The Founders Anticipated ‘Fake News.’ Here’s What They Did About It.

Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman / December 30, 2016 /

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So what did the Founders do to stop this problem? They created a system of government that would allow room for democracy, yet checked its vices: through institutions like Congress, the constitutional amendment process, and division of power between branches of government as well as the states and federal government. Not to mention the Electoral College, which the modern left now decries as unfair and undemocratic.

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While recognizing the occasional problems of an unimpeded fourth estate, Tocqueville wrote that “in order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.”
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Tocqueville concluded of a free press:

When the right of every citizen to a share in the government of society is acknowledged, everyone must be presumed to be able to choose between the various opinions of his contemporaries and to appreciate the different facts from which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be regarded as correlative, just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people.
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dailysignal.com...

The founding fathers of the U.S. knew that stories in a free press could be exaggerated, or even made up, but they also knew that in order to keep the Republic relatively free, amongst other freedoms, then a free press should exist.

When a partisan government claims that news are fake because they have a bias, or because some news are false, then that partisan government intends on allowing only propaganda with a bias preferred by those in power.

Tocqueville wasn't a founding father, he was a Frenchman who also thought it wise to keep the press free, even with the "inevitable evils that it creates."

What the Obama administration, Facebook, google, etc are doing "trying to fight fake news" is exactly what authoritarian governments have done, and are doing to this day.

In order to preserve a basic principle of liberty, we must accept that from time to time a free press can publish misleading, or biased articles, and this is no excuse to try to control the press.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

If they could call Thomas Jefferson a hermaphroditic monkey-effer and have him subsequently go on to win the Presidency then the Republic can get through this current S-storm as well.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Of course the Founding Fathers knew about fake news! Fake news is older than The Bible, which is filled with fake news! Ergo, the Jefferson Bible.

What truly surprises me is how many people are still being affected by their cognitive dissonance. No matter how much proof there is (assuming it CAN be verified that is), sooo many still cling to the idea that our mainstream media sources are the main sources of truth, no matter how many times they have been caught in lies, distortions and fabrications. Both sides of the political fence have done it and will continue to do it but fortunately, with the rise of independent journalists and so many other sources of information, it IS getting harder to keep those lies afloat.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

If they could call Thomas Jefferson a hermaphroditic monkey-effer and have him subsequently go on to win the Presidency then the Republic can get through this current S-storm as well.

The worst thing that could happen to 'The Press' is that The People stop believing what they print.

Unfortunately, the worst thing has happened.

They're not getting a second chance with me. And, from what I can see ... they're not looking for that second chance either ... unless that's what 'doubling down' means.

Trump also said bad things about the electoral collage until he won because of them lol.

Oh and I'm all for it btw.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Canadian here but when I posted a piece I had found and it ran contrary to what one member and the MSM were calling the truth and labeled my source as propaganda ,I said well you can believe your propaganda and I will choose mine . I didn't know that the US Constitution worked that way but the member that was opposed to my propaganda should have as I think they were American .

originally posted by: Snarl
They're not getting a second chance with me. And, from what I can see ... they're not looking for that second chance either ... unless that's what 'doubling down' means.

All outlets have their echo chamber of adherents that will swallow whatever pablum they are cranking out.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse


I've been wondering if the was a way of 're-balancing' the MSM without violating the First.

All I could come up with is follow the general trend/mantra of Trump and de-regulate. Rather than suppressing or restricting the media, open it up. Remove the barriers to starting new stations, be it cable or any other medium.

Then let the consumer decide and dictate their preference via purchases/boycotts of the various advertisers of each venue.

More communication. Not less.

P.S. At the very least, it would royally get the MSM's knickers in a twist......

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

What the Obama administration, Facebook, google, etc are doing "trying to fight fake news" is exactly what authoritarian governments have done, and are doing to this day.

Facebook, Google, etc are not part of the government. What exactly has the outgoing Obama administration done that has you so worked up? In case you missed that whole election thing, we'll have a new president in tad over two weeks.

Unless of course you're talking about the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act that got quietly tucked into the NDAA? That does seem like real recipe for disaster and just in time for Trump.

In order to preserve a basic principle of liberty, we must accept that from time to time a free press can publish misleading, or biased articles, and this is no excuse to try to control the press.

I agree wholeheartedly. I just can't figure out why you're worried about President-for-less-than-three-more-weeks Obama at this point?

Uhm duh, there shouldn't be no House, no Senate or Electoral COllege. It should just be the POTUS as elected by New York & California via direct democracy, and the lifetime SCOTUS seats as appointed by the liberal POTUS. And everyone who isn't liberal is racist sexist and stupid. Snarf snarf.

a reply to: theantediluvian


Somehow a change in President is going to mean a return of balance in the MSM?

A Presidential change doesn't equate to any significant change in the MSM.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Facebook, Google, etc are not part of the government.

See the following....

Facebook:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Google:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Any questions?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

If they could call Thomas Jefferson a hermaphroditic monkey-effer and have him subsequently go on to win the Presidency then the Republic can get through this current S-storm as well.

In Jeffersons time, the barrier to entry on being a member of the press was much higher. Print shops were expensive to start, but had high profit margins.

The news industry is different today, we don't have "esteemed" editors and professional journalists posting information. For $20 you can host a website for a year with instant global distribution, where you can write anything you want. Being published used to be a big deal, and the editing process kept a sense of integrity in what is published. Today though anyone can say anything. All you need to do is write it, and some group of people are going to find what you write, and take it for being true.

Essentially, the trustworthiness of information you read, used to be around say 80%. Most of what you read was true, with a bit of opinion thrown in to slant information. These days it's closer to 0%. You can't take anything reporting on news as being true. There's no process to verify anything, and most of what you hear is simply the result of an echo chamber of who you choose to communicate with on social media.

The entire concept of a press has failed. It got so free and open that it's brain fell out.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: theantediluvian


Somehow a change in President is going to mean a return of balance in the MSM?

A Presidential change doesn't equate to any significant change in the MSM.

It changes who is on offense and who is on defense. Most notably, it means Fox and Drudge transition from being opposition to establishment, while CNN and the Daily Show go from establishment to opposition.

It's subtle things too. For example, when Obama was first inaugurated I was listening to Hannity. After he had spent 8 years forcing liberals to say "President Bush" on the air, he himself went to saying "Obama" or "Mr. Obama" in pretty much every instance rather than President Obama. I'm curious to see if in 2 weeks he's back to "President Trump". That's the subtle types of bias in how these networks deliver their message based on who is in power.

The US was founded on, among many other principles, the principle of "let the buyer beware".

Its up to the reader to not be naive.

ETA: we sould also point out that "fake news" was actually made up news coming out of foreign nations. It isn't what we see partisans trying to say it is. The only way to address the "fake news" problem is for people to discard their confirmation bias and block any tendency toward naivete.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

oh and brief aside:

Whenever a person starts a remark with "the Founding Fathers knew" I get ready to shake the s# out of my head. Usually what follows is some horribly flawed pseduoreligious misconception. It's a pet peeve of mine.

There were certainly some great minds among the FF and their associates. While many of them were very liberal and very progressive for their era, there is far FAR more liberty today than there was in the time of the FF in nearly every regard. Aside from the biggies like oh I dunno, civil rights for non-whites and women's suffrage, our First Amendment protections have been massively expanded through a whole lot of struggle for a very long time right into the recent decades.

Let's not forget that it the Federalist Party controlled Congress signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts and John Adams signed them into law. The Sedition Act made it possible to imprison partisan newspaper editors for the crime of speaking out against the current administration. The was used against the Jefferson/Democratic-Republican supporting newspaper editors. The primary target was Benjamin Franklin Bache but IIRC, out of about two dozen known arrests there ended up being 10 convictions. Bache himself was arrested for sedition but died of Yellow Fever before trial.

Clearly 1798 was not the apex of American liberty.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: theantediluvian


Somehow a change in President is going to mean a return of balance in the MSM?

Who said it does or should? And what is this "return of balance" that you speak of anyway?

A Presidential change doesn't equate to any significant change in the MSM.

Actually it does. As executive and command-in-chief of the military, the President has a great deal of influence and outright control of the flow of information that comes from our government. The government being the primary source of information about the government.

a reply to: theantediluvian

You can only govern the willing. Some founder had slaves, most would have been willing to give them up. But the rest of the colonies residents didn't agree.

Same with womens rights. Some of the founders would likely have been happy to promote womens rights....but it went against the sensibilities of many of those who were governed.

And while the average person in colonial times was no more engaged than today....there was an aristocratic "class" that pushed for all manner of things. Consider us not having a "your majesty" to be a trade off to having slavery. It was all about making the money in the new united States more easy to get along with.

a reply to: theantediluvian

The time of the Founding Fathers was a very "contentious time around the world". Racism, and oppression was rampant even in Europe, not to mention Asia, and Africa which were worst.

The Founding Fathers had the right idea, in general, even when not all of them wholeheartedly agreed with each other.

In case you didn't know Jefferson wrote a passage in the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence which denounced slavery as" a cruel war against human nature." This passage was deleted by Congress.

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The section regarding the slave trade, or ‘reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa’ is found in the list of grievances against the King. This section is on the third page of the 'fair copy' draft. It is interesting that Jefferson thought slavery had been foisted upon the Colonies only as they were designed to bring economic gain to England. The specific words about slavery were later removed by Congrees. In his Autobiography, Jefferson wrote:

"The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures, for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

Jefferson's grievance regarding the Slave Trade later removed from the Declaration of Independence by Congress.
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www.nypl.org...

Unfortunately even back then the idea of the union was held together by a very thin thread. The passage condemning slavery was deleted by Congress in order to keep the union together and for the nation known as the U.S. to be founded. This occurred at a time when slavery was widely used around the entire world. The Union was not perfect, and will never be perfect. No nation is perfect because all nations are made up of different and imperfect individuals.