Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) is an investigative journalist who writes the Bug-eyed and Shameless newsletter and recently published the book The 51st State Votes.
Our conversation begins with the right wing media ecosystem, and its effect particularly on US politics. Justin explains why there isn’t really a counterpart on the left, and what makes Canada different from the United States in this regard. Leslie and Justin move on to democracy and authoritarianism on the international stage, and how to develop healthy media consumption habits in today’s world.
The Coughlin case is very interesting and instructive if you dig deeper. It's not so much that the public woke up or its fever broke, but that strong institutions actually grew spines and put their feet down on his crap! Not only did regulators do their job, but even the Catholic Church put a stop to the dissemination of his bile! Free Speech and Freedom of Expression do not extend to incitement, intimidation and criminal harassment... At a bare minimum, we could require algorithms not to promote Hate if we wanted to, which is not the same as censoring Thought Crime... Otherwise (with apologies to Beckett), Democracy will be stillborn astride a Coughlin, and the Enlightenment will have gleamed an instant, with Night descending once more...
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, maybe people could use the time they waste on social media to scroll through actual news apps instead? And perhaps content creators could stop paywalling legitimate media, thereby driving the most gullible and susceptible to the free fringe? I have no sympathy for entitled, whiny scribblers who would oppose free public libraries if they weren't already so well-established and normalized... In Canada, we could also fund an ad-free CBC properly while requiring it to up its game. Oh, and if people have time for Netflix, 'true crime' and 'romantasy' content as well as podcasts, they have time for long-form documentary journalism...
What does it tell us that the best real news comes from satirical comedy these days? 'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind, but it's still better than being led by the nose by admen!