How can we regulate the news media

Something like this?Fortunately, no-one was killed. Still, it shows what the media can achieve.

Isn't that rather like saying that we can't blame a conman for the gullibility of his victim? True, we can't, but as no-one actually does that that would be something of a strawman. What we can and do do is blame the conman for exploiting the gullibility of his victim.

If you and I both know about something that happened 20 years ago, in my case when I was a teenager and living in another country, then I think we can say that it has received extensive public exposure. But to be fair to NBC, that's imaginary. Can't you just castigate them for the stuff that they actually did? That's bad enough.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No. 'Cos that's different. Well, the intention of the conman is to make himself rich, he has no particular interest in making his victim poor. It just works out that way.

No, his interest is in making himself richer. He wouldn't be deterred from his crime if, for example, the victim was insured and ended up no poorer. Just so long as he ends up with more money, he's happy.In the same way, I suppose that at least the more cynical sections of the right-wing media don't want to produce screaming twitching paranoid lunatics as such. It's just an inevitable consequence of their marketing strategy.

Examples? But it's not valid.If Fox News have a duty to boost Birthers, then they would also have had a duty to boost 9/11 Truthers. They had their suspicions, and no-one else in the media was taking it seriously ... so why didn't Fox News step up?