4 ms·

Can you point me to some concrete examples of times CNN or WaPo has been dishonest? Not counting editorials. > The fact that almost every liberal in America is

Can you point me to some concrete examples of times CNN or WaPo has been dishonest? Not counting editorials. > The fact that almost every liberal in America is yelling at Trump more than they're yelling at the DNC (and Debbie Wasserman Schultz) shows the state of mainstream media. Plenty of liberals in my liberal social media bubble were yelling at the DNC and DWS when they were doing news worthy things. But why should we still be? Trump is now the one doing things we think harmful.

williamle8300 10y ago
I listed several examples in my comment. CNN for sure did not cover these issues proportionately to their gravity. These were serious issues that were skirted by them. Had they been responsibly covered, public sentiment would be more favorable towards Trump... since he's really been rapping on this MSM corruption for a while. If anything, Trump is at least an iconoclast and whether you like his policies it would at least command respect.
- cirath 10y ago
  >CNN for sure did not cover these issues proportionately to their gravity. This is a very reasonable statement, but ultimately does not encapsulate the rhetoric that has been levied against the media by Trump specifically, nor his more ardent supporters. Not covering proportional to gravity is not: Anything similar to lies, fabrications, false news, misconstruing the news, or presenting the topic with a completely false narrative. While it does certainly affect the narrative, and while CNN gives far more weight to articles favoring the left, this does not hurt Trump in any way as far as his getting elected was concerned. At the very least, the song played by the left leaning MSM (and that is a VERY IMPORTANT distinction, as Fox News represents the right leaning MSM; their viewer numbers have them as a larger body than CNN--how would they not be the true MSM?) lulled many Clinton supporters into a false sense of security. The post-election meltdowns by people who claimed they did not vote directly as a result of this false security, while anecdotal, points directly at that narrative. And even if you allow that CNN reports on left leaning issues in a positive light while decrying conservative viewpoints, and Fox reports on right leaning issues positively while pointing out the issues in progressive topics, one cannot use them as direct opposition to each other, as neither tends to focus both on the positives and negatives in an issue in a way that could be considered equal. Equal airtime doctrines have also caused a negative skew, but that is another topic altogether.
  - MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
    Thank you. Misjudging the proportional "gravity" of an issue is not equivalent to lying. But when affect has replaced logic as the value system you use in evaluating media, then I guess it is.
  - akvadrako 10y ago
    The amount of attention given to an issue is just as relevant as lying, because it's even more responsible for which candidate someone will vote for. People are more persuaded by what they see and what their attention is drawn to than the cold facts. Humans are not "rational" and pretending they are doesn't give you a moral high-ground.
- sprafa 10y ago
  The problem is he's a hypocrite. How can you accuse the media of lying and lie all he time yourself? His IRS lie being the worst. He kept saying he couldn't do it, but that's just a straight lie.
  - williamle8300 10y ago
    I don't see the argument you're making. A free citizen has a right to keep their tax documents private. We can't feel entitled about that.
    - InitialLastName 10y ago
      There's a difference between saying "It's my right not to do this thing" and "I can't do that thing". Either can be true or false. In the case of the taxes, he said the latter, and it was false.
      - williamle8300 10y ago
        No, you are wrong. He's simply choosing to not reveal it.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  This is a perspective issue IMHO. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/01/how-much-coverage-did-cnn-actually-devote-to-clintons-emails-heres-the-data/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/0... Because of strong media polarization in the cable television news sector, coverage -- while it will show up on both sides of the fence -- will be prioritized to one topic or another entirely depending on politics. So MSNBC spent a huge amount more time exploring the Access Hollywood tapes / Russian hacking angle regarding Trump, while Fox News will cover Clinton's email scandal more. This is not exactly surprising. I wouldn't call this "corruption". Having an opinion / bias is not corruption. I will say that from a personal perspective, I find all of American cable news fairly awful, and one of the reasons is this "gotcha" fatigue when it comes to their outrage cycles. At some point, it's hard to figure out what is really a genuine fault and what is just some tabloid fluff designed to get the viewer demographic angry. This especially applies to the "gotchas" that devolve into outright wild conspiracy, such as the Podesta emails you reference (devolved into Pizzagate and who knows what else). Although not my primary news source, my impression is that Reuters is much more sober than the current state of cable news.
  - williamle8300 10y ago
    Trump's is/was a womanizer. I don't think that's in doubt. While that is a bad quality in a person I would distinguish this from criminal actions like deleting subpoenaed evidence. Hillary's actions still haven't drawn the coverage that was deserved. A lot of them (see my top-level comment) would individually be deemed a national scandal had it been Trump.
legostormtroopr 10y ago
CNN said “it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents [the Hilary emails from wikileaks]. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.” Thats fake and a lie, and they were exposed quickly about that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/17/remember-its-illegal-to-possess-wikileaks-clinton-emails-but-its-different-for-the-media-says-cnns-chris-cuomo/?utm_term=.d46198045b67 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- eridius 10y ago
  Yes, sometimes the media can say something that's not true. But this example was immediately pointed out by, guess who, the rest of the media. And it was a kind of weird thing to be wrong about too, so it seems more likely that the speaker genuinely believed they were telling the truth as opposed to being dishonest (I mean, who does it benefit to be dishonest about that? Nobody). Though that doesn't excuse the fact that they really should have double-checked that before saying it. They absolutely were wrong, and they absolutely deserved to be called out by everyone else. But even if they were dishonest that one time, one example, no matter how widely-reported, indicates systemic dishonesty.
loblollyboy 10y ago
That's like asking to point out some concrete examples of humor in the complete works of Mark Twain. It's there, it's everywhere. Asking someone to point out concrete examples is a waste of everyone's time. If you really want these examples (and I don't think you, or the countless redditors who I have seen make this exact same argument, really do) then I would advise you to go read the Washington post or the New York Times. Pick an article at random.
- breatheoften 10y ago
  To the extent this is true of those media organizations, it is infinitely more true for Fox News. Who are these people spreading ridiculous propaganda on hacker news?
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  So like, you presume to have access to a set of countervailing facts about reality that any given NYT or WaPo article is dishonest about, whereas Fox or Breitbart gives you the straight take on these facts. But why are you so certain that you are the one with access to those true facts? What are you cross-referencing the Breitbart articles against to ensure their trustworthiness?
loblollyboy 10y ago
That's like asking to point out some concrete examples of humor in the complete works of Mark Twain. It's there, it's everywhere. Asking someone to point out concrete examples is a waste of everyone's time. If you really want these examples (and I don't think you, or the countless redditors who I have seen make this exact same argument, really do) then I would advise you to go read the Washington post or the New York Times. Pick an article at random. EDIT - Even though I said link sharing was a waste of time, fuck it, this one just gets my blood boiling https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fearing-abandonment-by-trump-cia-backed-rebels-in-syria-mull-alternatives/2016/12/03/50419594-b8c1-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?utm_term=.683ba61edc96 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/feari...
matwood 10y ago
I used to watch CNN because I found them somewhat unbiased, but this last election cycle they completely came off the rails. I'll have to find examples, but leading up to the election I was digesting a lot of news and routinely noticed where CNN would leave facts out or let a left leaning guest say something false with zero correction. So now, I've given up on TV news since MSNBC and FOX are a joke.
matwood 10y ago
I used to watch CNN because I found them somewhat unbiased, but this last election cycle they completely came off the rails. I'll have to find examples, but leading up to the election I was digesting a lot of news and routinely noticed where CNN would leave facts out or let a left leaning guest say something false with zero correction. So now, I've given up on TV news since MSNBC and FOX are a joke.

williamle8300 10y ago

I listed several examples in my comment. CNN for sure did not cover these issues proportionately to their gravity. These were serious issues that were skirted by them. Had they been responsibly covered, public sentiment would be more favorable towards Trump... since he's really been rapping on this MSM corruption for a while. If anything, Trump is at least an iconoclast and whether you like his policies it would at least command respect.

cirath 10y ago
>CNN for sure did not cover these issues proportionately to their gravity. This is a very reasonable statement, but ultimately does not encapsulate the rhetoric that has been levied against the media by Trump specifically, nor his more ardent supporters. Not covering proportional to gravity is not: Anything similar to lies, fabrications, false news, misconstruing the news, or presenting the topic with a completely false narrative. While it does certainly affect the narrative, and while CNN gives far more weight to articles favoring the left, this does not hurt Trump in any way as far as his getting elected was concerned. At the very least, the song played by the left leaning MSM (and that is a VERY IMPORTANT distinction, as Fox News represents the right leaning MSM; their viewer numbers have them as a larger body than CNN--how would they not be the true MSM?) lulled many Clinton supporters into a false sense of security. The post-election meltdowns by people who claimed they did not vote directly as a result of this false security, while anecdotal, points directly at that narrative. And even if you allow that CNN reports on left leaning issues in a positive light while decrying conservative viewpoints, and Fox reports on right leaning issues positively while pointing out the issues in progressive topics, one cannot use them as direct opposition to each other, as neither tends to focus both on the positives and negatives in an issue in a way that could be considered equal. Equal airtime doctrines have also caused a negative skew, but that is another topic altogether.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  Thank you. Misjudging the proportional "gravity" of an issue is not equivalent to lying. But when affect has replaced logic as the value system you use in evaluating media, then I guess it is.
- akvadrako 10y ago
  The amount of attention given to an issue is just as relevant as lying, because it's even more responsible for which candidate someone will vote for. People are more persuaded by what they see and what their attention is drawn to than the cold facts. Humans are not "rational" and pretending they are doesn't give you a moral high-ground.
sprafa 10y ago
The problem is he's a hypocrite. How can you accuse the media of lying and lie all he time yourself? His IRS lie being the worst. He kept saying he couldn't do it, but that's just a straight lie.
- williamle8300 10y ago
  I don't see the argument you're making. A free citizen has a right to keep their tax documents private. We can't feel entitled about that.
  - InitialLastName 10y ago
    There's a difference between saying "It's my right not to do this thing" and "I can't do that thing". Either can be true or false. In the case of the taxes, he said the latter, and it was false.
    - williamle8300 10y ago
      No, you are wrong. He's simply choosing to not reveal it.
soundwave106 10y ago
This is a perspective issue IMHO. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/01/how-much-coverage-did-cnn-actually-devote-to-clintons-emails-heres-the-data/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/0... Because of strong media polarization in the cable television news sector, coverage -- while it will show up on both sides of the fence -- will be prioritized to one topic or another entirely depending on politics. So MSNBC spent a huge amount more time exploring the Access Hollywood tapes / Russian hacking angle regarding Trump, while Fox News will cover Clinton's email scandal more. This is not exactly surprising. I wouldn't call this "corruption". Having an opinion / bias is not corruption. I will say that from a personal perspective, I find all of American cable news fairly awful, and one of the reasons is this "gotcha" fatigue when it comes to their outrage cycles. At some point, it's hard to figure out what is really a genuine fault and what is just some tabloid fluff designed to get the viewer demographic angry. This especially applies to the "gotchas" that devolve into outright wild conspiracy, such as the Podesta emails you reference (devolved into Pizzagate and who knows what else). Although not my primary news source, my impression is that Reuters is much more sober than the current state of cable news.
- williamle8300 10y ago
  Trump's is/was a womanizer. I don't think that's in doubt. While that is a bad quality in a person I would distinguish this from criminal actions like deleting subpoenaed evidence. Hillary's actions still haven't drawn the coverage that was deserved. A lot of them (see my top-level comment) would individually be deemed a national scandal had it been Trump.

legostormtroopr 10y ago

CNN said “it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents [the Hilary emails from wikileaks]. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.” Thats fake and a lie, and they were exposed quickly about that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/17/remember-its-illegal-to-possess-wikileaks-clinton-emails-but-its-different-for-the-media-says-cnns-chris-cuomo/?utm_term=.d46198045b67 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

eridius 10y ago
Yes, sometimes the media can say something that's not true. But this example was immediately pointed out by, guess who, the rest of the media. And it was a kind of weird thing to be wrong about too, so it seems more likely that the speaker genuinely believed they were telling the truth as opposed to being dishonest (I mean, who does it benefit to be dishonest about that? Nobody). Though that doesn't excuse the fact that they really should have double-checked that before saying it. They absolutely were wrong, and they absolutely deserved to be called out by everyone else. But even if they were dishonest that one time, one example, no matter how widely-reported, indicates systemic dishonesty.

loblollyboy 10y ago

breatheoften 10y ago
To the extent this is true of those media organizations, it is infinitely more true for Fox News. Who are these people spreading ridiculous propaganda on hacker news?
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
So like, you presume to have access to a set of countervailing facts about reality that any given NYT or WaPo article is dishonest about, whereas Fox or Breitbart gives you the straight take on these facts. But why are you so certain that you are the one with access to those true facts? What are you cross-referencing the Breitbart articles against to ensure their trustworthiness?

loblollyboy 10y ago

That's like asking to point out some concrete examples of humor in the complete works of Mark Twain. It's there, it's everywhere. Asking someone to point out concrete examples is a waste of everyone's time. If you really want these examples (and I don't think you, or the countless redditors who I have seen make this exact same argument, really do) then I would advise you to go read the Washington post or the New York Times. Pick an article at random. EDIT - Even though I said link sharing was a waste of time, fuck it, this one just gets my blood boiling https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fearing-abandonment-by-trump-cia-backed-rebels-in-syria-mull-alternatives/2016/12/03/50419594-b8c1-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?utm_term=.683ba61edc96 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/feari...

matwood 10y ago

I used to watch CNN because I found them somewhat unbiased, but this last election cycle they completely came off the rails. I'll have to find examples, but leading up to the election I was digesting a lot of news and routinely noticed where CNN would leave facts out or let a left leaning guest say something false with zero correction. So now, I've given up on TV news since MSNBC and FOX are a joke.

matwood 10y ago