market. In England, everyone knows the political leanings of each newspaper. There is no presumption of unbiased coverage. Their newspapers embrace their ideology, and this makes for a more informed public.
Because they have to compete for readers, but also ideas, the newspapers are incentivized to investigate and dig and present all of the facts they can to support their news stories. They have to gather evidence, interview sources, and back up their news stories with relevant facts. This affects what they cover and how they cover it.
As is in England, the result of this competitive approach is that both sides would motivated to do thorough and complete reporting to ensure their news broadcasts are ironclad and reliable. The viewing public, especially those only casually engaged in our political system, would get a more even-handed look at the news.
Regardless of your ideology, you would have to celebrate the citizens’ exposure to multiple points of view. The opportunity to look at the news and our politicians through more than one lens would give our people the chance to engage, explore, and be more thoughtful on their conclusions.
It may also inspire people to do more research beyond that day’s news and find new or alternative sources of information they may not have otherwise found in our current news echo chambers.
Understandably, many would not be comfortable with the government ultimately owning these time slots, but if the legislation were passed effectively, the government couldn’t do anything more than guarantee the space and time was available for the two parties.
Our national media’s one-sided influence has gotten out of control and is the main cause of the division that exists in our country. This may not be the perfect solution, but after years of considering how the free marketing could solve this, I think I’ve concluded that exposure to both sides of every story is essential to a functioning republic.
Unless you have any better ideas?
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