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No, the press has always been narrative-driven, and much more so in the last five years or so. It's entirely possible to paint different variations of reality
by jariel 6y ago
No, the press has always been narrative-driven, and much more so in the last five years or so.
It's entirely possible to paint different variations of reality withing the bounds of the same facts and the press does it all day long.
Yes, the press is generally factual (I didn't imply otherwise), but bent quite strongly in one direction or another.
Editorial choices abound, and most coverage is editorialized, it's not remotely straight news, there's a lot of opinion.
Words have power, and the kinds of words, images news outlets decide to show, which is an editorial choice, have quite a lot of impact.
It is very unhealthy to use any 'one source' for news in the US right now for this reason, unfortunately, there are no sources (outside of straight news from the wire) wherein one could not risk being in a bubble.
The President and some enablers, using 'direct media' (i.e. Twitter) have chosen to outright lie, which as I mentioned has 'taken it to another level' - and some in the press have chosen not to call him out on it, tip-toeing up to the line of outright falsehoods themselves, while being careful to not necessarily engage in straight up lies.
And of course, some outlets have more credibility than others.
- mywittyname 6y agoFYI, I absolutely read your statement as claiming that all politicians and media outlets are now guilty of "'total fabrication of facts'." I appreciate the clarification, but that sentiment is widespread, so I accepted it at face value. > It is very unhealthy to use any 'one source' for news in the US right now for this reason, Strongly disagree here and feel like this attitude is also part of the problem. It's much better to get your news from a single source who employ a large number of fact-checkers and are willing to issue retractions, than it is to get it from a "variety" of sources repeating the same claims with absolutely no independent verification of the facts. Multiple sources reporting something does not make it credible if the sources in question aren't performing independent verification. Many "news" sites today engage in circular references where they say, "blah is reporting...", then another site picks that up and reports that "multiple sites are reporting..." And none of them bother with independent verification. This is often exploited to spread hoaxes.
- VikingCoder 6y agoRight, like when I see yet another news article which questions Dominion voting machines in Georgia, that is hard evidence to me that they do not care about representing an honest picture of what has been evaluated. There was a hand recount. There was a hand recount. There was a hand recount. The impact of this has absolutely not filtered through to many "news" sites.