I have been following the work of Glenn Greenwald for a while and am impressed by his integrity as a journalist. It is not always easy to be an independent thinker and Greenwald tries his very best. Recently, he published a post on his substack on Rachel Maddow, the high-priestess of liberal "prêt-à-penser". I recommend the whole article but in a nutshell, it deals with the ambiguity of comedians or personalities like Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, or Rachel Maddow who have a political agenda but use humor to seduce their audience. Recently, a judge has ruled the following according to Greenwald:
The point of Maddow’s show is for her to provide the news but also to offer her opinions as to that news. Therefore, the Court finds that the medium of the alleged defamatory statement makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact.
Therefore, we should not consider Maddow's show to be anything but opinions. So, what's the point then? the irony is Maddow was accusing another media, One America News, of being Russian propaganda. Would Maddow be a tool of American propaganda? It's just her opinion, the judge said. An opinion that matters to millions of viewers, convinced of being on the right side of information.
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