5 ms·

I've tried subscribing to a few news sources, including WaPo, but I can't handle the political agendas (right, left, or any of it). I've had better luck with s

• dogman144 5y ago
  Yeah all the news sources my parents sub’d to in the early 00s and I sort of figured I’d sub to as well once ready are aggravatingly narrative driven. I’m not sure if I never noticed that, or if it’s a new media approach, but I don’t need “baseball + narrative injection” articles in my life. I’m actually fairly bummed out about this, I go to Reuters now.
  • anigbrowl 5y ago
    News coverage has always been narrative driven to some extent, but previously that was more in selectivity of coverage. The quality of reporting has been in a long slow decline due to a mix of sagging finances and low-no quality control competition. The 'Action News' TV format significantly degraded things, and then blogs and specifically conservative-targeted media drove adoption of the narrative approach. This revealing interview gives an interesting perspective on the media business around the turn of the century. Note that this is a pdf archive copy saved to draw attention to a particular segment, and I'd urge you ignore that and rad the whole thing. I can't link to the original as it vanished some time ago, and this archive predates the establishment of the internet archive. Thus the presentation is biased (sorry) but it's the only complete copy of the interview I know of. https://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/Weekly_Standard_Matt-Labash_confesses.pdf https://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/Weekly_Standard_M...
• deanCommie 5y ago
  I think the key question isn't which political agenda they have, but whether they report facts or opinions. In that regard, WaPo is pretty good but you can still do better: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/
  • axaxs 5y ago
    It's not nearly that simple. You can essentially print an opinion based only in fact, both by picking carefully which stories you cover, and also which details of which story you choose to report. It's completely possible to frame the exact same story as either left wing or right wing using only facts. If you want recent proof, look at that debacle with that Toledo kid. Some reported police shoot an armed thug, some report police shoot an unarmed kid. The video proof shows neither side is telling the whole truth.
  • ufmace 5y ago
    That isn't really how it works anymore. It's possible (and standard) to push any political agenda without ever stating an opinion directly. It's all about which specific facts you choose to report and which you choose to ignore. It's very easy to select and report only facts that make group A look good, or only facts that make them look bad. In that way, 2 news sources can give people the opposite opinion without anyone ever stating an opinion or saying something that isn't true.
    • frogpelt 5y ago
      And furthermore, public sentiment (and therefore elections) are decided by what the main sources of media determine is the most important news. Example: Cops have shot a thousand people a year for several years in a row (maybe a decade). About 300 of those each year have been black, which is a disproportionate amount by some measures. However, it is nowhere near the biggest problem in our country even for black people. But because the media has chosen to report on that problem near constantly since Colin Kaepernick took a knee, it has dominated the public consciousness and therefore influences thousands of people to loot, burn, protest, riot and thousands more to develop opinions and attitudes that create more and more division in our country. Most of what they report is factual but is it as important as the lofty position they are giving it in the news? Is it helping?
      • shigawire 5y ago
        Yes - cops should kill fewer people.
• crooked-v 5y ago
  Every news source of any kind has some sort of bias. The only way to escape that completely is to live alone in the woods as a hermit.