How to fix newspapers

I have added a section to my critical page on the Mass Media, with regards to newspapers and cheap sensationalist journalism, and their negative effects on individuals and society. Here is a bit of the next text, view the rest by clicking on the title, above!

• Stronger international laws against the public spreading of disinformation. Broadcasters should be placed under extra legal obligation to check facts. Many journalists avoid legal trouble by claiming that they don't know what stories are true or not. So, if it is scandalous and it will sell, then, they publish it without checking (or admitting) their sources. There needs to be an international body that specifically deals with mass-media outlets, proscribing to them a greater responsibility to check their facts, with the ability to suspend printing or publication once a certain amount of abuse has built up.
  
  
• Journalists should be required to be a member of a journalist association, which they get kicked out of if they produce very low quality information. Many developed countries already have such associations. It should especially be the case in wire agencies, from which most other news outlets get their news.

Some methods of curbing the press's abuses are good-hearted, but occasionally dysfunctional:

• "In 2008 the Slovak parliament introduced one to guarantee the subject of a story the right to reply, of the same length and prominence as the original" - this sounds good, because the idea is that the press will have to print criticisms of itself in its own papers with such frequency that they will be compelled only to publish accurate information. There is however a very unfortunate second part to that law - the right to reply stands even if the facts were correct. This would seem to me to lead to a barrage of responses from politicians and lawyers that abuse the right-to-reply principal, in effect, ending the ability of the press to be critical. In a healthy democracy, the press must free to be critical of governments and institutions.
  
  
• In Poland, an old law gives sources the authority to withdraw or edit quotations right up until the point of publication41. So when a paper tries to quote someone out of context, as they are often eager to do, the subject can withdraw their quote. Unfortunately, it seems like it can again be abused by officials to ruin newspaper stories in order to hide truth.
  

In short, it appears to be very difficult to concoct laws that allow individuals to protect themselves against ridiculous press stories, but where instititons and democracies are still subject to critical journalism without fear of recriminations. What would be an ideal is a world where consumers, as pointed out above, avoid the more outlandish papers, and where editors and journalists only try to produce responsible pieces. Unfortunately, neither is likely to happen.

The Fear of Death is a Cause of Irrational Beliefs

“It is not rational arguments, but emotions, that cause belief in a future life. The most important of these emotions is fear of death.”
"Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell, p74

Child psychologists say that 'there is no death' in the world of most childen. Others in history, such as Freud, have explained that "dealing" with the learned idea of death is one of the greatest challenges of adulthood. Many, of course, "deal" with it by imagining that death is not real. That, in fact, we somehow survive death, despite that the self is the brain, and the brain dies.

The fear of death has got to be one of the biggest causes, in history, of religious beliefs. The difficulty in imagining the discontinuance of thought and the loss of all motivations, memories, life, to some seeming void, has lent itself in history to the idea that somehow we don't actually die. These "spiritual pipe dreams" (in the words of Anton LaVey) fuel irrational religious beliefs.

I've added the quote by Bertrand Russell to my page, "The Causes of Religion" by Vexen Crabtree (2007).

Vexen Crabtree's New Pages in 2005

2005 Dec 28	"Christian Prayer" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 24	"Satanism: The Natural Religion (Forget the New Age!)" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 18	"Blasphemy Laws in the UK" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 11	"Christmas: The Multicultural Celebration" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Aug 29	"The Goodguy Badge": Vexen's page on LaVey's term describing the shallow things people do to look and feel 'good'
2005 Aug 16	The International Date Format (ISO-8601): Vexen's appraisal of the YYYY MMM DD date format
2005 Aug 15	Doubled size of ""If there is a God, it Must be an Evil God" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Aug 14	"Satanism as the Worship of Truth and Reality", according to Vexen
2005 Aug 13	How does Acupuncture Work? Scientific studies included. Summary by Vexen
2005 Aug 07	"Military Drill: Its Theory & Purpose" by Vexen Crabtree Vexen Sociology: The Importance of Current Events is Amplified by our Egos
2005 Jul 20	Pornography: Vexen on the porn industry
2005 Jul 20	Hellraiser films; Reviews and Commentary on Hellraiser, the Cenobites, Pinhead. By Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jun 04	If Vexen Crabtree was God, what would he do? And why doesn't God do these things?
2005 May 28	"Cultural Religion and Scholarly Religion" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 May 03	Vexen shows that Biblical Christianity Completely And Specifically Denies All Free Will
2005 May 01	"Satanism is a Different Religion to Christianity!" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Apr 24	New website on politics and countries, including new essay "Which Country Sets the Best Examples in the World?" by Vexen
2005 Apr 10	God never needs to "test" us, it already knows what we'll do
2005 Mar 22	"Prayer is useless and satanic, not godly" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Mar 20	New dream pages: Dream Interpretation, The Biology of Dreams and Nightmares and Night Terrors
2005 Mar 19	New page on "Homosexuality" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 31	"Fascism and Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 27	"Equality, Egalitarianism and Social Stratification in Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 25	Friedrich Nietzsche on Vexen's A to Z of Satanism page
2005 Jan 06	List of pages on Buddhism by Vexen

Archive of Vexen Crabtree's Live Journal entries in 2005