5 ms·

>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blat

>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.

hyperdunc 9y ago
Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.
- Cursuviam 9y ago
  I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    If 90% of the press is left leaning, no surprise that 90% of journalists lean left, high and low quality alike.
    - tormeh 9y ago
      Um, no, that's not the reason. The people that choose to become journalists often do it for idealistic reasons. They want to enlighten the public about issues they care about. Palestine, for example. Right-wing people generally don't have that many issues they want to tell people about. Everybody already knows how high their taxes are, no journalism needed.
      - WillPostForFood 9y ago
        Let me assure you right wing people have as many issues they want to tell people about as left wing people. You might not like them or consider them idealistic, but they do. To be blunt, your comment comes off like you live in a left wing enclave and you have no real human experience with people with differing believes. Which is funny, because that is also how modern journalism comes off - privileged white rich kids at liberal schools who then shuttle down to the equally liberal newsroom, never interacting with half the country.
  - yvdriess 9y ago
    It is almost as if reality has a left-wing bias.
  - nl 9y ago
    This is a convenient fiction. There are plenty of right-wing journalists who have similar quality to left wing. Publishers like The National Review have fine writers and it is hard to argue the a publication founded by William F. Buckley is some liberal organisation. The "problem" is that all these organizations are critical of Trump too.
    - aphextron 9y ago
      >The National Review And who else?
      - soundwave106 9y ago
        Certain other commentary magazines (eg Weekly Standard and Commentary), think tanks (AEI, Heritage, Cato), business newspapers (Wall Street Journal). I do think there is an issue in that these sort of commentators have much less visibility than before in American politics, so it's easy to form a negative opinion about right wing journalism. Partially as a result, I can name several commentators that have migrated from "Republican conservative" to a more "independent" oriented stance. Names like David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bartlett, David Brooks, and George Will come to mind. None of these names are 100% "liberal", neither are still today. They just don't fit well with right-wing media that has increasingly become populist. It is probably my bias, but I can't think of a similar type of left-wing commentator that's made the same transition. On the other hand, I've noticed increased populism in more left-oriented media too... This is a shame, because even when these type of commentators were at their most raucous, I always got the impression that both sides respected each other. (You saw the same thing at, say the Supreme Court, where Scalia and Ginsburg were friends.) A lot of media these days in contrast is extremely us vs. them and tribal oriented, with seemingly no respect for the other side at all.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? 1. He's the most powerful head of state on the planet. 2. He's demonstrably not fit for the job. 3. IT'S THEIR DAMN JOB.
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    1. Yes 2. By your criteria 3. Their job is to inform the public, not to make things up I don't even like the man, yet I am compelled to defend him against what I see as a greater injustice.
BigJono 9y ago
I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you're blaming blogs and online media for the decline in credibility of newspapers. Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. The only reason they had any credibility before is because people blindly accepted what they said without the tools to verify it. They've had the same amount of journalistic integrity as they've always had. I.E plenty until there's a buck to be made by forgoing it.
- xg15 9y ago
  > Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. Sources for that claim please? Of course there were always plenty of papers that operated like that (tabloids etc), but I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today.
  - anon1385 9y ago
    >I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today. Why do you assume that? Absolute garbage tabloids have been influencing elections and dominating mainstream political discourse in western countries for decades[1]. In the UK an entire political ideology was created to try and work around the influence of right wing mass media (spoiler: the answer was allowing media barons to dictate policy). If anything tabloid influence is lower today than in the past. Compare the result of the 1992 UK general election with the 2017 one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It
CM30 9y ago
You've clearly not seen the UK press. The Daily Mail has been around for decades, and has quality standards roughly on par with Fox News at best. The tabloids have spent years posting any old speculation they can find and sometimes even hacking people's phones for information. And the more respectable papers have generally had their own problems with reporting standards. The likes of the Guardian and the Telegraph should be on the lower end of what's considered journalism, not the upper one. Honestly, the introduction of online news sources has probably helped in a lot of ways, because it meant people might at last be checking information from sources other than tabloids. There's at least a niche for good quality journalism online now rather than it being an 'occasional' fixture in some newspapers on a good day.
- tormeh 9y ago
  Ah, the UK press. How did that happen? Why do the British like that sort of thing? And I'd also add that the Greek press is also garbage. They don't turn a profit at all and are simply propaganda for their owner's point of view. Their owners usually being family-owned conglomerates. It's as if the Kochs started their own newspaper. I get the impression this is actually pretty common in many countries, particularly eastern European ones.
  - lucasverra 9y ago
    South America too I find LeMondediplomatique (in all it's countries regions) to be a light in the darkness of propaganda. Check it out
    - CM30 9y ago
      Makes you wonder if countries with good quality newspapers and media outlets are the exception rather than the rule. Maybe the US just kind of lucked out there.
      - pluma 9y ago
        Wait. You think the US has good quality newspapers and media outlets? I can't think of one "reputable" US news outlet that hasn't knowingly spread misinformation or half-truths at least once over the past year. The "good" sources are generally the least bad ones that happen to confirm your biases more than the rest.

hyperdunc 9y ago

Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.

Cursuviam 9y ago
I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  If 90% of the press is left leaning, no surprise that 90% of journalists lean left, high and low quality alike.
  - tormeh 9y ago
    Um, no, that's not the reason. The people that choose to become journalists often do it for idealistic reasons. They want to enlighten the public about issues they care about. Palestine, for example. Right-wing people generally don't have that many issues they want to tell people about. Everybody already knows how high their taxes are, no journalism needed.
    - WillPostForFood 9y ago
      Let me assure you right wing people have as many issues they want to tell people about as left wing people. You might not like them or consider them idealistic, but they do. To be blunt, your comment comes off like you live in a left wing enclave and you have no real human experience with people with differing believes. Which is funny, because that is also how modern journalism comes off - privileged white rich kids at liberal schools who then shuttle down to the equally liberal newsroom, never interacting with half the country.
- yvdriess 9y ago
  It is almost as if reality has a left-wing bias.
- nl 9y ago
  This is a convenient fiction. There are plenty of right-wing journalists who have similar quality to left wing. Publishers like The National Review have fine writers and it is hard to argue the a publication founded by William F. Buckley is some liberal organisation. The "problem" is that all these organizations are critical of Trump too.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    >The National Review And who else?
    - soundwave106 9y ago
      Certain other commentary magazines (eg Weekly Standard and Commentary), think tanks (AEI, Heritage, Cato), business newspapers (Wall Street Journal). I do think there is an issue in that these sort of commentators have much less visibility than before in American politics, so it's easy to form a negative opinion about right wing journalism. Partially as a result, I can name several commentators that have migrated from "Republican conservative" to a more "independent" oriented stance. Names like David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bartlett, David Brooks, and George Will come to mind. None of these names are 100% "liberal", neither are still today. They just don't fit well with right-wing media that has increasingly become populist. It is probably my bias, but I can't think of a similar type of left-wing commentator that's made the same transition. On the other hand, I've noticed increased populism in more left-oriented media too... This is a shame, because even when these type of commentators were at their most raucous, I always got the impression that both sides respected each other. (You saw the same thing at, say the Supreme Court, where Scalia and Ginsburg were friends.) A lot of media these days in contrast is extremely us vs. them and tribal oriented, with seemingly no respect for the other side at all.
zimpenfish 9y ago
> Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? 1. He's the most powerful head of state on the planet. 2. He's demonstrably not fit for the job. 3. IT'S THEIR DAMN JOB.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  1. Yes 2. By your criteria 3. Their job is to inform the public, not to make things up I don't even like the man, yet I am compelled to defend him against what I see as a greater injustice.

BigJono 9y ago

I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you're blaming blogs and online media for the decline in credibility of newspapers. Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. The only reason they had any credibility before is because people blindly accepted what they said without the tools to verify it. They've had the same amount of journalistic integrity as they've always had. I.E plenty until there's a buck to be made by forgoing it.

xg15 9y ago
> Newspapers aren't credible anymore because they continuously make the conscious decision to run bullshit stories full of twisted truths in the pursuit of sales, as they have always done. Sources for that claim please? Of course there were always plenty of papers that operated like that (tabloids etc), but I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today.
- anon1385 9y ago
  >I doubt they were as influential in main political discussion as e.g. Fox News seems to be today. Why do you assume that? Absolute garbage tabloids have been influencing elections and dominating mainstream political discourse in western countries for decades[1]. In the UK an entire political ideology was created to try and work around the influence of right wing mass media (spoiler: the answer was allowing media barons to dictate policy). If anything tabloid influence is lower today than in the past. Compare the result of the 1992 UK general election with the 2017 one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It

CM30 9y ago

You've clearly not seen the UK press. The Daily Mail has been around for decades, and has quality standards roughly on par with Fox News at best. The tabloids have spent years posting any old speculation they can find and sometimes even hacking people's phones for information. And the more respectable papers have generally had their own problems with reporting standards. The likes of the Guardian and the Telegraph should be on the lower end of what's considered journalism, not the upper one. Honestly, the introduction of online news sources has probably helped in a lot of ways, because it meant people might at last be checking information from sources other than tabloids. There's at least a niche for good quality journalism online now rather than it being an 'occasional' fixture in some newspapers on a good day.

tormeh 9y ago
Ah, the UK press. How did that happen? Why do the British like that sort of thing? And I'd also add that the Greek press is also garbage. They don't turn a profit at all and are simply propaganda for their owner's point of view. Their owners usually being family-owned conglomerates. It's as if the Kochs started their own newspaper. I get the impression this is actually pretty common in many countries, particularly eastern European ones.
- lucasverra 9y ago
  South America too I find LeMondediplomatique (in all it's countries regions) to be a light in the darkness of propaganda. Check it out
  - CM30 9y ago
    Makes you wonder if countries with good quality newspapers and media outlets are the exception rather than the rule. Maybe the US just kind of lucked out there.
    - pluma 9y ago
      Wait. You think the US has good quality newspapers and media outlets? I can't think of one "reputable" US news outlet that hasn't knowingly spread misinformation or half-truths at least once over the past year. The "good" sources are generally the least bad ones that happen to confirm your biases more than the rest.