4 ms·

I have been reading daily news for 50 years. When I first started reading the news, it was objective. It portrayed facts with little opinion. Then during the Re

I have been reading daily news for 50 years. When I first started reading the news, it was objective. It portrayed facts with little opinion. Then during the Reagan presidency, I noticed a trend towards liberal bias in the media. This is well documented by MRC.org. To counter this, conservative talk radio was born, and Fox news was created. In the din of infinite media outlets, the major media outlets must stand out from the crowd. They do this by extending their bias to outright advocacy for their political side. This is happening on both sides. Other niche outlets are doing the same thing to be attractive to a specialized set of readers. Unfortunately, it has gone from advocacy to outrage. A daily outrage occurred in the media in response to Trump, where every action created an outrage from one offended group or another. It was more than just Trump. "Cancel culture" was created where those who were outraged by something someone said on social media "cancelled" the speaker's life by erasing them from society. They lost their jobs and were ostracized by their peers. Where does all this lead? I hope it is not violence. However, the political violence I see everyday in the form of violent protests and riots is not a welcome sight.

commandlinefan 5y ago
What I continue to be surprised by is how the left-leaning sources keep denying their liberal bias. Fox news more or less admits to being right-leaning, but CNN is still insisting that they're unbiased, which is almost comical. I think that somehow left-biased types really, honestly, believe they're actually considering both sides of every issue, and just coming to the conclusion that "reality has a liberal bias".
- myko 5y ago
  CNN isn't biased to the liberal or conservative viewpoint, it is biased towards clicks and views. A lot of the blame for trump gaining acceptance as a viable voting option belongs to CNN for uncritically promoting him and giving him coverage. When looking at US politics reality does have a liberal bias. Look at how conservatives handled the pandemic and losing the 2020 election. The minority party with a majority of the voting power in the US actively believes and promotes a false version of reality.
  - andreygrehov 5y ago
    I'm not a voter, but isn't 51% vs 47% is basically a flip of a coin result?
    - myko 5y ago
      Raw vote totals tell a different story (millions more vote for Democratic candidates, even when the Democrats lose), the fact is that the GOP can win federal elections because land has more voting power than people
  - newfriend 5y ago
    > CNN isn't biased to the liberal or conservative viewpoint, it is biased towards clicks and views. Bullshit. CNN is in the tank for the corporate wing of the Democratic party. > A lot of the blame for trump gaining acceptance as a viable voting option belongs to CNN for *uncritically promoting* him and giving him coverage. Absolute bullshit. You believe CNN was pro-Trump in 2015/2016? Every single story/show was about how terrible he is. > a false version of reality. I think you're the one with a false version of reality if you believe CNN was/is pro-Trump.
    - myko 5y ago
      > Bullshit. CNN is in the tank for the corporate wing of the Democratic party. Bullshit. CNN repeatedly focused on trump to the detriment of other candidates because he generated clicks and views. > Absolute bullshit. You believe CNN was pro-Trump in 2015/2016? Every single story/show was about how terrible he is. It's hard to report on him without it being obvious how terrible he is. Most of the reporting in 2015/16 were about his zany antics, in your face racism, and sexual assault admissions - but still free airtime. > I think you're the one with a false version of reality if you believe CNN was/is pro-Trump. I said they're pro-clicks and views, and trump was a vehicle for that, which helped him get elected. You should work on reading comprehension.
      - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
        Even NPR admits the coverage was more negative. And no, not more negative because he was worse, more negative in an unfair way: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage-of-trump-more-negative-than-for-other-presidents https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage...
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > What I continue to be surprised by is how the left-leaning sources keep denying their liberal bias There are no left-leaning major news outlets in the US (the nature of capitalism assures that; you can’t get the kind of capitalist backing for anti-capitalist positions required to be a major media source), only far-right and center-right, and even the center-right ones treat targets to their left much worse than those their right. And if there was a left-leaning outlet, their bias would be left, not liberal. > Fox news more or less admits to being right-leaning Only recently, in the Trump era, did Fox drop “Fair and Balanced” for “Standing Up For What's Right”. > but CNN is still insisting that they're unbiased That's because Fox is marketing to people who see themselves as on the Right and CNN is marketing to people who identify as centrist, non-ideological, or above the fray (who are largely the pro-status quo center-right.) Both label according to the identity group they are marketing to.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Get a list of the names of medium-to-large town newspapers (from, say, 1980, before many of them closed). Look at the names. Note how many papers have "Democrat" or "Republic" in the name. Many of those papers were founded to deliberately support one political party. So "it was objective" may be a bit much. UPI, AP, and the national news were pretty close to unbiased. Local papers often had their slant, which would include editorials, local news, and maybe even which national stories were covered. It was far better than today, I'll grant you.
bena 5y ago
I would have to say that maybe it's not the news that has changed, but your view of it. The media has always had biases. How can it not, it's run by people. Look at the propaganda during the Spanish-American War. That's the most obvious U.S. example of how biased media can be. And we enjoy the temporal distance to not be invested in the events so we can evaluate it from a third-party perspective. Are you saying the media became less biased after that then more biased?
- joshuaheard 5y ago
  It's certainly possible that my views have changed over time biasing my perspective. I can only speak to the time I have observed the news. Abd you're point is correct. Yellow Journalism was a phrase coined in past history to described biased news, which obviously has existed in one form or another since the first newspapers. It is not a modern phenomena.

commandlinefan 5y ago

What I continue to be surprised by is how the left-leaning sources keep denying their liberal bias. Fox news more or less admits to being right-leaning, but CNN is still insisting that they're unbiased, which is almost comical. I think that somehow left-biased types really, honestly, believe they're actually considering both sides of every issue, and just coming to the conclusion that "reality has a liberal bias".

myko 5y ago
CNN isn't biased to the liberal or conservative viewpoint, it is biased towards clicks and views. A lot of the blame for trump gaining acceptance as a viable voting option belongs to CNN for uncritically promoting him and giving him coverage. When looking at US politics reality does have a liberal bias. Look at how conservatives handled the pandemic and losing the 2020 election. The minority party with a majority of the voting power in the US actively believes and promotes a false version of reality.
- andreygrehov 5y ago
  I'm not a voter, but isn't 51% vs 47% is basically a flip of a coin result?
  - myko 5y ago
    Raw vote totals tell a different story (millions more vote for Democratic candidates, even when the Democrats lose), the fact is that the GOP can win federal elections because land has more voting power than people
- newfriend 5y ago
  > CNN isn't biased to the liberal or conservative viewpoint, it is biased towards clicks and views. Bullshit. CNN is in the tank for the corporate wing of the Democratic party. > A lot of the blame for trump gaining acceptance as a viable voting option belongs to CNN for *uncritically promoting* him and giving him coverage. Absolute bullshit. You believe CNN was pro-Trump in 2015/2016? Every single story/show was about how terrible he is. > a false version of reality. I think you're the one with a false version of reality if you believe CNN was/is pro-Trump.
  - myko 5y ago
    > Bullshit. CNN is in the tank for the corporate wing of the Democratic party. Bullshit. CNN repeatedly focused on trump to the detriment of other candidates because he generated clicks and views. > Absolute bullshit. You believe CNN was pro-Trump in 2015/2016? Every single story/show was about how terrible he is. It's hard to report on him without it being obvious how terrible he is. Most of the reporting in 2015/16 were about his zany antics, in your face racism, and sexual assault admissions - but still free airtime. > I think you're the one with a false version of reality if you believe CNN was/is pro-Trump. I said they're pro-clicks and views, and trump was a vehicle for that, which helped him get elected. You should work on reading comprehension.
    - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
      Even NPR admits the coverage was more negative. And no, not more negative because he was worse, more negative in an unfair way: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage-of-trump-more-negative-than-for-other-presidents https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage...
dragonwriter 5y ago
> What I continue to be surprised by is how the left-leaning sources keep denying their liberal bias There are no left-leaning major news outlets in the US (the nature of capitalism assures that; you can’t get the kind of capitalist backing for anti-capitalist positions required to be a major media source), only far-right and center-right, and even the center-right ones treat targets to their left much worse than those their right. And if there was a left-leaning outlet, their bias would be left, not liberal. > Fox news more or less admits to being right-leaning Only recently, in the Trump era, did Fox drop “Fair and Balanced” for “Standing Up For What's Right”. > but CNN is still insisting that they're unbiased That's because Fox is marketing to people who see themselves as on the Right and CNN is marketing to people who identify as centrist, non-ideological, or above the fray (who are largely the pro-status quo center-right.) Both label according to the identity group they are marketing to.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Get a list of the names of medium-to-large town newspapers (from, say, 1980, before many of them closed). Look at the names. Note how many papers have "Democrat" or "Republic" in the name. Many of those papers were founded to deliberately support one political party. So "it was objective" may be a bit much. UPI, AP, and the national news were pretty close to unbiased. Local papers often had their slant, which would include editorials, local news, and maybe even which national stories were covered. It was far better than today, I'll grant you.

bena 5y ago

I would have to say that maybe it's not the news that has changed, but your view of it. The media has always had biases. How can it not, it's run by people. Look at the propaganda during the Spanish-American War. That's the most obvious U.S. example of how biased media can be. And we enjoy the temporal distance to not be invested in the events so we can evaluate it from a third-party perspective. Are you saying the media became less biased after that then more biased?

joshuaheard 5y ago
It's certainly possible that my views have changed over time biasing my perspective. I can only speak to the time I have observed the news. Abd you're point is correct. Yellow Journalism was a phrase coined in past history to described biased news, which obviously has existed in one form or another since the first newspapers. It is not a modern phenomena.