6 ms·
I realize this idea is a bit old fashioned... but how about a news network where they simply try as hard as they can to report objective reality, and we don't w
by oceanghost 9y ago
I realize this idea is a bit old fashioned... but how about a news network where they simply try as hard as they can to report objective reality, and we don't worry about whom that favors?
- tempestn 9y agoI don't know about cable news, but istm that's what most high quality, mainstream news outlets (eg NY Times) do. I mean, you can find editorial as well, but good papers tend to do a decent job of keeping that separate from journalism.
- RickJWag 9y agoI beg to differ. A Harvard study confirmed that news sources have been overwhelmingly left-leaning, especially since Trump. Even former President Jimmy Carter has said so. So no, there is no unbiased, high quality mainstream media. There is only biased reporting from the right (Fox) and the left (just about everybody else).
- pcwalton 9y agoWhich study?
- Mtinie 9y agoProbably this one: “News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days”[0] Summary: “A new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage of President Trump’s first 100 days in office. The report is based on an analysis of news reports in the print editions of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, the main newscasts of CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC, and three European news outlets (The UK’s Financial Times and BBC, and Germany’s ARD).” ——- https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/ https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-fi...
- RickJWag 9y agoHere are a few links on the study: https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/ https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-fi... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-harvard-study-cnn-nbc-trump-coverage-93-percent-negative/article/2623641 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-harvard-study-c... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-trump-media-coverage-harvard-kass-0521-20170519-column.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-trump-...
- majormajor 9y agoSo conversative outlets that are much more critical of Trump than they were of Bush are now showing a liberal bias? "Fox was the only news outlet in the study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall, however, there was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic." When you consider this line especially, with everything else, it seems more consistent with "Trump is unusually unpopular and criticized" than "the media is even more liberal now." Maybe you should think about your own biases here, before continuing to equate "negative towards Trump" with "liberal/left"? If I wanted to write a post criticizing Trump I'd have an incredibly easy time doing it from several right-wing perspectives: religious/moral, small government/individual freedom, anti-corruption/pro-transparency, take your pick. It's all fish in a barrel.
- RickJWag 9y agoIt's a good point that it could be my own biases, or it could be that Trump really is terrible while Obama was just wonderful. But I don't think those are it. When Jimmy Carter says the media is applying a different standard to Trump, it lends credibility to the idea that they just might be.
- tempestn 9y agoI think it's true that the mainstream media may give too much play to stories about fairly innocuous things that Trump has done. I'm not sure that's much different than with previous presidents though. I recall Obama and Bush being criticized for some fairly silly things too. I honestly believe the difference now is Trump itself. He's uniquely unqualified to be president on every intellectual or moral metric I would consider relevant. Therefore, an objective press would be expected to be far more negative than positive. The other problem (or clever strategy on the right) is to paint mainstream outlets like NY Times or Washington Post as the 'other side', while basically ignoring truly left-leaning media, like Huffington Post or Vox. In doing so, they portray a spectrum where Fox and Breitbart lean to one side, and NY Times / WaPo lean to the other, with the unbiased position somewhere in the center - when in reality, the average of those publications is pretty far on the conservative side of the spectrum. (Even more so for those who actually believe Fox is 'balanced' and other mainstream outlets are in fact far left.) I don't think it's necessarily impossible to do good journalism while being biased; I think Vox does a fair amount of good reporting for instance. It is necessary though to clearly distinguish between fact and opinion.
- Clubber 9y ago>A Harvard study confirmed that news sources have been overwhelmingly left-leaning, especially since Trump. Have a link? I know Fox is the most watched cable news network. I assume television is still the majority of the way Americans consume the news. http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/fox-news-is-basic-cables-most-watched-network-for-the-17th-straight-month/350264 http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/fox-news-is-basic-cables-most...
- RickJWag 9y agoAnd here's the link to an article on Carter's quote. Jimmy Carter has been in that seat, and he says the media has been harder on Trump. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/10/22/jimmy-carter-media-has-been-harder-trump-than-predecessors/788558001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017...
- Clubber 9y agoI agree on that part of the assertion, that they have been unnecessarily hard (WaPo mostly) on Trump, and they don't even have to be. It dilutes their credibility. Being overly hard on Trump and being overwhelmingly left-leaning isn't necessarily the same thing though. I mean Lindsay Graham who is fairly conservative went on a Trump slam tour before the election. Mitt Romney did the same thing, as did other conservative leaders.
- citrus1330 9y agoWhile I would also appreciate a source, whether Fox is the most watched network doesn't really affect his statement.
- Clubber 9y agoI agree, but the right wing news companies have been shouting this for 20 years, and I'm not sure if it's any more true today than it was 20 years ago. I mean there is a reason Fox blathers on about being most trusted and all that, just like a used car salesman says, "trust me."
- hypersoar 9y agoAre you talking about this[1] study? Because it doesn't say that the media is "left-leaning". Rather, it says that their coverage of Trump has been more negative than positive (in the first 100 days, the period the study examines). Rather than the result of bias, it could simply be that he's done a bunch of obviously-bad things. Which one can certainly argue. Another point: the article points out that, despite the overwhelmingly negative coverage, most of the time, they're using his own voice: What’s truly atypical about Trump’s coverage is that it’s sharply negative despite the fact that he’s the source of nearly two-thirds of the sound bites surrounding his coverage. Typically, newsmakers and groups complain that their media narrative is negative because they’re not given a chance to speak for themselves. Over the past decade, U.S. coverage of Muslims has been more than 75 percent negative. And Muslims have had little chance to tell their side of the story. Muslims account for less than 5 percent of the voices heard in news reports about Islam.[31] So why is Trump’s coverage so negative even though he does most of the talking? The fact is, he’s been on the defensive during most of his 100 days in office, trying to put the best face possible on executive orders, legislative initiatives, appointments, and other undertakings that have gone bad. [1] https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/ https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-fi...
- littlestymaar 9y ago> So no, there is no unbiased, high quality mainstream media. At the same time, the first unbiased & objective human being has yet to be found.
- prepend 9y agoWhile NYTimes might have been that once, I’ve seen multiple times where it’s pretty biased. I think the Iraq War was what broke me, but there’s lots of situations where there is editorial bias. It’s not necessarily liberal, just not based in reality. I would really like an objective, original, pay news service. No ads. NPR is biased to US, BBC to the UK, Al Jazeera to UAE. I can sort of triangulate, but would like an objective source.
- aslkdjaslkdj 9y agoDo you have an example of a biased news piece from the NYT? (Not their editorial section or op-ed section).
- humanrebar 9y agoThere's a section on the NYT wikipedia article detailing many examples with footnotes. Including quotes of Times editors and reporters basically admitting as much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Accusations_of_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Accusations...
- eesmith 9y agoThere used to be a monthly news magazine to provide examples of the "Lies of Our Times" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_of_Our_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_of_Our_Times
- wallace_f 9y agoThe NYT has a long history of bias in favor of the major powers in the US: the military being one of them: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_561532ade4b0fad1591a3193 https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_561532ade4b0fad1591a3193 Also, 'mainstream bias,' for lack or a better term, is still bias. Unjust death and arbitrary transfers of wealth via the military, healthcare lobbies, Wall St, and the Fed Reserve are not any different than murder or theft, they're just part of our economy and education, and our mainstream media sings their praises(it's true of all the mainstream media outlets): https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
- RickJWag 9y agoThat would be the best. I wish it would happen.
- mieseratte 9y agoChoosing what to show (and what not) is just as important in shaping opinion and worldview while still allowing for objectivity. We have limited time, limited attention spans, and limited concern (or outrage). For example, one can cover, say, the illegal immigration situation in the US. While a more liberal outlet might focus on humanitarian concerns of the immigrants, the "good ones" leading virtuous lives in the country a conservative one might focus on the humanitarian concerns of Americans, major crime, etc. What would be nice is an objective outlet that provides reasonable consideration of both sides in a concise manner, analyzes potential benefit and harm, etc. I'm sure this is the "Good, cheap, or fast" of news.
- whatshisface 9y agoPolitically "active material" is, for some reason, the only branch of knowledge that we all seem to agree can't be expressed in words. I can tell you everything known about the effects of... caffeine on general health: all I have to do is start talking, and then not stop until I've said every well-supported, relevant fact. There's absolutely no fundamental reason why I can't put the profile of an undocumented hard-working fruit picker in the same broadcast as a report on a brutal drug-related homicide believed to have involved people here illegally. There are many political reasons why I wouldn't do that, most of them related to the motivations that drove me to do character profiles (a dangerous combination of emotional credibility and statistical weakness) in the first place, instead of having calm talks about the large averages that we use to illuminate every field of truth that's devoid of strong ulterior motives.
- QAPereo 9y agoYou still require an audience which understands you, believes you... otherwise you do what you just said for vaccines, and you still get anti-vaxxers. Besides. 90%+ of your audience just flipped to the channels which tell them what they want to hear.
- whatshisface 9y agoThe tools that we could use to get the "uninterested" to believe the truth work equally well for falsities, and are usually used to spread beliefs of convienience. If those tools were just sent down entirely, you'd be left with "right" and "random," and the random would always average out at the polls. Sadly, in our present world stupid is dangerous because machiavellians and martyrs alike are magnetizing it with arguments that are as wrong as they are emotionally convincing.
- viziviz 9y agoI mean, I'd watch it. But I feel like we're the minority. Sensationalism gets eyeballs gets ad revenue. The corruption is inherent in the system.
- Buldak 9y agoThis is surely naive, but what makes you think that isn't what Thiel sees himself as doing?
- jballanc 9y agoIn other words: NPR/PBS. Every news organization will have bias because every person has bias, and news organizations are made up of people. So the real choice one has to make is: what sort of bias do I want in my news? The easiest way to identify bias is to look at where the money comes from. In the case of CPB-funded organizations yes, some of their funding is government based, so they're likely to be biased toward reporting that favors government funding for public institutions (or, in the extreme: socialism). However they also receive a significant portion of their funding from volunteer donors, so their reporting is also likely to be biased in favor of people who altruistically give without expectation of any specific ROI. Now, if you favor small government and self-sufficient individuals who look out for #1 above all else, NPR/PBS is probably not your cup of tea.
- laingc 9y agoI’m not American, but I do listen to quite a few NPR podcasts and enjoy them a lot. Your claim that NPR isn’t biased is quite frankly ludicrous. Their programming features a clear and unmistakeable liberal* bias, and the fact that you seem to be unaware of this probably just means that you share this worldview. That’s absolutely fine with me, but you should really re-examine your idea of objectivity. * In the American sense of the word. Edit: I acknowledge that you admit that all news organisations are biased, however I’m responding to your central claim that NPR fills the objective role referred to by GP
- jballanc 9y ago> Their programming features a clear and unmistakeable liberal* bias, and the fact that you seem to be unaware of this probably just means that you share this worldview. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." All joking aside, I definitely acknowledge NPR's liberal bias. My main point was to "follow the money". More traditional liberal (and conservative) media outlets have funding that is much more "active" (for lack of a better term) than NPR.
- humanrebar 9y agoOn the other hand, NPR and PBS exist partly because they are effective at lobbying Congress for funding.
- thisisit 9y agoThere are always two sides to an argument. How do you define objective reality?
- perseusprime11 9y agoIs there such a thing as objective reality?