7 ms·

Instead of derailing with "you too", can we focus on one thing at a time? National news programs are a separate issue from secretly biased local news.

meri_dian 9y ago
CNN doesn't stand up and say "we're devoting our reporting resources to all things anti Trump, this is our bias, it's not secret". They simply report the news they choose to report. Just like Sinclair. People watch the news hoping to get an accurate depiction of reality. When only one side of a multifaceted situation is reported on, the depiction becomes distorted. It's never OK to do this, regardless of whose side you're on.
- ModernMech 9y ago
  All news is based. Anyone telling you otherwise (that they are fair and balanced and unbiased) is lying to you. I don't need CNN to explicitly tell me their biases, because they are not my only source of news. It's not CNN's job to make sure i get unbiased news. It my job to make sense of biased news and weave it into a consistent mental model of the world. This let's me do things like watch CNN and Fox News and recognize when they're not telling me the full story. That's the only way to fight this kind of thing.
  - mnemonicsloth 9y ago
    If all news is biased, then what Sinclair is doing should be no big deal. They have a message they're pushing, just like everybody else. Do you believe that? And if everybody has a bias, it also shouldn't be a big deal for me to ask you: What's yours?
    - ModernMech 9y ago
      It's one thing to put your message out there without having to constantly inform everyone you're biased, as CNN does. It's quite another to put your message out there and insist that everyone else is biased and therefore unfair and untrustworthy. This is what Fox News and Sinclair are doing. They don't want you to watch anything else, because it gives away the con. > What's yours? That's the thing about bias: It's multifaceted, and often subconscious. I could list some biases I'm suspicious I have, but this list would be incomplete and inaccurate.
    - jimbokun 9y ago
      If they had to put a disclaimer in front of every local news anchor saying "the following content was produced by Sinclair Corporation in collaboration with President Trump", there would not be a problem. Just like we do with other kinds of political advertisements. The problem is not the bias. The problem is the deception about who is responsible for the content. And yes, this falls into the same category as government employees in St. Petersburg masquerading as US citizens while publishing political propaganda.
  - state_less 9y ago
    > All news is based. The truth isn't biased, so if the news reports the truth, "x said y" and we have evidence that x said y, then it is not biased and therefore all new is NOT biased.
    - mejari 9y ago
      That's not true at all. If I say "x said y", and don't tell you that "y said z", then that is biased, while telling you only the truth.
      - state_less 9y ago
        That's called a lie by omission, so in such a case, if you wanted to tell the truth, you'd have to include "y said z" or you'd be lying.
        mejari 9y ago
        Right, so how do you determine how much you have to say to tell the "truth"? If someone makes a claim about an economic policy, is it "lying by omission" to not talk about the impact previous similar policies have been enacted? Or is that inserting your bias? If you aren't telling people the facts behind the claims then are you telling the truth? Which facts you decide to share or not share can be biased.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      What truth you choose to report is biased. News can be biased by selective disclosure.
    - ModernMech 9y ago
      You still think the truth is objective after a year+ living in this alternative fact world? There is no such thing as a "truth" anymore. Even cold hard figures are negotiable. Remember "The employment rate was fake news before but it's very real now"
      - 9y ago
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    If all news is biased, why bother watching any it?
    - ModernMech 9y ago
      Why do you think bias makes something not worth watching?
      - ravenstine 9y ago
        That's not necessarily what I am implying. I'm challenging the idea that, if all news is biased(beyond simply picking and choosing stories), one can reliably find the truth by essentially making a Venn diagram between biased sources and analyzing overlaps. I neither believe nor disbelieve that it's a pathway to truth. I have my skepticism because it provides no form of validation; if all sources are too highly skewed, any overlap becomes highly suspect and simultaneously difficult to test.
        ModernMech 9y ago
        I am a roboticist, so I view this as an exercise in signal processing. A news agency is like a sensor, reporting that an event happened. We don't know what or how or when, so we use different signals and fuse them to arrive at a better understanding of "truth". The nice thing about sensor fusion, is even without external validation as to the truth, you can still approximate it with certainty using otherwise very noisy sources that may be biased one way or another. That's how I view watching the news.
        ravenstine 9y ago
        That's an interesting perspective. Do you think that humans are capable of similar sensor fusion? If so, then does that mean that we shouldn't be worried about bias?
        ModernMech 9y ago
- Bud 9y ago
  This actually isn't remotely comparable to what Sinclair is doing. Not remotely. I am tempted to say that you know it's not comparable and that you're simply outright lying, but I'll restrain myself, and instead just note that you're completely and outrageously incorrect. CNN is not dictating what its personnel report and it's certainly not coordinating forced fake "reporting" in unison by dozens of TV stations, or forcing anyone to air Sebastian Gorka, etc.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    "CNN is not dictating what its personnel report" Come now, you think managers and executives at CNN are just playing board games all day? No, they're crafting policy and setting the direction of news room reporting.
    - jvagner 9y ago
      ...which is different than dictating.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    >I am tempted to say that you know it's not comparable and that you're simply outright lying, but I'll restrain myself, and instead just note that you're completely and outrageously incorrect. Obvious cognitive dissonance tell right here.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      If your own cognition weren't so dissonant, you would know that cognitive dissonance only afflicts those of particular political leanings.
  - wanderer2323 9y ago
    >CNN is not dictating what its personnel report this is incredibly naive. >it's certainly not coordinating forced fake "reporting" CNN itself may not be the coordination center, but leftist media does coordinate its reporting, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
- digitaltrees 9y ago
  This is a more insidious problem than any one media property because the very structure of the local news organization -being small and distributed - gives them a unique credibility for most viewers because they assume that their local news team is more closely align with their local beliefs, values, and interests. People do not assume every word from a local news anchor is the exact script for the entire country. Further, it is one thing for them to use the same script. It is entirely another thing for the script to be "you can't trust any other news outlet because they all report fake news with no research or verification. YOU CAN ONLY TRUST US". I have never seen that message on CNN. You may not like CNN's coverage of Trump, but they do not undermine every other media outlet.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    >I have never seen that message on CNN Give me a break. You don't remember "This an Apple", one of the most elitist, pretentious advertising campaigns in recent times: ""This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it's a banana. They might scream, 'Banana, banana, banana,' over and over and over again. They might put banana in all caps. You might even start to believe it's a banana, but it's not. This is an apple." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vckz6EAn30Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vckz6EAn30Y
    - digitaltrees 9y ago
      Fair point. I have never seen this add campaign.
      - rndmize 9y ago
        IIRC this ad campaign wasn't a "trust only us" campaign; it was a direct response to the never-ending calls of "fake news" from the president and right-wing against CNN. In a world where the the president literally sends out his press secretary to lie on Day 1 about the size of his inauguration crowd, this is a reasonable (though I suspect utterly useless) response.
wanderer2323 9y ago
That's not derailing, you are trying to split hairs to stifle discussion. Global media is pretty clearly biased against the current administration. It seems that Sinclair is the asymmetrical response. Discussing them in the larger context of the US news is completely valid.
- ams6110 9y ago
  It's hilarious. Just like Facebook privacy issues only blew up when it might have benefited Trump, but it was fine when Obama used that data (on a much larger scale), it's funny that NYT is suddenly paying attention to this coordinated reporting campaign when they and the national TV media parrot Media Matters all day, every day. It's easy to find a dozen examples of national TV talking heads all using the same phrases and vocabulary to report on some pro-left or anti-right issue.
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  - larkost 9y ago
    The data that the Obama campaign used, and the one that the Trump campaign may have used (it is clear they had it, unclear that they used it) were very different both in collection and in scope. The Obama campaign asked supporters which of their FaceBook contacts they thought were likely to be receptive to messages from the team, and only collected the FaceBook handles. The information shared with the Trump campaign was collected (not by the Trump campaign) was far more reaching than just the FaceBook name, including a lot of personal information both about the people who installed the "personality test" app, and the personal information of all of their FaceBook "friends". Trying to equate these two is just not honest. Separately I would expect the same phrasing and vocabulary to emerge in the media. They are all talking to the same general pool of sources, and listening to each other. What I do not expect (and smacks of authoritarianism) is for them to all be reading from the exact same script.

meri_dian 9y ago

CNN doesn't stand up and say "we're devoting our reporting resources to all things anti Trump, this is our bias, it's not secret". They simply report the news they choose to report. Just like Sinclair. People watch the news hoping to get an accurate depiction of reality. When only one side of a multifaceted situation is reported on, the depiction becomes distorted. It's never OK to do this, regardless of whose side you're on.

ModernMech 9y ago
All news is based. Anyone telling you otherwise (that they are fair and balanced and unbiased) is lying to you. I don't need CNN to explicitly tell me their biases, because they are not my only source of news. It's not CNN's job to make sure i get unbiased news. It my job to make sense of biased news and weave it into a consistent mental model of the world. This let's me do things like watch CNN and Fox News and recognize when they're not telling me the full story. That's the only way to fight this kind of thing.
- mnemonicsloth 9y ago
  If all news is biased, then what Sinclair is doing should be no big deal. They have a message they're pushing, just like everybody else. Do you believe that? And if everybody has a bias, it also shouldn't be a big deal for me to ask you: What's yours?
  - ModernMech 9y ago
    It's one thing to put your message out there without having to constantly inform everyone you're biased, as CNN does. It's quite another to put your message out there and insist that everyone else is biased and therefore unfair and untrustworthy. This is what Fox News and Sinclair are doing. They don't want you to watch anything else, because it gives away the con. > What's yours? That's the thing about bias: It's multifaceted, and often subconscious. I could list some biases I'm suspicious I have, but this list would be incomplete and inaccurate.
  - jimbokun 9y ago
    If they had to put a disclaimer in front of every local news anchor saying "the following content was produced by Sinclair Corporation in collaboration with President Trump", there would not be a problem. Just like we do with other kinds of political advertisements. The problem is not the bias. The problem is the deception about who is responsible for the content. And yes, this falls into the same category as government employees in St. Petersburg masquerading as US citizens while publishing political propaganda.
- state_less 9y ago
  > All news is based. The truth isn't biased, so if the news reports the truth, "x said y" and we have evidence that x said y, then it is not biased and therefore all new is NOT biased.
  - mejari 9y ago
    That's not true at all. If I say "x said y", and don't tell you that "y said z", then that is biased, while telling you only the truth.
    - state_less 9y ago
      That's called a lie by omission, so in such a case, if you wanted to tell the truth, you'd have to include "y said z" or you'd be lying.
      - mejari 9y ago
        Right, so how do you determine how much you have to say to tell the "truth"? If someone makes a claim about an economic policy, is it "lying by omission" to not talk about the impact previous similar policies have been enacted? Or is that inserting your bias? If you aren't telling people the facts behind the claims then are you telling the truth? Which facts you decide to share or not share can be biased.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    What truth you choose to report is biased. News can be biased by selective disclosure.
  - ModernMech 9y ago
    You still think the truth is objective after a year+ living in this alternative fact world? There is no such thing as a "truth" anymore. Even cold hard figures are negotiable. Remember "The employment rate was fake news before but it's very real now"
    - 9y ago
- ravenstine 9y ago
  If all news is biased, why bother watching any it?
  - ModernMech 9y ago
    Why do you think bias makes something not worth watching?
    - ravenstine 9y ago
      That's not necessarily what I am implying. I'm challenging the idea that, if all news is biased(beyond simply picking and choosing stories), one can reliably find the truth by essentially making a Venn diagram between biased sources and analyzing overlaps. I neither believe nor disbelieve that it's a pathway to truth. I have my skepticism because it provides no form of validation; if all sources are too highly skewed, any overlap becomes highly suspect and simultaneously difficult to test.
      - ModernMech 9y ago
        I am a roboticist, so I view this as an exercise in signal processing. A news agency is like a sensor, reporting that an event happened. We don't know what or how or when, so we use different signals and fuse them to arrive at a better understanding of "truth". The nice thing about sensor fusion, is even without external validation as to the truth, you can still approximate it with certainty using otherwise very noisy sources that may be biased one way or another. That's how I view watching the news.
        ravenstine 9y ago
        That's an interesting perspective. Do you think that humans are capable of similar sensor fusion? If so, then does that mean that we shouldn't be worried about bias?
        ModernMech 9y ago
Bud 9y ago
This actually isn't remotely comparable to what Sinclair is doing. Not remotely. I am tempted to say that you know it's not comparable and that you're simply outright lying, but I'll restrain myself, and instead just note that you're completely and outrageously incorrect. CNN is not dictating what its personnel report and it's certainly not coordinating forced fake "reporting" in unison by dozens of TV stations, or forcing anyone to air Sebastian Gorka, etc.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  "CNN is not dictating what its personnel report" Come now, you think managers and executives at CNN are just playing board games all day? No, they're crafting policy and setting the direction of news room reporting.
  - jvagner 9y ago
    ...which is different than dictating.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >I am tempted to say that you know it's not comparable and that you're simply outright lying, but I'll restrain myself, and instead just note that you're completely and outrageously incorrect. Obvious cognitive dissonance tell right here.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    If your own cognition weren't so dissonant, you would know that cognitive dissonance only afflicts those of particular political leanings.
- wanderer2323 9y ago
  >CNN is not dictating what its personnel report this is incredibly naive. >it's certainly not coordinating forced fake "reporting" CNN itself may not be the coordination center, but leftist media does coordinate its reporting, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
digitaltrees 9y ago
This is a more insidious problem than any one media property because the very structure of the local news organization -being small and distributed - gives them a unique credibility for most viewers because they assume that their local news team is more closely align with their local beliefs, values, and interests. People do not assume every word from a local news anchor is the exact script for the entire country. Further, it is one thing for them to use the same script. It is entirely another thing for the script to be "you can't trust any other news outlet because they all report fake news with no research or verification. YOU CAN ONLY TRUST US". I have never seen that message on CNN. You may not like CNN's coverage of Trump, but they do not undermine every other media outlet.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >I have never seen that message on CNN Give me a break. You don't remember "This an Apple", one of the most elitist, pretentious advertising campaigns in recent times: ""This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it's a banana. They might scream, 'Banana, banana, banana,' over and over and over again. They might put banana in all caps. You might even start to believe it's a banana, but it's not. This is an apple." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vckz6EAn30Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vckz6EAn30Y
  - digitaltrees 9y ago
    Fair point. I have never seen this add campaign.
    - rndmize 9y ago
      IIRC this ad campaign wasn't a "trust only us" campaign; it was a direct response to the never-ending calls of "fake news" from the president and right-wing against CNN. In a world where the the president literally sends out his press secretary to lie on Day 1 about the size of his inauguration crowd, this is a reasonable (though I suspect utterly useless) response.

wanderer2323 9y ago

That's not derailing, you are trying to split hairs to stifle discussion. Global media is pretty clearly biased against the current administration. It seems that Sinclair is the asymmetrical response. Discussing them in the larger context of the US news is completely valid.

ams6110 9y ago
It's hilarious. Just like Facebook privacy issues only blew up when it might have benefited Trump, but it was fine when Obama used that data (on a much larger scale), it's funny that NYT is suddenly paying attention to this coordinated reporting campaign when they and the national TV media parrot Media Matters all day, every day. It's easy to find a dozen examples of national TV talking heads all using the same phrases and vocabulary to report on some pro-left or anti-right issue.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- larkost 9y ago
  The data that the Obama campaign used, and the one that the Trump campaign may have used (it is clear they had it, unclear that they used it) were very different both in collection and in scope. The Obama campaign asked supporters which of their FaceBook contacts they thought were likely to be receptive to messages from the team, and only collected the FaceBook handles. The information shared with the Trump campaign was collected (not by the Trump campaign) was far more reaching than just the FaceBook name, including a lot of personal information both about the people who installed the "personality test" app, and the personal information of all of their FaceBook "friends". Trying to equate these two is just not honest. Separately I would expect the same phrasing and vocabulary to emerge in the media. They are all talking to the same general pool of sources, and listening to each other. What I do not expect (and smacks of authoritarianism) is for them to all be reading from the exact same script.