This is still too extreme. "Lying" requires intentionality and implies maliciousness. It suggests that people who work in media are mostly evil people with the primary goal of misleading you. It both ignores and shows ignorance of how the media industry actually works. It also removes any hope of actually fixing the media industry because the only solution according to this mindset is getting rid of all the lying journalists. It doesn't leave any room to understand or address the incentives that actually got us to our current situation.
It's dishonest. End of story.
I think it's ok to take the illustration to that extreme, given the postulation that you say someone thinks that you should destroy a person's life over one loaf of bread.
Certainly makes me feel warm and fuzzy that our news orgs are looking out for us! :)
Do you not understand how horrifying a comparison this is?
I never described "all lying as malicious". I said it "implies maliciousness" and you said it "often is, malicious". I don't see a disagreement here.
:). My apologies, I've misread what you wrote.
I think the tension we're walking here is to keep one hand grounded in the fact that words can have a discrete, objective meaning *while also* allowing for individual freedom of expression. Modernity vs unhinged relativism.
> it took a few years ... to be come publicized knowledge that the media lied about every war, about every economic policy, ...
is exactly what you call a "wooden" statement. But even when the author meant "by and large, the media lied", the statement is a dishonest exaggeration it is. Of course there are media that can be caught lying over and over again, but there are sufficient large, conscientious news outlets to suppose it is a dirty spin.
> If we continue with this way of interpreting one another we'll likely fall into the same polarization that we're complaining about (again, a grand irony).
Discrediting all media equally is part of polarization, and letting it go isn't helpful. Discussing it as if it were true, as many seem to do, is a symptom that it has gone too far.
> Saying they're all lying and always have is a (probably politically motivated) spin against normal news organizations.
Perhaps the most wooden way to interpret what they're is saying. I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying".
Pointing this out is useful because it shows the irony in the whole matter. This kind of wooden interpretation of words and lazy disqualification is what leads someone to the "black and white" spin you're accusing the GP of. This falls in line with the type of _gotcha_ logic that insists: "Well you said x, and x means X regardless of rhetorical device usage." and "OP has expressed sentiment in Y, which leads me to believe he's actually Y and therefore not $CREDIBLE".
The point is, engaging like this deprives the dialogue of nuance, rhetorical freedom and grace. If we continue with this way of interpreting one another we'll likely fall into the same polarization that we're complaining about (again, a grand irony).