8 ms·

Political Bias Is Destroying Peoples Faith in Journalism

72 points by Trisell 8y ago

dopamean 8y ago
I wonder how much of it is really bias or people perceiving bias. I know people who think that if they read something negative about a political figure they like then the person and publication who wrote it are automatically biased in favor of the other side. It also seems like it might be hard to write about certain political stories without being accused of bias. Is it possible to write anything about the shutdown and border wall fiasco that doesn't paint he President and GOP in a bad light? Wont many people incorrectly perceive that as biased reporting? I don't mean to imply that there isn't actual bias but it just seems like a strange thing to bring up at a time when certain political figures are acting in such extreme ways. Simply reporting on those actions and their consequences if often going to be very negative.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  I think it's less about the reporting on political figures and more on the harassment/defamation of regular civilians like the Covington High School kids. And of course all the botched bombshell scoops that are retracted 24 hrs later.
  - gthaman 8y ago
    "It's the beginning of the end!"
- rubbingalcohol 8y ago
  Here in case you didn't read: > It is not hard to find examples of how far we have strayed from reporting standards in the Trump era. A simple example is Time Magazine falsely reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s first day in office, stating that he’d removed a statue of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office. The news went viral. But the writer did not follow the most basic rule of journalism — pick up the phone and ask the White House if it was really gone, and why? The writer late wrote a correction on his Twitter account, stating “The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.” There are numerous examples. Most recently the entire media running with a Buzzfeed story to the tune of "Trump is finished" that Mueller himself disputed, or the stuff about the MAGA hat kids that allegedly surrounded and mocked a Native American peace activist (turns out he had muscled his way into their gathering and was physically intimidating them, but the press ran with a selectively edited video and didn't bother corroborating it). This is stuff that gets widespread coverage before any journalist bothers with due diligence. I think it's a shame because a free press is one of the only ways to keep the government in check but they are shredding their own credibility, apparently because of personal biases (but who really knows), and the result of that is a government that can rightfully dismiss a lot of what gets reported. How do you recover after "crying wolf" too many times?
  - RandomTisk 8y ago
    That's part of it but I think it goes much deeper than just recent examples like the Covington kids. I can't stand most of cable news because any topic that I know anything about, political or not, I know I'm being lied to through omission of key facts. CNN/MSNBC are especially unwatchable because, like clockwork and for many years now, they bring on several "experts" that magically always champion Democrat's causes but will only bring on few or very weak proponents of any other opposing view. Many media outlets will continually bring out their best champions for something to go up against the absolute worst proponent the other side has to offer. To people who only watch CNN/MSNBC, it will look like Macho Man Randy Savage is constantly beating down Spongebob but that's simply the purposeful illusion they carefully cultivate. There is also a tendril that reaches into Academia. Free speech on most campuses is dead. The left has seen to that. Kids are being militantly trained to shut down speakers with whom they disagree, simply because they disagree. This empowers the rest of politics because these kids will never let fairness and unbiased reporting happen and the more prestigious the school this happens at, the more likely these students will affect the media in their lifetimes.
    - zgramana 8y ago
      When I read this I thought it was sarcastically “proving the point” of the root comment. MSNBC’s programming in the US evenings is largely opinion/political talk, and isn’t presented as news but as editorial. One can object to opinions, but it is unfair to criticize journalists for op/ed content—just like with newspapers. Very often the journalists personally disagree with opinion/editorial page content, but everyone understands that content isn’t bound by journalism’s standards.
    - everdrive 8y ago
      Cable news is especially bad, and the entire enterprise seems to be editorial via facial-expression, tone of voice, rhetorical question. It's especially bad in the Trump era, where a compulsive liar holds the office, but part of the media are poor enough that they can quite successfully be called out.
    - rubbingalcohol 8y ago
- RickJWagner 8y ago
  Of course it's possible to write about the government shutdown or the border wall from a neutral point of view. If you can't imagine such a story would possibly portray the current administration in a positive light, then you are not visualizing the story from the other point of view. Imagine allowing the White House to write the story, for instance. Or Fox News. Or the RNC. etc. I'm not saying this is the way the story should be written-- only that it is certainly possible to spin the story either way. It's the journalist's job to present just the facts, without spin. It's not an easy task, but that's the way it should be.
MrMember 8y ago
I don't even bother clicking on most news links anymore. I follow a Reuters RSS feed for business and market news and a few NPR feeds for general news. Over the past couple or years I've lost a lot of faith in most of the major news outlets. Some are little more than propaganda, and the ones that manage to remain factually correct most of the time have their reporting clouded by bias.
civilitty 8y ago
It's hard to take this article seriously coming from the New York Post [1], which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of dozens of politically biased news organizations and Fox News, a propaganda outlet made expressly to protect the Republican party from another loss like the Nixon impeachment. [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/
- drewrv 8y ago
  Yes, and a responsible publication would at least acknowledge their owners hand in the current mess.
- CompanionCuuube 8y ago
  It's hard to take a criticism of an article seriously if it only involves an ad hominem absent any critique of the actual content of the article.
throwaway201903 8y ago
Lara Logan may well be right that the center or center-left is more represented than conservatives in the media. At the same time, consider: -Lara Logan was the correspondent on 60 Minutes's famously flawed Benghazi story that aired in October of 2013. Logan and 60 Minutes (a CBS program) gave national exposure to a story that the Obama administration likely would have wanted not to be covered. -That piece of shoddy journalism had immediate and significant (if short-lived) political consequences: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/60-minutes-broadcast-helps-propel-new-round-of-back-and-forth-on-benghazi/2013/10/31/fbfcad66-4258-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/60-mi.... > Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and other Republican lawmakers referred to it repeatedly during a Wednesday news conference. Graham said he would block confirmation of all of President Obama’s nominees, including Jeh Johnson as homeland security secretary and Janet L. Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve, until the administration allowed government witnesses to the attack to appear before Congress. -Lara Logan sharply criticized the Obama administration a year prior to that report airing: (http://www77.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/10/10/cbs_lara_logan_slams_obama_admin_for_pushing_major_lie_that_taliban_is_weakened.html http://www77.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/10/10/cbs_lara...). It's certainly unusual for a journalist (in the pre-Trump era) to say "I can't stand that there is a major lie being propagated" about a president or their administration. -In September 2004 (in the lead-up to the election) CBS's Dan Rather (an anchor for 40 years) also reported a shoddy story on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam era. By June 2006, Dan Rather had been forced out of CBS. Logan was put on leave at CBS, but did not leave CBS until 2018. Unlike Rather, she was able to exit in a low-key manner (https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-lara-logan-20190219-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-lara-log...). -The cynic in me wonders if there was such prevalent liberal bias, how she was allowed to report a story that was embarrassing and damaging to the Obama administration after declaring a personal motivation for doing so. The cynic might wonder how she was kept on the CBS payroll for years after what for others might have been a career-ending mistake. -A very common complaint on the left is that major media networks like CNN, CBS, and NBC (and even the liberal MSNBC) gave candidate Trump disproportionate coverage during the 2016 election. This was to the point of even airing his empty podium before campaign speeches even began (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-empty-podium-gets-30-minutes-of-airtime https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-empty-podium-gets-...) -An even more common complaint on the left is that candidate Clinton's email scandal was covered for months to the detriment of policy (https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-election-clintons-emails https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-elec...). Mind you, this occurred at media outlets both liberal and conservative.
mc32 8y ago
She’s saying journalists are becoming activists rather than seekers of facts and corroborating evidence. Today they will cherrypick data and facts to advocate for one side or the other, but because roughly 7 out of 10 journalists are registered Democrats this attitude will favor Democrat/liberal narratives over Repub/Conservative narratives. One of most hilarious things happening, as others point out is the “fact checks” which should be called “gotcha on technicalities”. No, it wasn’t 200,000 gallons, it was 189,480 gallons, liar! No, unemployment isn’t down to 4.2%, it’s actually expected to be down to 3.9%, you are so wrong!
war1025 8y ago
Yellow journalism is not just a thing of the past. A free press is important, that doesn't mean all press is high-quality or well-intentioned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
sleepysysadmin 8y ago
It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by the journalists themselves.
- he0001 8y ago
  I’m curious, what's wrong with the two CNN articles? One is written 2015 and the other 2019 by two different persons and one seems to be a doctor?
  - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
    There's tons of bullshit from the media: https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg
    - he0001 8y ago
      And you don’t think it’s legitimate to write those two pieces, although there are 4 years between them, two different cases, and two different persons that wrote them? I think for this particularly case, you can’t say it’s wrong. It’s two different pieces telling two different stories by two completely different persons with four years apart. Much can happen in four years. I’m mostly impressed that you picked them up, with them written so far apart.
      - obtaniumstool 8y ago
        Considering all of his examples were top boogeymen of the alt right, I'd be surprised if there was any deeper reasoning behind it than parroting talking points.
isoskeles 8y ago
I recently watched the "Hulk Hogan / Gawker" Netflix documentary, "Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press." It was only about the Hulk Hogan / Gawker trial at the beginning, and then it turned into a full-on propaganda piece about how journalism is good and orange man bad. Maybe I am too dumb to have understood, but my takeaway was the morals of the story were basically: (1) it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to stop and (2) people need to start believing in journalists again because journalists are fundamental to democracy and actually they're very good etc. I agree with #1 to some extent, but they came up with the dumbest possible example in pointing out that the lawsuit was funded by Peter Thiel. I'm pretty sure there's a concept on the "left" that says it's not your right to "out" a person's sexuality. Gawker violated that. Not that I (or even the law) care one way or another, and not that this was the focus of the trial (it wasn't), but I get why Thiel was livid with them. Thiel (secretly) funded a lawsuit against Gawker for posting a sex tape of Hulk Hogan. I'm not even sure what mental backflips you have to do to presume that this was newsworthy or okay. They tried to explain it to us, and the best they got was the meta-point that Thiel funded the lawsuit. Nothing worthy of note about why they had a right (via Freedom of the Press) to make a sex tape public against the wishes of one of the participants. Maybe if it was a sex tape surrounding the impeachment of a current president, I'd understand. And somehow, I'm supposed to believe that this means there's a slippery slope now, where journalists can no longer freely state the news, for fear of being sued. As if this case weren't limited to the example of, maybe don't post a sex tape of some D-list celebrity as news. All that said, and per the article here, I am unhappy with "journalists" as a group, specifically with their sanctimonious claims that they're protecting democracy. And the conclusion of this idea, when you take it to the end, is that people simply need to believe them on moral principle, non-believers are against democracy. They're the victims here, the perpetrators are all the people who don't believe their stories any more--as if there was nothing they did to put themselves in this place.
- deogeo 8y ago
  > (1) it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to stop But when ~6 companies own 90% of US media, that doesn't count as influence. The best part is, they don't even have to lie. They can shape public opinion just by selecting which stories get covered, or get more prominence, without giving you a smoking gun false-story you can point at to prove their bias.
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
https://vimeo.com/34419805 https://vimeo.com/34419805 The massive corporate centralization of all media channels is the primary source of distrust in journalism now. It seeks profit by whatever controversy, fake news, or distraction that will sell ads, regardless of traditional value. Being a staunch environmentalist I obviously loathe most Republicans and hate centrist-dominated Democrats almost as much. But it is clear to me that the partisanship of the country is due to a flood of media desperate for clicks, overwhelming people who have not or cannot adapt to the propaganda firehose. Here's a fun little experiment: where can you tune in on TV for balanced opinions on issues that will actually account for more that a single viewpoints, coming out of the same mouth? You know, things like "caveats" or saying "granted" about some aspect of the opposing side? Moderation doesn't fuel emotions, and emotions and radicalization are what gets you constant viewership. Like all other industries in America, the conglomerates need to be split up.
- gthaman 8y ago
  I like how they try to blame subversion and propaganda on the "current divide" in politics. Most people know good and well whats happening, its more the intellectuals who are making out well in this current environment who are doing (in good faith) the mental gymnastics to put the fault of the american media's decline on some abstract idea as if tree's didn't bear fruit. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act
- pnongrata 8y ago
  Well said. The business of journalism is what's killing journalism.
- xupybd 8y ago
  >Being a staunch environmentalist I obviously loathe most Republicans and hate centrist-dominated Democrats almost as much. What are your thoughts on the requirement that environmental policies are tied very closely to left economic policies? I'd like the option to vote for string environmental policies but they seem coupled with economic policies that I don't want to vote for.
anth_anm 8y ago
This thread consists of conservatives whining about CNN and others, vs others taking shots at the post and the author of the article. So yeah, bias. I'm not at all convinced this is a "both sides" issue. You can find errors in coverage and examples of bias, but the scale of the Murdoch/Mercer news empires really has no match from the center. The actual left wing is pretty well unrepresented. The big problem I have is their obsession with ridiculous fact checking now. Not checking how many bodies are actually in the morgue, or whether or not a statue was removed. I mean the bullshit pedantry. Donald Trump says in the state of the union that the US has been at war in the middle east for almost 19 years. The NYT "fact checks" that as "actually it's only been almost 18 years". What does that accomplish? Is anyone more informed? Is there any story there? Is there any commentary on the state of the union, or just a summary? Does it matter at all? Is their fact check even accurate? My problem with it is that this has replaced any sort of quality journalism with just a mass of worthless fact checks and the important stuff gets buried.
- timw4mail 8y ago
  There's huge bias on both sides, especially to the extremes. There are very few moderate left or moderate right news outlets, perhaps because moderate news isn't as prone to the virality of the far left/far right viewpoints. "Fact checking" largely seems to be an attempt at appeasement to the error-rate of instant news.
sleepysysadmin 8y ago
It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by the journalists themselves. https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-live-shot/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-live-s... ABC faking a crime scene. https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg Anderson Cooper faking a scene. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/06/clinton-questions-whether-sanders-is-qualified-to-be-president/?utm_term=.168f32c16721 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/07/sanderss-incorrect-claim-that-clinton-called-him-not-qualified-for-the-presidency/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/... Which is it Washington Post? One of these articles is FALSE. We are losing faith in journalism because the journalists are WRONG.
- throwaway201903 8y ago
  In regards to the Anderson Cooper thing: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/. He also did an on-air segment with the full footage: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/18/anderson-cooper-accuses-donald-trump-jr-of-tweeting-lies-with-old-hurricane-photo/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/1.... Not to say that CNN is not often wrong, but this is a meme that isn't true.
  - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
    That snopes rating is bullshit. Snopes is also well known for bias that the journalists cover. It doesn't matter which hurricane it is; it's whether or not it's bullshit for him to be doing that. That's it. The picture isn't fake, it's true that he FAKED that news. It's fake news. The hurricane's name doesnt matter.
  - timtim51251 8y ago
    You need to realize that snopes is a propaganda site that lies all the time. They are very liberal and don't believe in the truth.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I agree. News is supposed to be presented in an unbiased way, but virtually every source now heavily injects some spin with each article. It's a shame, really. But I'm very glad Lara Logan is speaking out. It will cost her, but by raising awareness of the issue maybe things can start to improve.
robgibbons 8y ago
I've weaned myself almost entirely off of sensationalized news, especially social feeds. I try to eliminate any "colorful" (read: opinionated) news sources, be they progressive or conservative. I will only consciously consume objective reporting, from outlets which I respect for neutrality. Reuters, for example, still does a great job at focusing only on the facts, without attempting to interpret or inject personal opinions. They hold their journalists to a very high degree of journalistic integrity, and it really shows.
dragonsngoblins 8y ago
I think the issue is instead the rush to publish. With the internet you have to put something out on a story almost immediately 24/7. Even basic fact checking is a huge time drag when you have less than hours in which to get something out. Political Bias is in my mind largely a side effect: politically charged stories get lots of eyes and getting to them late means missing out on the inevitable flutter of angry and indignant retweets about the story. So loads of political stories get rushed, which means we see a lot of slanted ones (because more are written), and because they were rushed they are missing facts or have incorrect facts.

72 points by Trisell 8y ago

I wonder how much of it is really bias or people perceiving bias. I know people who think that if they read something negative about a political figure they like then the person and publication who wrote it are automatically biased in favor of the other side. It also seems like it might be hard to write about certain political stories without being accused of bias. Is it possible to write anything about the shutdown and border wall fiasco that doesn't paint he President and GOP in a bad light? Wont many people incorrectly perceive that as biased reporting? I don't mean to imply that there isn't actual bias but it just seems like a strange thing to bring up at a time when certain political figures are acting in such extreme ways. Simply reporting on those actions and their consequences if often going to be very negative.

creaghpatr 8y ago
I think it's less about the reporting on political figures and more on the harassment/defamation of regular civilians like the Covington High School kids. And of course all the botched bombshell scoops that are retracted 24 hrs later.
- gthaman 8y ago
  "It's the beginning of the end!"
rubbingalcohol 8y ago
Here in case you didn't read: > It is not hard to find examples of how far we have strayed from reporting standards in the Trump era. A simple example is Time Magazine falsely reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s first day in office, stating that he’d removed a statue of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office. The news went viral. But the writer did not follow the most basic rule of journalism — pick up the phone and ask the White House if it was really gone, and why? The writer late wrote a correction on his Twitter account, stating “The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.” There are numerous examples. Most recently the entire media running with a Buzzfeed story to the tune of "Trump is finished" that Mueller himself disputed, or the stuff about the MAGA hat kids that allegedly surrounded and mocked a Native American peace activist (turns out he had muscled his way into their gathering and was physically intimidating them, but the press ran with a selectively edited video and didn't bother corroborating it). This is stuff that gets widespread coverage before any journalist bothers with due diligence. I think it's a shame because a free press is one of the only ways to keep the government in check but they are shredding their own credibility, apparently because of personal biases (but who really knows), and the result of that is a government that can rightfully dismiss a lot of what gets reported. How do you recover after "crying wolf" too many times?
- RandomTisk 8y ago
  That's part of it but I think it goes much deeper than just recent examples like the Covington kids. I can't stand most of cable news because any topic that I know anything about, political or not, I know I'm being lied to through omission of key facts. CNN/MSNBC are especially unwatchable because, like clockwork and for many years now, they bring on several "experts" that magically always champion Democrat's causes but will only bring on few or very weak proponents of any other opposing view. Many media outlets will continually bring out their best champions for something to go up against the absolute worst proponent the other side has to offer. To people who only watch CNN/MSNBC, it will look like Macho Man Randy Savage is constantly beating down Spongebob but that's simply the purposeful illusion they carefully cultivate. There is also a tendril that reaches into Academia. Free speech on most campuses is dead. The left has seen to that. Kids are being militantly trained to shut down speakers with whom they disagree, simply because they disagree. This empowers the rest of politics because these kids will never let fairness and unbiased reporting happen and the more prestigious the school this happens at, the more likely these students will affect the media in their lifetimes.
  - zgramana 8y ago
    When I read this I thought it was sarcastically “proving the point” of the root comment. MSNBC’s programming in the US evenings is largely opinion/political talk, and isn’t presented as news but as editorial. One can object to opinions, but it is unfair to criticize journalists for op/ed content—just like with newspapers. Very often the journalists personally disagree with opinion/editorial page content, but everyone understands that content isn’t bound by journalism’s standards.
  - everdrive 8y ago
    Cable news is especially bad, and the entire enterprise seems to be editorial via facial-expression, tone of voice, rhetorical question. It's especially bad in the Trump era, where a compulsive liar holds the office, but part of the media are poor enough that they can quite successfully be called out.
  - rubbingalcohol 8y ago
RickJWagner 8y ago
Of course it's possible to write about the government shutdown or the border wall from a neutral point of view. If you can't imagine such a story would possibly portray the current administration in a positive light, then you are not visualizing the story from the other point of view. Imagine allowing the White House to write the story, for instance. Or Fox News. Or the RNC. etc. I'm not saying this is the way the story should be written-- only that it is certainly possible to spin the story either way. It's the journalist's job to present just the facts, without spin. It's not an easy task, but that's the way it should be.

MrMember 8y ago

I don't even bother clicking on most news links anymore. I follow a Reuters RSS feed for business and market news and a few NPR feeds for general news. Over the past couple or years I've lost a lot of faith in most of the major news outlets. Some are little more than propaganda, and the ones that manage to remain factually correct most of the time have their reporting clouded by bias.

civilitty 8y ago

It's hard to take this article seriously coming from the New York Post [1], which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of dozens of politically biased news organizations and Fox News, a propaganda outlet made expressly to protect the Republican party from another loss like the Nixon impeachment. [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/

drewrv 8y ago
Yes, and a responsible publication would at least acknowledge their owners hand in the current mess.
CompanionCuuube 8y ago
It's hard to take a criticism of an article seriously if it only involves an ad hominem absent any critique of the actual content of the article.

throwaway201903 8y ago

Lara Logan may well be right that the center or center-left is more represented than conservatives in the media. At the same time, consider: -Lara Logan was the correspondent on 60 Minutes's famously flawed Benghazi story that aired in October of 2013. Logan and 60 Minutes (a CBS program) gave national exposure to a story that the Obama administration likely would have wanted not to be covered. -That piece of shoddy journalism had immediate and significant (if short-lived) political consequences: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/60-minutes-broadcast-helps-propel-new-round-of-back-and-forth-on-benghazi/2013/10/31/fbfcad66-4258-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/60-mi.... > Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and other Republican lawmakers referred to it repeatedly during a Wednesday news conference. Graham said he would block confirmation of all of President Obama’s nominees, including Jeh Johnson as homeland security secretary and Janet L. Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve, until the administration allowed government witnesses to the attack to appear before Congress. -Lara Logan sharply criticized the Obama administration a year prior to that report airing: (http://www77.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/10/10/cbs_lara_logan_slams_obama_admin_for_pushing_major_lie_that_taliban_is_weakened.html http://www77.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/10/10/cbs_lara...). It's certainly unusual for a journalist (in the pre-Trump era) to say "I can't stand that there is a major lie being propagated" about a president or their administration. -In September 2004 (in the lead-up to the election) CBS's Dan Rather (an anchor for 40 years) also reported a shoddy story on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam era. By June 2006, Dan Rather had been forced out of CBS. Logan was put on leave at CBS, but did not leave CBS until 2018. Unlike Rather, she was able to exit in a low-key manner (https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-lara-logan-20190219-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-lara-log...). -The cynic in me wonders if there was such prevalent liberal bias, how she was allowed to report a story that was embarrassing and damaging to the Obama administration after declaring a personal motivation for doing so. The cynic might wonder how she was kept on the CBS payroll for years after what for others might have been a career-ending mistake. -A very common complaint on the left is that major media networks like CNN, CBS, and NBC (and even the liberal MSNBC) gave candidate Trump disproportionate coverage during the 2016 election. This was to the point of even airing his empty podium before campaign speeches even began (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-empty-podium-gets-30-minutes-of-airtime https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-empty-podium-gets-...) -An even more common complaint on the left is that candidate Clinton's email scandal was covered for months to the detriment of policy (https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-election-clintons-emails https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-elec...). Mind you, this occurred at media outlets both liberal and conservative.

mc32 8y ago

She’s saying journalists are becoming activists rather than seekers of facts and corroborating evidence. Today they will cherrypick data and facts to advocate for one side or the other, but because roughly 7 out of 10 journalists are registered Democrats this attitude will favor Democrat/liberal narratives over Repub/Conservative narratives. One of most hilarious things happening, as others point out is the “fact checks” which should be called “gotcha on technicalities”. No, it wasn’t 200,000 gallons, it was 189,480 gallons, liar! No, unemployment isn’t down to 4.2%, it’s actually expected to be down to 3.9%, you are so wrong!

war1025 8y ago

Yellow journalism is not just a thing of the past. A free press is important, that doesn't mean all press is high-quality or well-intentioned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

sleepysysadmin 8y ago

It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by the journalists themselves.

he0001 8y ago
I’m curious, what's wrong with the two CNN articles? One is written 2015 and the other 2019 by two different persons and one seems to be a doctor?
- sleepysysadmin 8y ago
  There's tons of bullshit from the media: https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg
  - he0001 8y ago
    And you don’t think it’s legitimate to write those two pieces, although there are 4 years between them, two different cases, and two different persons that wrote them? I think for this particularly case, you can’t say it’s wrong. It’s two different pieces telling two different stories by two completely different persons with four years apart. Much can happen in four years. I’m mostly impressed that you picked them up, with them written so far apart.
    - obtaniumstool 8y ago
      Considering all of his examples were top boogeymen of the alt right, I'd be surprised if there was any deeper reasoning behind it than parroting talking points.

isoskeles 8y ago

I recently watched the "Hulk Hogan / Gawker" Netflix documentary, "Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press." It was only about the Hulk Hogan / Gawker trial at the beginning, and then it turned into a full-on propaganda piece about how journalism is good and orange man bad. Maybe I am too dumb to have understood, but my takeaway was the morals of the story were basically: (1) it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to stop and (2) people need to start believing in journalists again because journalists are fundamental to democracy and actually they're very good etc. I agree with #1 to some extent, but they came up with the dumbest possible example in pointing out that the lawsuit was funded by Peter Thiel. I'm pretty sure there's a concept on the "left" that says it's not your right to "out" a person's sexuality. Gawker violated that. Not that I (or even the law) care one way or another, and not that this was the focus of the trial (it wasn't), but I get why Thiel was livid with them. Thiel (secretly) funded a lawsuit against Gawker for posting a sex tape of Hulk Hogan. I'm not even sure what mental backflips you have to do to presume that this was newsworthy or okay. They tried to explain it to us, and the best they got was the meta-point that Thiel funded the lawsuit. Nothing worthy of note about why they had a right (via Freedom of the Press) to make a sex tape public against the wishes of one of the participants. Maybe if it was a sex tape surrounding the impeachment of a current president, I'd understand. And somehow, I'm supposed to believe that this means there's a slippery slope now, where journalists can no longer freely state the news, for fear of being sued. As if this case weren't limited to the example of, maybe don't post a sex tape of some D-list celebrity as news. All that said, and per the article here, I am unhappy with "journalists" as a group, specifically with their sanctimonious claims that they're protecting democracy. And the conclusion of this idea, when you take it to the end, is that people simply need to believe them on moral principle, non-believers are against democracy. They're the victims here, the perpetrators are all the people who don't believe their stories any more--as if there was nothing they did to put themselves in this place.

deogeo 8y ago
> (1) it's bad that rich people can influence journalism and that needs to stop But when ~6 companies own 90% of US media, that doesn't count as influence. The best part is, they don't even have to lie. They can shape public opinion just by selecting which stories get covered, or get more prominence, without giving you a smoking gun false-story you can point at to prove their bias.

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

https://vimeo.com/34419805 https://vimeo.com/34419805 The massive corporate centralization of all media channels is the primary source of distrust in journalism now. It seeks profit by whatever controversy, fake news, or distraction that will sell ads, regardless of traditional value. Being a staunch environmentalist I obviously loathe most Republicans and hate centrist-dominated Democrats almost as much. But it is clear to me that the partisanship of the country is due to a flood of media desperate for clicks, overwhelming people who have not or cannot adapt to the propaganda firehose. Here's a fun little experiment: where can you tune in on TV for balanced opinions on issues that will actually account for more that a single viewpoints, coming out of the same mouth? You know, things like "caveats" or saying "granted" about some aspect of the opposing side? Moderation doesn't fuel emotions, and emotions and radicalization are what gets you constant viewership. Like all other industries in America, the conglomerates need to be split up.

gthaman 8y ago
I like how they try to blame subversion and propaganda on the "current divide" in politics. Most people know good and well whats happening, its more the intellectuals who are making out well in this current environment who are doing (in good faith) the mental gymnastics to put the fault of the american media's decline on some abstract idea as if tree's didn't bear fruit. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act
pnongrata 8y ago
Well said. The business of journalism is what's killing journalism.
xupybd 8y ago
>Being a staunch environmentalist I obviously loathe most Republicans and hate centrist-dominated Democrats almost as much. What are your thoughts on the requirement that environmental policies are tied very closely to left economic policies? I'd like the option to vote for string environmental policies but they seem coupled with economic policies that I don't want to vote for.

anth_anm 8y ago

This thread consists of conservatives whining about CNN and others, vs others taking shots at the post and the author of the article. So yeah, bias. I'm not at all convinced this is a "both sides" issue. You can find errors in coverage and examples of bias, but the scale of the Murdoch/Mercer news empires really has no match from the center. The actual left wing is pretty well unrepresented. The big problem I have is their obsession with ridiculous fact checking now. Not checking how many bodies are actually in the morgue, or whether or not a statue was removed. I mean the bullshit pedantry. Donald Trump says in the state of the union that the US has been at war in the middle east for almost 19 years. The NYT "fact checks" that as "actually it's only been almost 18 years". What does that accomplish? Is anyone more informed? Is there any story there? Is there any commentary on the state of the union, or just a summary? Does it matter at all? Is their fact check even accurate? My problem with it is that this has replaced any sort of quality journalism with just a mass of worthless fact checks and the important stuff gets buried.

timw4mail 8y ago
There's huge bias on both sides, especially to the extremes. There are very few moderate left or moderate right news outlets, perhaps because moderate news isn't as prone to the virality of the far left/far right viewpoints. "Fact checking" largely seems to be an attempt at appeasement to the error-rate of instant news.

sleepysysadmin 8y ago

It's not political bias. People's faith in journalism is being destroyed by the journalists themselves. https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-live-shot/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/abc-news-stage-live-s... ABC faking a crime scene. https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QDU9OGE.jpg Anderson Cooper faking a scene. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/06/clinton-questions-whether-sanders-is-qualified-to-be-president/?utm_term=.168f32c16721 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/07/sanderss-incorrect-claim-that-clinton-called-him-not-qualified-for-the-presidency/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/... Which is it Washington Post? One of these articles is FALSE. We are losing faith in journalism because the journalists are WRONG.

throwaway201903 8y ago
In regards to the Anderson Cooper thing: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/. He also did an on-air segment with the full footage: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/18/anderson-cooper-accuses-donald-trump-jr-of-tweeting-lies-with-old-hurricane-photo/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/1.... Not to say that CNN is not often wrong, but this is a meme that isn't true.
- sleepysysadmin 8y ago
  That snopes rating is bullshit. Snopes is also well known for bias that the journalists cover. It doesn't matter which hurricane it is; it's whether or not it's bullshit for him to be doing that. That's it. The picture isn't fake, it's true that he FAKED that news. It's fake news. The hurricane's name doesnt matter.
- timtim51251 8y ago
  You need to realize that snopes is a propaganda site that lies all the time. They are very liberal and don't believe in the truth.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I agree. News is supposed to be presented in an unbiased way, but virtually every source now heavily injects some spin with each article. It's a shame, really. But I'm very glad Lara Logan is speaking out. It will cost her, but by raising awareness of the issue maybe things can start to improve.

robgibbons 8y ago

I've weaned myself almost entirely off of sensationalized news, especially social feeds. I try to eliminate any "colorful" (read: opinionated) news sources, be they progressive or conservative. I will only consciously consume objective reporting, from outlets which I respect for neutrality. Reuters, for example, still does a great job at focusing only on the facts, without attempting to interpret or inject personal opinions. They hold their journalists to a very high degree of journalistic integrity, and it really shows.

dragonsngoblins 8y ago

I think the issue is instead the rush to publish. With the internet you have to put something out on a story almost immediately 24/7. Even basic fact checking is a huge time drag when you have less than hours in which to get something out. Political Bias is in my mind largely a side effect: politically charged stories get lots of eyes and getting to them late means missing out on the inevitable flutter of angry and indignant retweets about the story. So loads of political stories get rushed, which means we see a lot of slanted ones (because more are written), and because they were rushed they are missing facts or have incorrect facts.