Subject: Re: Ain't That The Truth
Welp, now we're into the logical fallacy game.

No, we're not. The logical fallacy is a recognition that the source of a logical argument doesn't have any bearing on whether the argument is correct. However, the credibility source of a factual claim does have a bearing on whether that factual claim is more or less likely to be true. Which is why you're allowed to impeach witnesses in a criminal trial. Whether someone has a history of lying doesn't affect the veracity of them arguing that "2+2=4" (which doesn't rely on their witnessing it to be demonstrated), but it would affect the veracity of them claiming that they saw me punch a kitten.

If a news source isn't engaged in a serious and responsible effort to differentiate between truth and untruth through investigation and interrogation of competing claims, then you should devalue that news source compared to outlets that do.

Can you see the danger in something like this?

I can see why you see the danger in something like this - because I think you misunderstand the argument.

Back when there were only three news stations, the commercial success of those news stations was more directly linked to the credibility and reliability of their reporting. Because they had to appeal to an audience that included nearly everyone, all of their economic incentives drove them towards garnering a reputation for investigative accuracy. Without a splintered audience, the only way for news outlets to differentiate themselves and gain (or lose) market share was the quality of their reportage - because a desire for accuracy was the only common denominator in the demand of such a diverse customer base. It's one of the few things that everyone in the audience wants. There was no way to make money by narrowcasting untruths in broadcast "over-the-air" television - those untruths would destroy you with the rest of the audience.

If you're only trying to build an audience of the 10% most [conservative/liberal] viewers, then that's no longer true. You don't need to be accurate in reporting in order to get them to want to watch your newscast. In fact, it can actively hurt your economics if you're accurate. Instead, you need to deliver what the audience wants. Unlike with the situation with only three networks, now your target audience has far more homogeneous interests and viewpoints. So you can be economically successful delivering news that isn't accurate, but which favors the viewpoint that your audience holds.

And we've arrived at the crux of the debate: Who decides?

You do. For yourself. But for that to work, you have to make the effort to actually figure out whether a source is in fact trying to search for truth or to support a particular "side."

You should interrogate whether or not the news sources you consume are economically incentivized to try to be accurate, or to try to deliver content that will please viewers that have a particular affiliation. There's nothing wrong with watching a network that's firmly "on your side" for entertainment or when you want to hear someone articulating the worldview that you support - that's the reason people go to political rallies, after all. But if what you're looking for is a news source that's going to give you an accurate depiction of the world as it is, then you really want to avoid the ones that are clearly "Team Up" or "Team Down." And it's not really that hard to do - they typically don't try very hard to hide that they have an affiliation, even as they might nominally claim to be neutral conduits of the truth.

I mean, you don't have to do that. But it might be helpful if you're aware of the fact that a particular news source is, in fact, marketing itself to an ideologically homogeneous audience before trying to cite it to people who do try to distinguish between ideological "news" sources and those that fulfill traditional news functions.