6 ms·

WaPo sucks, as do Fox News, Breitbart, and HuffPo (among others). None of them should be taken seriously. They're all rags that have so much political slant t

WaPo sucks, as do Fox News, Breitbart, and HuffPo (among others). None of them should be taken seriously. They're all rags that have so much political slant they should be eligible for tax free status as components of their respective political parties. None of them should be treated as "news" sites.

jrimbault 9y ago
I'm drawing a comparison with gadget reviews (MKBHD youtube), but isn't it better to get news from an outlet you know the leanings and interests of than of one you don't ? I'm paraphrasing MKBHD here, but I know his tastes and how they differ from mine, thus I can infer good information from his reviews by working out the differences. It may be less easy to do with political news -which are even more emotionally loaded than an Apple Watch review- than with gadget reviews, but it's worth it in my opinion.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I get what you're saying, and there is certainly a place for that. For example, just this week I saw the WaPo headlines about Trump supposedly sharing classified intelligence with Russian diplomats. Now maybe that's true. But my spidey sense was tingling as I read the articles from all the major news outlets. I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true. And I saw not one of them was calling for charges to be levied, which I would expect people who dislike him to be rooting for since it's precisely the same sort of crime that Trump wanted Hillary in prison for. The articles also mention how the third-party source didn't approve for the info to be shared with Russia. All of this combined indicates to me that the information isn't "classified" at all. It's just considered sensitive - and that's a massive difference. One that would make all the headlines factually inaccurate. And since none of the media outlets were calling for action to be taken, I think they are fully aware that the info wasn't actually classified. But more importantly, I find the real risk isn't in what/how they are reporting and being aware of the slant, but rather in what they are intentionally not reporting on. The issue at its core is information asymmetry. No one individual can stay on top of everything going on in the world which is why we rely on information sources to sort it out and keep us informed. But they can't be trusted - any of them. They all have agendas and biases. The only way is to expose yourself to information from multiple sources with different opinions so that you can, hopefully, wade through all the bullshit and actually get to the facts. Also, with something like gadget reviews, you can close that information gap by purchasing it and testing it yourself. You can easily determine if someone is full of crap. You can't easily do that when it comes to politics and world news. And the risk to society with our current media/news system is extraordinary. People follow the sources that they agree with and it becomes a bubble for them that they live in. Those sources rarely ever introduce anything that goes against their narrative grain so you get a positive feedback loop where people's opinions are strengthened simply because of the information they choose to consume. It's like how so many people on Twitter and Facebook couldn't comprehend how Trump won because they 1) don't associate with anyone who supported him and 2) they only followed people with the same political beliefs - so they had no idea what his true support level was. /rant
  - GenWintergreen 9y ago
    "I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true." That isn't accurate. Trump committing this wouldn't be a crime, but Hillary doing it would be. Presidents have the ability to un-classify classified info on the fly. That's why no one called for his impeachment on that event, and just questioned his competency. On the other hand, note that when it came to his possible obstruction of justice (i.e. the Comey memo), the discussion of impeachment did come up.
res0nat0r 9y ago
This line of thought is one of the more troubling (among many others) of the Trump "fake news" parroting nonsense we see lately. WaPo / NYT are pretty much single handedly bringing down Trump by constantly releasing info on how he is subverting democracy (thanks again to the NYT for the bombshell yesterday), but since he hates it he calls it "fake", and his supporters parrot this nonsense and it spreads. Just because they are reporting facts Trump doesn't like doesn't make them fake.
- colordrops 9y ago
  The situation with news is not so black and white.
  - res0nat0r 9y ago
    Sure but in this instance, Trump screams "fake!!!111" when the NYT reports anything about him breaking or subverting the law, then turns around and calls Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush into the White House for interviews, and personally calls Robert Costa of WaPo on his phone when his healthcare bill is about to be pulled. I'm stating that his repeated use of fake on anything he doesn't like, to get his supporters to only get their source of truth from him is dangerous, and what wannabe dictators try to do.
    - colordrops 9y ago
      Sure, but we weren't talking about Trump or the term "fake news".
      - res0nat0r 9y ago
        OP pretty much is repeating the Trump talking point, that no matter how many Pulitzers the "mainstream" (aka: news that actually prints non flattering facts about Trump) they are all political hacks that can't be trusted, so yeah we are....
        9y ago

jrimbault 9y ago

I'm drawing a comparison with gadget reviews (MKBHD youtube), but isn't it better to get news from an outlet you know the leanings and interests of than of one you don't ? I'm paraphrasing MKBHD here, but I know his tastes and how they differ from mine, thus I can infer good information from his reviews by working out the differences. It may be less easy to do with political news -which are even more emotionally loaded than an Apple Watch review- than with gadget reviews, but it's worth it in my opinion.

turc1656 9y ago
I get what you're saying, and there is certainly a place for that. For example, just this week I saw the WaPo headlines about Trump supposedly sharing classified intelligence with Russian diplomats. Now maybe that's true. But my spidey sense was tingling as I read the articles from all the major news outlets. I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true. And I saw not one of them was calling for charges to be levied, which I would expect people who dislike him to be rooting for since it's precisely the same sort of crime that Trump wanted Hillary in prison for. The articles also mention how the third-party source didn't approve for the info to be shared with Russia. All of this combined indicates to me that the information isn't "classified" at all. It's just considered sensitive - and that's a massive difference. One that would make all the headlines factually inaccurate. And since none of the media outlets were calling for action to be taken, I think they are fully aware that the info wasn't actually classified. But more importantly, I find the real risk isn't in what/how they are reporting and being aware of the slant, but rather in what they are intentionally not reporting on. The issue at its core is information asymmetry. No one individual can stay on top of everything going on in the world which is why we rely on information sources to sort it out and keep us informed. But they can't be trusted - any of them. They all have agendas and biases. The only way is to expose yourself to information from multiple sources with different opinions so that you can, hopefully, wade through all the bullshit and actually get to the facts. Also, with something like gadget reviews, you can close that information gap by purchasing it and testing it yourself. You can easily determine if someone is full of crap. You can't easily do that when it comes to politics and world news. And the risk to society with our current media/news system is extraordinary. People follow the sources that they agree with and it becomes a bubble for them that they live in. Those sources rarely ever introduce anything that goes against their narrative grain so you get a positive feedback loop where people's opinions are strengthened simply because of the information they choose to consume. It's like how so many people on Twitter and Facebook couldn't comprehend how Trump won because they 1) don't associate with anyone who supported him and 2) they only followed people with the same political beliefs - so they had no idea what his true support level was. /rant
- GenWintergreen 9y ago
  "I saw not one of them was calling for impeachment for what would absolutely be a crime if it is true." That isn't accurate. Trump committing this wouldn't be a crime, but Hillary doing it would be. Presidents have the ability to un-classify classified info on the fly. That's why no one called for his impeachment on that event, and just questioned his competency. On the other hand, note that when it came to his possible obstruction of justice (i.e. the Comey memo), the discussion of impeachment did come up.

res0nat0r 9y ago

This line of thought is one of the more troubling (among many others) of the Trump "fake news" parroting nonsense we see lately. WaPo / NYT are pretty much single handedly bringing down Trump by constantly releasing info on how he is subverting democracy (thanks again to the NYT for the bombshell yesterday), but since he hates it he calls it "fake", and his supporters parrot this nonsense and it spreads. Just because they are reporting facts Trump doesn't like doesn't make them fake.

colordrops 9y ago
The situation with news is not so black and white.
- res0nat0r 9y ago
  Sure but in this instance, Trump screams "fake!!!111" when the NYT reports anything about him breaking or subverting the law, then turns around and calls Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush into the White House for interviews, and personally calls Robert Costa of WaPo on his phone when his healthcare bill is about to be pulled. I'm stating that his repeated use of fake on anything he doesn't like, to get his supporters to only get their source of truth from him is dangerous, and what wannabe dictators try to do.
  - colordrops 9y ago
    Sure, but we weren't talking about Trump or the term "fake news".
    - res0nat0r 9y ago
      OP pretty much is repeating the Trump talking point, that no matter how many Pulitzers the "mainstream" (aka: news that actually prints non flattering facts about Trump) they are all political hacks that can't be trusted, so yeah we are....
      - 9y ago