7 ms·

It surprised you that MSNBC, NYT, and NPR have primarily left-leaning audiences? Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. If you

by aksss 6y ago

It surprised you that MSNBC, NYT, and NPR have primarily left-leaning audiences? Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. If you asked the surveyed Republicans how much they trust Fox News specifically, I’m sure the stats would be a mirror image. Similarly, democrats trust a news industry which, outlet-for-outlet, is more aligned with what they want to hear. After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys! Truthfully, I think the smart folks on both sides of the aisle know the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth.

PeterisP 6y ago
I would have expected that these media have primarily left/right leaning audiences, but having the proportion be 95% of so is a bit surprising and even extreme.
skinnymuch 6y ago
The same MSNBC that shat on AOC up till it was obvious she was going to be a progressive darling/favorite among a portion of MSNBC viewers, mocked Ron Paul repeatedly*, and have never covered Bernie Sanders close to the way they cover the Democratic establishment? MSNBC is nothing like the lefts Fox. I completely agree with the point of hating the “other” guy’s news. I don’t think the vast majority of people distrust mainstream media. At least not their favorite outlets. NYT being beloved by a lot of my friends as one easy glaring example of typical highly educated well paid “liberal coastal elites” * principled progressives/hard left have quite a bit in common with principled libertarians. Ron Paul being one. Not his son though. Chapo Traphouse for example can recognize Ron Paul being legit. Or Jon Stewart for a more mainstream example.
- philwelch 6y ago
  Trump supporters feel the same way about Fox that you feel about MSNBC. That’s why there’s OAN.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it? Perhaps that number is bigger than I’m imagining, but I doubt it. Edgy comments online saying Fox sucks for a week because they didn’t do a good enough job isn’t the same thing. That’s still on Fox’s side. I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows.
    - philwelch 6y ago
      > Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it? Seems like a lot. That's why OAN and Newsmax grew so fast. > I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows. Democracy Now and TYT are the progressive version of OAN/Newsmax. MSNBC is the progressive version of Fox.
      - skinnymuch 6y ago
        From minor anecdotal musings of conservatives I know, they will sometimes say negative things about Fox and be more pro OAN/Newsmax, but they aren’t principally opposed to Fox or hate it out right. TYT and Democracy Now overlap, but TYT is almost purely neoliberal stuff. Perhaps I don’t understand the nuance between OAN/Newsmax though. It’s not hard to dislike MSNBC and not watch it while being into Democracy Now. It makes sense. If you’re into Chapo Trap House, you’re completely opposed to MSNBC. You can see the differences just from seeing how Reddit’s Ohanion did a classic neoliberal move weeks before Chapo’s ban of saying his board seat should go to a minority. A move MSNBC would say congrats, work accomplished to. Unlike progressives. You can also see the general difference of how things are viewed based on the attention The Donald subreddit got for their ban vs Chapo. Trump’s subreddit was a 4-5x bigger, but took up almost all the news cycle vs the other subreddits. It’s not as simple as Democracy Now on left is a mirror of Newsmax on the right. Either way, we are mostly in agreement. We are talking about details vs any bigger disagreement. Cheers
robin21 6y ago
Smart people are actually more susceptible to biases. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-people-are-stupid/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-... Funny that I link to a New Yorker article. Fitting that it is from 2012.
- colordrops 6y ago
  I guess being aware of bias is not part of the "smart" equation?
  - spiralx 6y ago
    Being aware of bias is in no way the same as being unaffected by it. In fact you can imagine the possibility where being aware of a bias allows one to believe that they are unable to be affected by it and thus pay less attention to whether their thinking is flawed.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      So i guess "paying more attention" to flawed thinking is not part of the "smart" equation? See where this leads? I'll be direct: the concept of "smart" is vague and has different meanings to different people, and different measures, so to say "smart" people are like this or like that doesn't make sense.
unishark 6y ago
> After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys! You imply this is some kind of hypocrisy or other character flaw, but this will always be true when there's uncertainty. If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. Otherwise you would be assuming your own beliefs are wrong which makes no sense by definition. Of course media outlets tend to go beyond just filling in the blanks with biased guesses, but still people will be more forgiving if they seem "sensible" generally.
- aksss 6y ago
  Only to the extent that “bias” is a character flaw. I understand the nature of it, but it is certainly a liability when after the “truth”.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. It may be rational, but that makes them terrible providers of news for the people they agree with. They have the same blind spots and are looking to support the narratives you both already believe.
  - quetzthecoatl 6y ago
    I would even say it's not rational, but cult like. Rationality is based on logical skepticism. More often than not, it's swimming against the tide questioning generally accepted axioms.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      I agree. Rationality includes avoiding confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values). Favoring information that confirms one's prior beliefs is the opposite of rational.
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tsimionescu 6y ago
> Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. I don't think it detracts from your points, but the coverage of all these outlets leans Democrat, but not left. They are centrist papers. Left voices (think Chomsky) are almost completely absent from mainstream media.
- tacitusarc 6y ago
  This is changing the meaning of the word left, and then redefining Democrat as centrist, which is just incorrect.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Depends on where you are from. In most, if not all, western democracies the Democrats pass as centrist. People like Bernie pass as slightly left of center in Germany for example. And passes as left parties over here would considered full-blown communist in the US.
    - bordercases 6y ago
      If we're still talking about US news outlets being mistrusted by American citizens subscribing to US political parties, this comparison is irrelevant.
    - spiralx 6y ago
      That's just not true of the Democratic Party by any useful metric and likewise there is nothing about Bernie's platform that would be centre-left anywhere in Europe, the majority of his proposals being to the left of anything implemented anywhere. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda...
      - hef19898 6y ago
        If I understood the NYT article correct, the Democrats are put left, among other things, because of support for climate measures. Fun fact, the CSU, as far right as you get in Germany when you ignore the AfD, is also supporting measures to fight climate change now. The CSU also kind of opposes gay marriage, are among the more extremer views regarding abortion. And support public health care. They do not fight to make abortion illegal so. No do they with gay marriage. I see that as them being more "left" than anything I see coming from the GOP at the moment. And the CSU, as I said, considered the most right / conservative of our mainstream parties. Bernie on the other hand would fit in perfectly well with the SPD, our social democrats. "Die Linke", the leftest one in the article, is a joint party of the SED (the former DDRs government party), some communists from western Germany and the far left wing of the SPD. They are as much left as the AfD is right. I do see a lot of parallels between the AfD and the right wing of the GOP so. Especially regarding immigrants, muslims, the Covid pandemic and views of family values.
lovecg 6y ago
There’s a phenomenon quite similar to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: the bias of an outlet is quite obvious in the coverage of an event one is particularly familiar with. Of course then we flip a page and continue taking them at their word.
branweb 6y ago
"the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth" <- That's well put. And yeah I guess I wasn't that surprised by MSNBC, but definitely didn't expect the percentages to be so high for the "paper of record" and NPR.

by aksss 6y ago

PeterisP 6y ago

I would have expected that these media have primarily left/right leaning audiences, but having the proportion be 95% of so is a bit surprising and even extreme.

skinnymuch 6y ago

The same MSNBC that shat on AOC up till it was obvious she was going to be a progressive darling/favorite among a portion of MSNBC viewers, mocked Ron Paul repeatedly*, and have never covered Bernie Sanders close to the way they cover the Democratic establishment? MSNBC is nothing like the lefts Fox. I completely agree with the point of hating the “other” guy’s news. I don’t think the vast majority of people distrust mainstream media. At least not their favorite outlets. NYT being beloved by a lot of my friends as one easy glaring example of typical highly educated well paid “liberal coastal elites” * principled progressives/hard left have quite a bit in common with principled libertarians. Ron Paul being one. Not his son though. Chapo Traphouse for example can recognize Ron Paul being legit. Or Jon Stewart for a more mainstream example.

philwelch 6y ago
Trump supporters feel the same way about Fox that you feel about MSNBC. That’s why there’s OAN.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it? Perhaps that number is bigger than I’m imagining, but I doubt it. Edgy comments online saying Fox sucks for a week because they didn’t do a good enough job isn’t the same thing. That’s still on Fox’s side. I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    > Most of those supporters still support Fox though, no? How many are actually against Fox, never watch it, and advocate against it? Seems like a lot. That's why OAN and Newsmax grew so fast. > I don’t think the comparison is the same. Maybe for Democracy Now and some progressive YouTuber/online shows. Democracy Now and TYT are the progressive version of OAN/Newsmax. MSNBC is the progressive version of Fox.
    - skinnymuch 6y ago
      From minor anecdotal musings of conservatives I know, they will sometimes say negative things about Fox and be more pro OAN/Newsmax, but they aren’t principally opposed to Fox or hate it out right. TYT and Democracy Now overlap, but TYT is almost purely neoliberal stuff. Perhaps I don’t understand the nuance between OAN/Newsmax though. It’s not hard to dislike MSNBC and not watch it while being into Democracy Now. It makes sense. If you’re into Chapo Trap House, you’re completely opposed to MSNBC. You can see the differences just from seeing how Reddit’s Ohanion did a classic neoliberal move weeks before Chapo’s ban of saying his board seat should go to a minority. A move MSNBC would say congrats, work accomplished to. Unlike progressives. You can also see the general difference of how things are viewed based on the attention The Donald subreddit got for their ban vs Chapo. Trump’s subreddit was a 4-5x bigger, but took up almost all the news cycle vs the other subreddits. It’s not as simple as Democracy Now on left is a mirror of Newsmax on the right. Either way, we are mostly in agreement. We are talking about details vs any bigger disagreement. Cheers

robin21 6y ago

Smart people are actually more susceptible to biases. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-people-are-stupid/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-... Funny that I link to a New Yorker article. Fitting that it is from 2012.

colordrops 6y ago
I guess being aware of bias is not part of the "smart" equation?
- spiralx 6y ago
  Being aware of bias is in no way the same as being unaffected by it. In fact you can imagine the possibility where being aware of a bias allows one to believe that they are unable to be affected by it and thus pay less attention to whether their thinking is flawed.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    So i guess "paying more attention" to flawed thinking is not part of the "smart" equation? See where this leads? I'll be direct: the concept of "smart" is vague and has different meanings to different people, and different measures, so to say "smart" people are like this or like that doesn't make sense.

unishark 6y ago

> After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys! You imply this is some kind of hypocrisy or other character flaw, but this will always be true when there's uncertainty. If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. Otherwise you would be assuming your own beliefs are wrong which makes no sense by definition. Of course media outlets tend to go beyond just filling in the blanks with biased guesses, but still people will be more forgiving if they seem "sensible" generally.

aksss 6y ago
Only to the extent that “bias” is a character flaw. I understand the nature of it, but it is certainly a liability when after the “truth”.
kortilla 6y ago
> If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. It may be rational, but that makes them terrible providers of news for the people they agree with. They have the same blind spots and are looking to support the narratives you both already believe.
- quetzthecoatl 6y ago
  I would even say it's not rational, but cult like. Rationality is based on logical skepticism. More often than not, it's swimming against the tide questioning generally accepted axioms.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    I agree. Rationality includes avoiding confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values). Favoring information that confirms one's prior beliefs is the opposite of rational.
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tsimionescu 6y ago

> Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. I don't think it detracts from your points, but the coverage of all these outlets leans Democrat, but not left. They are centrist papers. Left voices (think Chomsky) are almost completely absent from mainstream media.

tacitusarc 6y ago
This is changing the meaning of the word left, and then redefining Democrat as centrist, which is just incorrect.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Depends on where you are from. In most, if not all, western democracies the Democrats pass as centrist. People like Bernie pass as slightly left of center in Germany for example. And passes as left parties over here would considered full-blown communist in the US.
  - bordercases 6y ago
    If we're still talking about US news outlets being mistrusted by American citizens subscribing to US political parties, this comparison is irrelevant.
  - spiralx 6y ago
    That's just not true of the Democratic Party by any useful metric and likewise there is nothing about Bernie's platform that would be centre-left anywhere in Europe, the majority of his proposals being to the left of anything implemented anywhere. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda...
    - hef19898 6y ago
      If I understood the NYT article correct, the Democrats are put left, among other things, because of support for climate measures. Fun fact, the CSU, as far right as you get in Germany when you ignore the AfD, is also supporting measures to fight climate change now. The CSU also kind of opposes gay marriage, are among the more extremer views regarding abortion. And support public health care. They do not fight to make abortion illegal so. No do they with gay marriage. I see that as them being more "left" than anything I see coming from the GOP at the moment. And the CSU, as I said, considered the most right / conservative of our mainstream parties. Bernie on the other hand would fit in perfectly well with the SPD, our social democrats. "Die Linke", the leftest one in the article, is a joint party of the SED (the former DDRs government party), some communists from western Germany and the far left wing of the SPD. They are as much left as the AfD is right. I do see a lot of parallels between the AfD and the right wing of the GOP so. Especially regarding immigrants, muslims, the Covid pandemic and views of family values.

lovecg 6y ago

There’s a phenomenon quite similar to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: the bias of an outlet is quite obvious in the coverage of an event one is particularly familiar with. Of course then we flip a page and continue taking them at their word.

branweb 6y ago

"the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth" <- That's well put. And yeah I guess I wasn't that surprised by MSNBC, but definitely didn't expect the percentages to be so high for the "paper of record" and NPR.