5 ms·

"They dont talk about or even cover the same things" - this is the number one fake news tactic in play. I'm not sure what to call it, but it's a 2x2 matrix - I

"They dont talk about or even cover the same things" - this is the number one fake news tactic in play. I'm not sure what to call it, but it's a 2x2 matrix - If a group is left-leaning, they'll report on everything good about the left and everything bad about the right, If a group is right-leaning, they'll report on everything good about the right and everything bad about the left. For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, and you'll almost never see Fox News write an article critical about Republicans. So you end up without much overlap between the two. They'll only report on the same things when those common things are important enough / loud enough to where they can't ignore it, or when they're able to put their own political interpretation on it when telling the viewer what to think.

muyuu 5y ago
Not only that, they go out of their way to police the topics in forums and social media. Mentioning the wrong topics gets people labelled as pushing "talking points" or "conspiracy theories" with total disregard to the factual reality behind. It doesn't serve the partisan narrative and that's all one needs to know. Insisting will get your suspended, muted, banned or deboosted/shadowbanned.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, Not true at all. Here's one critical about Democrats as being too beholden to progressives: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-progressive-kool-aid-wierson-honan/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-pro... Here’s one critical about the current Democratic VP largely for being too concerned with (and ultimately ineffective at) undercutting Republican talking points. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-progressive-kool-aid-wierson-honan/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-pro... And that's just one day. Except for stuff responding to new Trump-era revelations, they don't seem to have much current criticism of Republicans not buried within criticism of how Democrats deal with them, representing their actual bias in critical opinion coverage, in that it focuses on people currently in power. (When Republicans held the White House and the Senate, they had more direct criticism of Republicans.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Aunche 5y ago
  CNN is a bad example of a left leaning news outlet. They're quite centrist. The reason mainstream media appears to be left biased is because people use the government's political center as their frame of reference rather than that of the populace. The media caters to political beliefs of actual average American. The federal government caters to the center of voting power, which is heavily skewed towards smaller states which tend to be more conservative. This disparity is what people perceive as "left bias".
  - axguscbklp 5y ago
    Studies show that "left bias" in mainstream media is much greater than it is among Americans in general. For example: "Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971. An even larger drop was observed among journalists who said they were Republicans in 2013 (7.1 percent) than in 2002 (18 percent), but the 2013 figure is still notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican Party (24 percent according to the poll mentioned above)." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/ju...) "Some of the professional groups have clear liberal leanings. People who work in the news media are almost exclusively donors to liberal candidates:" (https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bias-of-each-profession-2014-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi...)
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
pydry 5y ago
>For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, and you'll almost never see Fox News write an article critical about Republicans. So you end up without much overlap between the two. Except for everything Democrats and Republicans agree upon. Which is a lot. There's a massive amount Americans miss because thet witness very lively debate on very circumscribed topics.
arecurrence 5y ago
Ground News points this out every week in their Blindspot newsletter.
shrimpx 5y ago
I don't mind that kind of bias, if your 2x2 matrix was right -- that each of them reports everything good about their side and everything bad about the other side. If that were true, you could sum them up and have a pretty balanced total news source. The problem with Fox News and CNN is the biased attitude. They report everything good as amazing and everything bad as horrible. The anchors are "performing" the news, telling you with their tone, body language and vocal intonations how disgusted you should be or how much you should be rejoicing. This phenomenon has infiltrated the NYT and WSJ as well, and I've stopped reading both.
- CincinnatiMan 5y ago
  I've noticed this "performance" in the NYT, but the WSJ news articles have mostly stayed pretty dry. Their opinion section however does not follow suit.
andrepd 5y ago
Slightly OT but it's disheartening to see the overton window at work when people call Democrats "left". It's like the frame of reference has shifted so far to one side that "slightly progressive corporate-run party" vs "socially conservative corporate-run party" is framed as "left vs right".
jgoewert 5y ago
>> you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats I can name one CNN reporter right off the bat who does and his post is nearly always in the headline section for the topic being covered: Chris Cillizza Find me the same thing on Fox and I will accept your arguement.

muyuu 5y ago

Not only that, they go out of their way to police the topics in forums and social media. Mentioning the wrong topics gets people labelled as pushing "talking points" or "conspiracy theories" with total disregard to the factual reality behind. It doesn't serve the partisan narrative and that's all one needs to know. Insisting will get your suspended, muted, banned or deboosted/shadowbanned.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, Not true at all. Here's one critical about Democrats as being too beholden to progressives: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-progressive-kool-aid-wierson-honan/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-pro... Here’s one critical about the current Democratic VP largely for being too concerned with (and ultimately ineffective at) undercutting Republican talking points. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-progressive-kool-aid-wierson-honan/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-pro... And that's just one day. Except for stuff responding to new Trump-era revelations, they don't seem to have much current criticism of Republicans not buried within criticism of how Democrats deal with them, representing their actual bias in critical opinion coverage, in that it focuses on people currently in power. (When Republicans held the White House and the Senate, they had more direct criticism of Republicans.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Aunche 5y ago
CNN is a bad example of a left leaning news outlet. They're quite centrist. The reason mainstream media appears to be left biased is because people use the government's political center as their frame of reference rather than that of the populace. The media caters to political beliefs of actual average American. The federal government caters to the center of voting power, which is heavily skewed towards smaller states which tend to be more conservative. This disparity is what people perceive as "left bias".
- axguscbklp 5y ago
  Studies show that "left bias" in mainstream media is much greater than it is among Americans in general. For example: "Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971. An even larger drop was observed among journalists who said they were Republicans in 2013 (7.1 percent) than in 2002 (18 percent), but the 2013 figure is still notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican Party (24 percent according to the poll mentioned above)." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/ju...) "Some of the professional groups have clear liberal leanings. People who work in the news media are almost exclusively donors to liberal candidates:" (https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bias-of-each-profession-2014-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi...)
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...

pydry 5y ago

>For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, and you'll almost never see Fox News write an article critical about Republicans. So you end up without much overlap between the two. Except for everything Democrats and Republicans agree upon. Which is a lot. There's a massive amount Americans miss because thet witness very lively debate on very circumscribed topics.

arecurrence 5y ago

Ground News points this out every week in their Blindspot newsletter.

shrimpx 5y ago

I don't mind that kind of bias, if your 2x2 matrix was right -- that each of them reports everything good about their side and everything bad about the other side. If that were true, you could sum them up and have a pretty balanced total news source. The problem with Fox News and CNN is the biased attitude. They report everything good as amazing and everything bad as horrible. The anchors are "performing" the news, telling you with their tone, body language and vocal intonations how disgusted you should be or how much you should be rejoicing. This phenomenon has infiltrated the NYT and WSJ as well, and I've stopped reading both.

CincinnatiMan 5y ago
I've noticed this "performance" in the NYT, but the WSJ news articles have mostly stayed pretty dry. Their opinion section however does not follow suit.

andrepd 5y ago

Slightly OT but it's disheartening to see the overton window at work when people call Democrats "left". It's like the frame of reference has shifted so far to one side that "slightly progressive corporate-run party" vs "socially conservative corporate-run party" is framed as "left vs right".

jgoewert 5y ago

>> you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats I can name one CNN reporter right off the bat who does and his post is nearly always in the headline section for the topic being covered: Chris Cillizza Find me the same thing on Fox and I will accept your arguement.