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I disagree with the idea that: 1)journalists were ever not politically aligned; 2) that it is possible to have unbiased reporting. I think it is more honest to

I disagree with the idea that: 1)journalists were ever not politically aligned; 2) that it is possible to have unbiased reporting. I think it is more honest to admit that we are all highly political... especially the people that claim that they are not, or that a particular question is not political. In fact the latter is one of my bug-bears about HN culture. Frequently it is claimed that discussing politics is divisive and/or uninformative. I consider this to be a veiled (possibly unconscious) desire to claim that there are objective realities about non-physical/mensurable observations. All is politics. The most honest journalism is that which admits its bias and makes its best explicit case for how well its model fits the world.

mbrumlow 8y ago
Sure, you could say it is all politics, and it would be hard to separate out any biases and political views form these organizations. But I think most can read between the lines. These things are on a scale, say from 0 to 9. At some point in the past - bias and political charged reporting and news was was closer to say a 3. But today our news organizations have cranked it up to a 11.
- larkost 8y ago
  I can't speak to other places. But within the U.S. the "mainstream" media really has not changed. Here I am talking about organizations such as ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR News, The new Your Times, and the like. All of which are fairly conscientious about separating out their biases (no one is perfect, but they all make concerted efforts). However, Fox News was then created because conservative groups did not like the coverage (it did not agree with their biases). They called the rest of the media "left wing" or "liberal" and so re-framed Centrists as Leftists. Their success prompted a couple of organizations to veer a bit to the Left (e.g.: MSNBC), but that has not taken nearly as much of the viewership as it has on the Right. And then more recently you have the rise of conspiracy sites like The Drudge Report or Alex Jones/Info Wars that have started to dominate Republican politics. There certainly are similar sites on the Left side of the spectrum (there are always fringe sites), but they don't have the heft or following withing mainstream Democratic politics that has happened in Republican circles. So we still have the good news organizations, but now we have some really bad ones, and they are screaming the the good ones are bad. It is sad that people are believing this.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > but they don't have the heft or following withing mainstream Democratic politics that has happened in Republican circles. That's because the Democratic establishment is scared shirtless of the party being taken over by actual leftists... While the Republican establishment doesn't mind their party being taken over by the fringe right. Business will continue as usual, for them. So, one side pretends their populist arm doesn't exist (And keeps losing elections, because it has nothing to offer it), while the other side is happy to embrace it.
    - frabbit 8y ago
      The DNC looks like they still have not got the message. The only question really is whether the left can take over the party machinery or would be better off third partying.
  - frabbit 8y ago
    > ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR Honestly, from my perspective those seem like highly biased sources which completely fail to give a fair shake to either the right or the left. They are IMO neo-liberal capitalist propaganda makers. The most egregious examples of this are in coverage of e.g. the completely fake news which provided a fig-leaf for invading and destroying Iraq, or earlier the Vietnam war. Hermann and Chomsky covered how this works w.r.t. the Vietnam war, and if anyone wants to know why conspiracies seem plausible, it is because of the distrust which the "official" outlets have earned by these methods of media manipulation.

mbrumlow 8y ago

Sure, you could say it is all politics, and it would be hard to separate out any biases and political views form these organizations. But I think most can read between the lines. These things are on a scale, say from 0 to 9. At some point in the past - bias and political charged reporting and news was was closer to say a 3. But today our news organizations have cranked it up to a 11.

larkost 8y ago
I can't speak to other places. But within the U.S. the "mainstream" media really has not changed. Here I am talking about organizations such as ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR News, The new Your Times, and the like. All of which are fairly conscientious about separating out their biases (no one is perfect, but they all make concerted efforts). However, Fox News was then created because conservative groups did not like the coverage (it did not agree with their biases). They called the rest of the media "left wing" or "liberal" and so re-framed Centrists as Leftists. Their success prompted a couple of organizations to veer a bit to the Left (e.g.: MSNBC), but that has not taken nearly as much of the viewership as it has on the Right. And then more recently you have the rise of conspiracy sites like The Drudge Report or Alex Jones/Info Wars that have started to dominate Republican politics. There certainly are similar sites on the Left side of the spectrum (there are always fringe sites), but they don't have the heft or following withing mainstream Democratic politics that has happened in Republican circles. So we still have the good news organizations, but now we have some really bad ones, and they are screaming the the good ones are bad. It is sad that people are believing this.
- vkou 8y ago
  > but they don't have the heft or following withing mainstream Democratic politics that has happened in Republican circles. That's because the Democratic establishment is scared shirtless of the party being taken over by actual leftists... While the Republican establishment doesn't mind their party being taken over by the fringe right. Business will continue as usual, for them. So, one side pretends their populist arm doesn't exist (And keeps losing elections, because it has nothing to offer it), while the other side is happy to embrace it.
  - frabbit 8y ago
    The DNC looks like they still have not got the message. The only question really is whether the left can take over the party machinery or would be better off third partying.
- frabbit 8y ago
  > ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR Honestly, from my perspective those seem like highly biased sources which completely fail to give a fair shake to either the right or the left. They are IMO neo-liberal capitalist propaganda makers. The most egregious examples of this are in coverage of e.g. the completely fake news which provided a fig-leaf for invading and destroying Iraq, or earlier the Vietnam war. Hermann and Chomsky covered how this works w.r.t. the Vietnam war, and if anyone wants to know why conspiracies seem plausible, it is because of the distrust which the "official" outlets have earned by these methods of media manipulation.