4 ms·

Nothing new. I worked in a newsroom as an intern and most major news stations rely (maybe, relied, it's been a few years) on a tool like ENPS. It's made by the

Nothing new. I worked in a newsroom as an intern and most major news stations rely (maybe, relied, it's been a few years) on a tool like ENPS. It's made by the Associated Press and has a "wire" feature where new stories come into. So, e.g., if there was a plane crash, that message would be pushed out to all newsrooms that rely on ENPS. The news producers were lazy, too. They'd literally take the script that ENPS pushes out, tweak a few words, and put it on air. I was working in a minor midwestern market (Toledo, Ohio). If you watched the evening broadcasts in the same market and nationally, you'd frequently see the same stories and similar verbiage popping up. Being surprised by a broadcast group like Sinclair was forcing a narrative is like being surprised that the sky is blue. The "news" is highly filtered and easily controlled. To think otherwise is deliberate ignorance. The broadcasting industry is corrupt and untrustworthy as all hell. My father worked in it at a high level (owning licenses and stations) and he'd frequently come home from trips either stone faced or frustrated beyond belief: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum... (he's the stately looking black fella throwing a fit in this piece). To trust anything the mass media tells you is to severely handicap your intelligence. Unfortunately, large swats of the general public do exactly that. /rant

ptr_void 9y ago
Where do you suggest people go to get their news instead ?
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  One must try to find points of view from all "sides", and then apply critical thinking to everything that one reads/hears. Every source is very biased and full of a lot of (mostly, really) shit, but the facts can be discerned if personal biases give way to objective analysis.
  - beat 9y ago
    That's the logical failing of the moderate - to reduce everything to opinion and bias, and ignore the existence of fact. If one side says 2+2=4, and the other side said 2+2=6, the truth is not that 2+2=5 and everyone needs to stop being so partisan.
- beat 9y ago
  National/international news from AP and Reuters is about as politically neutral as you can get. Major news networks, even overtly partisan ones like FOX News, rarely outright lie - their bias is in sins of omission. You can watch ABC, CNN, FOX, or read the NY Times or Washington Post, and take it with a grain of salt if it starts feeling one-sided. The internet is a wonderful thing. But the heart of the bias problem isn't that the sources are biased, at least if you stay away from outright nonsense like InfoWars. Rather, the problem is that people are biased, and then start looking for news that reinforces our biases. We can even read the same story and get entirely different interpretations of it (see all the arguing downthread about DACA negotiations). Facts are (mostly) objective; interpretation is always subjective.
- rglover 9y ago
  It's less about finding different sources and more about learning how to critically evaluate what you hear (i.e., not blindly letting your own biases accept the narrative as it's delivered). It also depends on what the story involves. The example I gave above—a plane crash—is very objective. Something bad happened, people were likely hurt, authorities are investigating, etc. Where it starts to get murky is when a story taps into an ongoing narrative like gun control. Notice how the major news networks were (and still are) each pushing their own narrative around the Parkland shooting. The left-leaning media were pushing the need for more gun control and anchoring that to the victims, the right was babbling on about how the left was just trying to steal everyone's guns and why gun ownership is positive. It's where you're being told that one side is "evil" that your antennae should go up. In situations like these, it's worth considering what is factually true, what is opinion/emotionally-driven bias, and working hard to form your own opinions.
evgen 9y ago
There is a significant difference between using a common source like a news wire and being told 'by corporate' what you will say. A news desk can decide what wire stories to print and how to edit them, but can't do the same for directives and scripts from the Sinclair mothership. Don't try to claim these are in any way equivalent.
- rglover 9y ago
  > Don't try to claim these are in any way equivalent. Not my goal (see comment on other reply here). Just pointing out that the media as a whole is not to be trusted in any way shape or form. Like I noted on the other comment above, this situation is far worse than what I saw in the newsroom; just not surprising having seen the machine at work.
anigbrowl 9y ago
OK but while you're making a cynical critique you're (perhaps inadvertently) creating a false equivalence between reportage (of events like plane crashes, notwithstanding the possibility of editorial selectivity/framing) and straight up opinion/editorial that doesn't inform the viewer of any facts whatsoever. This is not just as bad, but qualitatively worse. I'm a fan of your Dad by the way, I remember that article when it was originally published.
- rglover 9y ago
  Fair enough. That wasn't my intent. Just noting that the facade we see as consumers of this stuff is not the reality behind the scenes (and to ever expect it to be is careless). You're right, this is infinitely worse.
alttab 9y ago
Almost like Trump was playing 4D chess and exposes fake news by using fake news to spread fake news.

ptr_void 9y ago

Where do you suggest people go to get their news instead ?

stronglikedan 9y ago
One must try to find points of view from all "sides", and then apply critical thinking to everything that one reads/hears. Every source is very biased and full of a lot of (mostly, really) shit, but the facts can be discerned if personal biases give way to objective analysis.
- beat 9y ago
  That's the logical failing of the moderate - to reduce everything to opinion and bias, and ignore the existence of fact. If one side says 2+2=4, and the other side said 2+2=6, the truth is not that 2+2=5 and everyone needs to stop being so partisan.
beat 9y ago
National/international news from AP and Reuters is about as politically neutral as you can get. Major news networks, even overtly partisan ones like FOX News, rarely outright lie - their bias is in sins of omission. You can watch ABC, CNN, FOX, or read the NY Times or Washington Post, and take it with a grain of salt if it starts feeling one-sided. The internet is a wonderful thing. But the heart of the bias problem isn't that the sources are biased, at least if you stay away from outright nonsense like InfoWars. Rather, the problem is that people are biased, and then start looking for news that reinforces our biases. We can even read the same story and get entirely different interpretations of it (see all the arguing downthread about DACA negotiations). Facts are (mostly) objective; interpretation is always subjective.
rglover 9y ago
It's less about finding different sources and more about learning how to critically evaluate what you hear (i.e., not blindly letting your own biases accept the narrative as it's delivered). It also depends on what the story involves. The example I gave above—a plane crash—is very objective. Something bad happened, people were likely hurt, authorities are investigating, etc. Where it starts to get murky is when a story taps into an ongoing narrative like gun control. Notice how the major news networks were (and still are) each pushing their own narrative around the Parkland shooting. The left-leaning media were pushing the need for more gun control and anchoring that to the victims, the right was babbling on about how the left was just trying to steal everyone's guns and why gun ownership is positive. It's where you're being told that one side is "evil" that your antennae should go up. In situations like these, it's worth considering what is factually true, what is opinion/emotionally-driven bias, and working hard to form your own opinions.

evgen 9y ago

There is a significant difference between using a common source like a news wire and being told 'by corporate' what you will say. A news desk can decide what wire stories to print and how to edit them, but can't do the same for directives and scripts from the Sinclair mothership. Don't try to claim these are in any way equivalent.

rglover 9y ago
> Don't try to claim these are in any way equivalent. Not my goal (see comment on other reply here). Just pointing out that the media as a whole is not to be trusted in any way shape or form. Like I noted on the other comment above, this situation is far worse than what I saw in the newsroom; just not surprising having seen the machine at work.

anigbrowl 9y ago

OK but while you're making a cynical critique you're (perhaps inadvertently) creating a false equivalence between reportage (of events like plane crashes, notwithstanding the possibility of editorial selectivity/framing) and straight up opinion/editorial that doesn't inform the viewer of any facts whatsoever. This is not just as bad, but qualitatively worse. I'm a fan of your Dad by the way, I remember that article when it was originally published.

rglover 9y ago
Fair enough. That wasn't my intent. Just noting that the facade we see as consumers of this stuff is not the reality behind the scenes (and to ever expect it to be is careless). You're right, this is infinitely worse.

alttab 9y ago

Almost like Trump was playing 4D chess and exposes fake news by using fake news to spread fake news.