Do you think the news media should be regulated for accuracy and/or exaggeration?

How do you regulate it? Do you tell people what they can and can not write? Do you have a government paid editor deciding what stories see print? Censorship is bad no matter how you put it.

You could pass a law that says that it's illegal to write biased, inaccurate, or exaggerated news stories. You could make irresponsible journalism illegal. Trials could be help to determine if the accused news story was biased, inaccurate, or exaggerated - then fines could be lobbied against the news organization that propagated the story if the judge and perhaps a jury found them guilty.
I wouldn't call that censorship, though I don't know if it's a good idea either.

My worst pet peeve is when they're reporting on something complicated and they simplify it to the point that they're wrong. Either don't report it, or take the time to find a way to communicate the truth!

Bad Ferret? It's a band.

All eye-witness accounts are biased in some way and this includes the media. However the state should NEVER regulate the media, because short of being omniscient the media is the best tool we have of being presented with a plurality of viewpoints.

There's a lot of really bad journalism out there, but this won't make things any better.
**bill: It's censorship after the fact. It would make news organizations afraid to publish anything critical of anyone. Given recent judicial farces (the NY gun manufacturer trial, the John Denver trial, etc.) I'd be extremely leery of extending judicial power any further, even ignoring (in the US) any constitutional issues.

How 'bout, "This is a problem, and nothing should be done about it."

i see the problem with regulation as one of who sets the regulatory standards. it also depends on which aspect of the media you're addressing. are you talking about small progressive publications such as _the nation_ or _in these times_? or perhaps right wing publications such as _the american scholar_? or the corporate owned mainstream media? as recently as 1996 four corporations owned nbc, cbs, abc, and fox. the same groups also own the major mainstream news publications. i may be jaded, but i don't see government interests as lying very far from large corporate interests. i would prefer that they stay out of what would inevitably turn into the censorship business. i'll just continue with my small press subscriptions.

Sometime ago Romkey described a project that he wanted to work on that would address this problem to some extent. It was a kind of news-site that incorporated a way to "rate news" for accuracy and also rate the people who have rated things. I imagined this leading to news sites advertising themselves as "Rated the 'most accurate' and 'lease inflamatory' by the net's highest ranking raters!" Or something like that. Maybe romkey would care to explain the idea here?

**topper: Have you by chance read Earth by David Brin? He describes a somewhat similar system.

the feedback mechanism on the news media should be directly from its customers, not from the government

there will always be bias, it is just a matter of the blatant lies.... i actually think the major news networks and larger newspapers do a fairly good job of watch dogging themselves. i think more is allowed through now in order to scoop other sources. i don't think government regulation is the answer though

topper - okay I'll see what I can remember of it.

the idea is to set up a cooperatively maintained "news" web server where anyone can submit articles. articles can be cryptographically signed, so you can see that a group of articles is from the same person, even if you don't know who they really are. The server would provide a number of methods for you to decide which articles you (the viewer) wanted to see. For instance, you might like to see all the articles from a certain author, or for a certain area, or on a certain subject, or a combination of the above. Readers would have the chance to express editorial opinion on articles, so you could also read only the articles that other readers thought highly of. You'd want to be clear on the rankings there - you'd probably rank articles based on how well written they are, how "relevant" they are, and how accurate you think they are. The idea is to put the editorial decision-making process in the hands of the readers and not the publisher.

obviously you'd need some controls to deal with spam and vandalism as well, but I think there are mechanisms you could build to deal with this as the system is designed.

Isn't their feedback for the news already coming from its customers? The television and radio news both have ratings based on viewership and listenership, and those ratings are translated into how much advertisers will pay for ads. If a show has low ratings no one will pay for ads and the show will be canceled. The same goes for the printed media, if no one buys the magazine or newspaper it changes its content or ceases printing. Currently the various news outlets are producing products that their viewers are willing to watch or read. The content isn't driven by the editors anymore. It's pandering for an audience.

There is already such a system in place: the libel laws enable individuals and groups to sue when they feel that the news media have harmed them by publishing falsehoods. Giving the government direct regulatory power over the media strikes me as a Very Bad Idea.

The whole idea of fairness and accuracy in the media is a fairly modern one; early newspapers in this country were privately published and viciously opinionated. We've become a little bit spoiled, although I am concerned by the consolidation of media ownership. But that, too, is already covered in our (by which I mean the US's) system of laws; we have antitrust laws that should theoretically prevent the dominance of too much of the media marketplace by one corporation.

Gee, don't I seem optimistic today?

It has always been distorted, the problem is that you have to make things more exciting or appealing to make money.. money is always the bottom line. with so many different news agencies, each with its own bias, you get many points of view. If one reads enough sources, you can probably get an idea what the core is and figure out what the biases are. however, you shouldn't have to do this. the media should be policing themselves, but if they are presenting just the facts, they won't make money.

The major problem I have is not the stories they print, or any aspect thereof, it's the stories the media chooses to ignore/suppress because of their controversial nature. Amnesty International found our press highly self-censoring. I think the web helps with this a little, but not enough and many important stories get buried or dropped.

I would like to point out that yes it is a problem, but there is nothing that can be done about it. It is one of the trade-offs of democracy. There is plenty of bias and inaccuracy in news, but whoever is the watcher will in turn need to be watched and so on. It is up to people themselves to make decisions and think critically; unfortunately for the vast majority this is not a priority.

romkey: Perhaps if you explained it to the News in the Future folks, they'd run with it. I don't know them, but from their blurb it seems relevant.

Hm. Existing laws against libel, slander, and fraud count as "some regulation," I guess, and I think they're a good thing... if you can prove a reporter is lying, make 'em pay.
But lumping together inaccuracy with bias and exaggeration makes answering this question difficult... bias is inevitable and regulating it is a dangerous business; I'd rather we not even try.
"can something be done"? sure... news consumers can vote with their feet and seek out less (or differently) biased news sources. At the moment, American consumers have sent the clear message that we are more interested in entertainment than comprehensive coverage; the media is responding accordingly.

While it would be nice if the news were more accurate, I certainly don't trust government regulation to achieve that end.

I like the customer feedback idea. I think it'd be much more effective than just the current system of ratings of TV programs but not have the bad effects of government regulation.