6 ms·

This is probably the worst fucking argument I've ever heard. If you're dismissing Fox News as being biased, then you need to eject all the rest of the MSM cover

This is probably the worst fucking argument I've ever heard. If you're dismissing Fox News as being biased, then you need to eject all the rest of the MSM coverage too; because they're equally biased if not worse. Fuck, MSNBC doesn't even try and hide the fact they're on the Democratic team, it's practically their own propaganda tool for God's sake. I'll gladly take a little news from a source that's not obviously pitching me the Democratic talking points night in and night out.

scholia 10y ago
If you check Politifact http://www.politifact.com/ http://www.politifact.com/ you'll find that most of what Clinton says is mostly true, whereas practically everything Trump says is mostly false. Fox, like Trump, doesn't feel the need to tell the truth. MSM (1) generally does. (1) For Facebook, MSM means: "BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo."
- protomyth 10y ago
  Politifact isn't seen as nonpartisan. The Tampa Bay Times is the parent org and they have not endorsed any Republican candidates for President. They are a liberal newspaper and that is reflected in their fact assessments.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Well, reality has a well known liberal bias.
    - rdancer 10y ago
      If that were so, would liberal arguments need to turn to unsourced verisimilitudes?
- avatar299 10y ago
  Politifact is not a neutral source. They might as well be ran by the DNC
  - scholia 10y ago
    Seems to be a reliable source, or it wouldn't be so widely quoted or so widely respected. It's actually a story if it gets something wrong... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-is-right-trump-did-say-government-should-pay-for-everybodys-healthcare/article/2585449 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-i...
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      One can be correct and biased at the same time.
      - scholia 10y ago
        One can be correct and have an opinion at the same time. They're not the same thing. Even if you don't agree with an opinion, that doesn't make it wrong. You may be even more biased the other way. If you are not correct, then your opinion is not worth very much. See: birthers, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails, intelligent design, faked moon landing conspiracists etc.
- rdancer 10y ago
  Politifact's parent organization, Tampa Bay Times, is part of the MSM, and not a third-party watchdog. It is incredible that they have brought fact-checking into the mainstream, but their ability to have done that is at least in part thanks to their being a part of it. Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people (EDIT: they do, my bad!). Fact-checking cannot provide the kind of metric you talk about for rhetorical devices that are not drily descriptive, such as irony, hyperbole, allusion, etc. It helps that the readers have a way to look up the facts if they don't know them, but the analyses need to be read critically, same as the original statements. It's no good if you distrust one set of people and uncritically trust another. On what basis? You don't trust the politician, that's good. You don't trust some media, that's also good. But whoever in the media you choose, don't trust them blindly, they are just normal people, not superheroes. Take, for example, this statement: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/08/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-says-noncitizens-can-vote-whe/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/... There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Same-day voter registration puts a pressure on the bureaucracy to be more forgiving and less thorough; that's a fact. But is that driven by the political elements who benefit from illegals voting, and do people on either side actually believe that it has an effect? That's not a factual question, that's a question for a political debate. Mr Trump's hyperbole captures this with a surprising pith.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people, so that assertion is based on what? The certainly do. You can see that Trump is telling the truth 2% of the time and is mostly true only 6%. Most of his claims are not true. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ For comparison, Hillary Clinton rates true (23%) or mostly true (27%) http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ > There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Trump's claim was analyzed. Independent experts were consulted. It's obvious why the ruling went against him. I don't think distinguishing between hyperbole and lies is Politifact's problem. It's simply calling a lie a lie. I appreciate that Trump tells lies for political advantage, and that most politicians do the same. However, Trump is in a different league from Clinton, just as the NYT is in a different league from Fox News.
snsr 10y ago
So you take a little news from a network founded specifically to promote Republican ideals and viewpoints?
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  Yes, and then take some news from networks founded specifically to promote Democratic ideals and viewpoints and draw my own conclusions. Something far more meaningful than people I know who simply dismiss Fox News since they are right leaning. I'm actually surprised how many stories end up on Fox News that's never reported in the MSM. If you're going to be myopic in how you get your news, why should I be surprised your views are just as narrow as the sources you get them from??
  - rdancer 10y ago
    That would apply if there were honest, inevitable biases, and the journalists and editors were striving for integrity. However, in a situation where they are at best not very good, and at worst they are trying to manipulate the public opinion en masse, how can you use that kind of data? Isn't it garbage in, garbage out, no matter what your process of synthesis may be? In the good old days of the Soviet Union, we could "read between the lines", because the censorship system was not very effective, and the journalists were pissed off. But we still failed horribly at understanding what the world looked like west of the border, and imagined capitalism was some lesser form of paradise, and were quite surprised when we had to start living it. Personally, I am weary of reading people who I know try to manipulate me. I always suspect if they try hard enough and long enough, they may succeed. What is your method, and does it work?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

scholia 10y ago

If you check Politifact http://www.politifact.com/ http://www.politifact.com/ you'll find that most of what Clinton says is mostly true, whereas practically everything Trump says is mostly false. Fox, like Trump, doesn't feel the need to tell the truth. MSM (1) generally does. (1) For Facebook, MSM means: "BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo."

protomyth 10y ago
Politifact isn't seen as nonpartisan. The Tampa Bay Times is the parent org and they have not endorsed any Republican candidates for President. They are a liberal newspaper and that is reflected in their fact assessments.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Well, reality has a well known liberal bias.
  - rdancer 10y ago
    If that were so, would liberal arguments need to turn to unsourced verisimilitudes?
avatar299 10y ago
Politifact is not a neutral source. They might as well be ran by the DNC
- scholia 10y ago
  Seems to be a reliable source, or it wouldn't be so widely quoted or so widely respected. It's actually a story if it gets something wrong... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-is-right-trump-did-say-government-should-pay-for-everybodys-healthcare/article/2585449 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-i...
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    One can be correct and biased at the same time.
    - scholia 10y ago
      One can be correct and have an opinion at the same time. They're not the same thing. Even if you don't agree with an opinion, that doesn't make it wrong. You may be even more biased the other way. If you are not correct, then your opinion is not worth very much. See: birthers, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails, intelligent design, faked moon landing conspiracists etc.
rdancer 10y ago
Politifact's parent organization, Tampa Bay Times, is part of the MSM, and not a third-party watchdog. It is incredible that they have brought fact-checking into the mainstream, but their ability to have done that is at least in part thanks to their being a part of it. Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people (EDIT: they do, my bad!). Fact-checking cannot provide the kind of metric you talk about for rhetorical devices that are not drily descriptive, such as irony, hyperbole, allusion, etc. It helps that the readers have a way to look up the facts if they don't know them, but the analyses need to be read critically, same as the original statements. It's no good if you distrust one set of people and uncritically trust another. On what basis? You don't trust the politician, that's good. You don't trust some media, that's also good. But whoever in the media you choose, don't trust them blindly, they are just normal people, not superheroes. Take, for example, this statement: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/08/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-says-noncitizens-can-vote-whe/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/... There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Same-day voter registration puts a pressure on the bureaucracy to be more forgiving and less thorough; that's a fact. But is that driven by the political elements who benefit from illegals voting, and do people on either side actually believe that it has an effect? That's not a factual question, that's a question for a political debate. Mr Trump's hyperbole captures this with a surprising pith.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people, so that assertion is based on what? The certainly do. You can see that Trump is telling the truth 2% of the time and is mostly true only 6%. Most of his claims are not true. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ For comparison, Hillary Clinton rates true (23%) or mostly true (27%) http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ > There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Trump's claim was analyzed. Independent experts were consulted. It's obvious why the ruling went against him. I don't think distinguishing between hyperbole and lies is Politifact's problem. It's simply calling a lie a lie. I appreciate that Trump tells lies for political advantage, and that most politicians do the same. However, Trump is in a different league from Clinton, just as the NYT is in a different league from Fox News.

snsr 10y ago

So you take a little news from a network founded specifically to promote Republican ideals and viewpoints?

at-fates-hands 10y ago
Yes, and then take some news from networks founded specifically to promote Democratic ideals and viewpoints and draw my own conclusions. Something far more meaningful than people I know who simply dismiss Fox News since they are right leaning. I'm actually surprised how many stories end up on Fox News that's never reported in the MSM. If you're going to be myopic in how you get your news, why should I be surprised your views are just as narrow as the sources you get them from??
- rdancer 10y ago
  That would apply if there were honest, inevitable biases, and the journalists and editors were striving for integrity. However, in a situation where they are at best not very good, and at worst they are trying to manipulate the public opinion en masse, how can you use that kind of data? Isn't it garbage in, garbage out, no matter what your process of synthesis may be? In the good old days of the Soviet Union, we could "read between the lines", because the censorship system was not very effective, and the journalists were pissed off. But we still failed horribly at understanding what the world looked like west of the border, and imagined capitalism was some lesser form of paradise, and were quite surprised when we had to start living it. Personally, I am weary of reading people who I know try to manipulate me. I always suspect if they try hard enough and long enough, they may succeed. What is your method, and does it work?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]