A number of threads, including this one, have been appropriate for a favorite quote:
The real 'propaganda' outlets will almost always be controversial when criticized, precisely because good propaganda is believable to many of its targets.
The problem really isn't sources that are just 'factually wrong', and can easily be exposed for that,
The problem is more sites that are ones with a 'biased agenda' that 'spread an ideology' using propaganda - often by people who believe it themselves.
For example, take a site with commentary advocating shifting wealth to the rich based on 'trickle-down economics'. To opponents, that's clearly not credible - debunked by good theory, by decades of experience, by the corrupt motives of the wealthy interests who pay for that ideology to get spread - but its supports don't agree that's clear 'propaganda' at all, just a disagreement with two honest sides, and they think theirs is correct.
So the 'factual' issue isn't really that useful for identifying 'bad sites'. Rather, it's just going to be disputes between people with different views.
So, what do we do with the issue? For example, say for the sake of argument Fox News is a 'bad' source filled with propaganda for the right-wing ideology - but that doesn't mean a lot of factual errors. If someone posts information from them filled with opinion - say, 'Chuck Hagel was clearly shown not to be qualified from his hearings' - there's an issue between people like me who would dismiss that as not worth a response and those would defend it as 'legitimate' because there aren't factual errors.
I think it comes down to that for there to be useful discussion both sides have to have some agreement on common issues. I'll cite Paul Krugman as a good source. If you agree, great, and we can disagree on the specific issue; if not, there might not be much to discuss.
Unfortunately, a lot of discussion is blocked over this. For example, when the improved jobs report came out before the election, the discussion wasn't much about what it meant on policy, but rather it was dominated by the attack by the right that the 'report was false, a lie created to help Obama'. Hard to discuss it without that agreed on.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John Kennedy
The real 'propaganda' outlets will almost always be controversial when criticized, precisely because good propaganda is believable to many of its targets.
The problem really isn't sources that are just 'factually wrong', and can easily be exposed for that,
The problem is more sites that are ones with a 'biased agenda' that 'spread an ideology' using propaganda - often by people who believe it themselves.
For example, take a site with commentary advocating shifting wealth to the rich based on 'trickle-down economics'. To opponents, that's clearly not credible - debunked by good theory, by decades of experience, by the corrupt motives of the wealthy interests who pay for that ideology to get spread - but its supports don't agree that's clear 'propaganda' at all, just a disagreement with two honest sides, and they think theirs is correct.
So the 'factual' issue isn't really that useful for identifying 'bad sites'. Rather, it's just going to be disputes between people with different views.
So, what do we do with the issue? For example, say for the sake of argument Fox News is a 'bad' source filled with propaganda for the right-wing ideology - but that doesn't mean a lot of factual errors. If someone posts information from them filled with opinion - say, 'Chuck Hagel was clearly shown not to be qualified from his hearings' - there's an issue between people like me who would dismiss that as not worth a response and those would defend it as 'legitimate' because there aren't factual errors.
I think it comes down to that for there to be useful discussion both sides have to have some agreement on common issues. I'll cite Paul Krugman as a good source. If you agree, great, and we can disagree on the specific issue; if not, there might not be much to discuss.
Unfortunately, a lot of discussion is blocked over this. For example, when the improved jobs report came out before the election, the discussion wasn't much about what it meant on policy, but rather it was dominated by the attack by the right that the 'report was false, a lie created to help Obama'. Hard to discuss it without that agreed on.