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> One side effect of our toxic national discourse is that I don’t know who to believe. While I do think that things wrt 'discourse' have gotten worse, I don't

> One side effect of our toxic national discourse is that I don’t know who to believe. While I do think that things wrt 'discourse' have gotten worse, I don't think that traditional news agencies are untrustworthy. If they are, then they're as untrustworthy as they've ever been. As long as you avoid sources like opinion-shows-on-'news'-channels and stick to the dreaded "Mainstream Media" you should find trustworthy reporting.

macinjosh 5y ago
The contents of reporting by the mainstream is largely accurate. Ask any seasoned journalist and they will tell you that story selection is a big answer for how bias makes its way into any publication especially the respected ones. The only other caveat with the mainstream news is that they often behave like stenographers for “anonymous sources familiar with the matter” who often is an insider with some sort of agenda.
rpmisms 5y ago
"Mostly peaceful" killed that for me. I wanted to believe what you're saying, but I can't anymore.
- slg 5y ago
  You are letting a clumsy chyron that did a bad job summarizing an accurate report sour all of journalism for you?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    You are structuring your argument as if it was a one off and not a culminating crescendo for some people. News have been getting progressively worse over the past few decades. This just happened to be a very clear and visible sign, because it is just hard to find something so visibly wrong.
    - slg 5y ago
      The other poster was framing it as an inflection point and I was questioning that. Also the chyron wasn't truly wrong, it was summarizing a report about what transpired over 24 hours. The protests were "mostly peaceful" until they weren't. That was all discussed on screen while the chyron was displayed. The only way to be misled by the chyron was if you were watching the channel on mute or you just saw the screenshot flying around the internet being pushed by people who wanted you to think the media is lying. The chyron said "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting" and it probably should have said "Mostly peaceful protests after police shooting turn fiery after nightfall" but that is both longer and clunkier. So they went with a more condensed version without thinking of the awful visual it would create when screenshotted. If this is journalism's worst crime, then we are in fantastic shape.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
        It is not the worst crime. It just happens to be most visible, because it gives the appearance of consciously creating a narrative that fits specific needs ( in simple terms : BLM good / police bad ) and is then reinforced by semi subtle, but still clear signals ( if race is omitted in a shooting, you can at this point assume the shooter was/is black ). That is the issue, it is not one clumsy comment. It is a series of million little moments. They do add up.
        slg 5y ago
        >it gives the appearance of consciously creating a narrative that fits specific needs If this was the goal, why would they report the truth audibly while lying to you visually? That is the point you are missing as it evidence that the chyron was clumsy rather than nefarious. You don't report two conflicting narrative if your objective is to get viewers to believe only one of the narratives. If the goal was to mislead, they did an awful job at it by telling the truth in the actual reporting. The people who want to mislead are the ones who took the chyron out of context of the report it was summarizing.
        5y ago
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    It's the cherry on top. Between cherrypicked statistics, obvious and tremendous political bias (Both sides, but we all know which one benefits more), a complete abandonment of balanced coverage, and tinting the faces of politicians to make them appear less healthy (happened to Trump and Bernie), I'm just about done ever trusting any mainstream media source again. When Ben Shapiro's news website does a better job of admitting their own biases than any of the three-letter networks, we have a problem.
- drewrv 5y ago
  “Polls in summer 2020 estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in U.S. history.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests Given the sheer scale of people protesting they were, by all reasonable definitions, mostly peaceful. When news reports prefer to show things like broken windows and trash cans on fire, but it’s impossible to show 15 to 26 million people spread across 50 states, emphasizing that the protests were mostly peaceful and the violent images are the outlier is responsible journalism.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    Sure a head count of all protests from the whole country buries the problem from view. Using this logic Jan 6th was peaceful. The problem is they mentioned protests, not protestors. The more relevant way to look at it is how many protest events led to rioting as it progressed?
  - idoh 5y ago
    The journalist is literally standing in front of a burning building: https://youtu.be/igzNAzcXNBA https://youtu.be/igzNAzcXNBA It’s totally fair to lose faith after seeing that.
    - wyldfire 5y ago
      > It’s totally fair to lose faith after seeing that. Nah, not IMO. The video you linked to has the reporter claiming that the current state is "in stark contrast" to the day's earlier protests. BTW, the term that I stated originally ("Mainstream media") may include CNN but it also includes AP, Reuters, and many more press agencies that are much more dignified. CNN used to be 'headline news' but has transformed into the same nonstop opinion shows in order to compete with Fox. So it's not the best source IMO. But don't lose faith. Don't base things on the worst example. Instead judge Mainstream Media by the NYT, Washington Post, Reuters, NPR.
      - EricE 5y ago
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  Ditto. It was the news moment I realized: The Emperor Has No Clothes!
- shadilay 5y ago
  "Fiery but mostly peaceful" https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-caption-with-video-of-burning https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-...
ipaddr 5y ago
What makes you put your full trust in the mainstream news? What makes them more trustworthy in your opinion and safe?
oogabooga123 5y ago
You must have missed the year 2020
EricE 5y ago
The NYT just overstated the amount of COVID infected by 800,000. 800,000! How many people only saw the original article and not the "correction". This happens ALL the time. An even better perspective from someone who is NOT a conservative: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/10/11/continuing-bizarre-decline-in-science-reporting-at-nyt https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/10/11/continuing-biza... If you aren't looking at the traditional news with a skeptical eye, you are getting an extremely filtered and heavily slanted view of the world. This whole mythos of journalism being unbiased is a recent fabrication. Look how many newspapers across the country had "Republic" or "Democrat" in their mast head. Bias was expected - and proudly advertised. Far more refreshing than the games currently being played by the "traditional news" organizations today.

macinjosh 5y ago

The contents of reporting by the mainstream is largely accurate. Ask any seasoned journalist and they will tell you that story selection is a big answer for how bias makes its way into any publication especially the respected ones. The only other caveat with the mainstream news is that they often behave like stenographers for “anonymous sources familiar with the matter” who often is an insider with some sort of agenda.

rpmisms 5y ago

"Mostly peaceful" killed that for me. I wanted to believe what you're saying, but I can't anymore.

slg 5y ago
You are letting a clumsy chyron that did a bad job summarizing an accurate report sour all of journalism for you?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  You are structuring your argument as if it was a one off and not a culminating crescendo for some people. News have been getting progressively worse over the past few decades. This just happened to be a very clear and visible sign, because it is just hard to find something so visibly wrong.
  - slg 5y ago
    The other poster was framing it as an inflection point and I was questioning that. Also the chyron wasn't truly wrong, it was summarizing a report about what transpired over 24 hours. The protests were "mostly peaceful" until they weren't. That was all discussed on screen while the chyron was displayed. The only way to be misled by the chyron was if you were watching the channel on mute or you just saw the screenshot flying around the internet being pushed by people who wanted you to think the media is lying. The chyron said "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting" and it probably should have said "Mostly peaceful protests after police shooting turn fiery after nightfall" but that is both longer and clunkier. So they went with a more condensed version without thinking of the awful visual it would create when screenshotted. If this is journalism's worst crime, then we are in fantastic shape.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      It is not the worst crime. It just happens to be most visible, because it gives the appearance of consciously creating a narrative that fits specific needs ( in simple terms : BLM good / police bad ) and is then reinforced by semi subtle, but still clear signals ( if race is omitted in a shooting, you can at this point assume the shooter was/is black ). That is the issue, it is not one clumsy comment. It is a series of million little moments. They do add up.
      - slg 5y ago
        >it gives the appearance of consciously creating a narrative that fits specific needs If this was the goal, why would they report the truth audibly while lying to you visually? That is the point you are missing as it evidence that the chyron was clumsy rather than nefarious. You don't report two conflicting narrative if your objective is to get viewers to believe only one of the narratives. If the goal was to mislead, they did an awful job at it by telling the truth in the actual reporting. The people who want to mislead are the ones who took the chyron out of context of the report it was summarizing.
        5y ago
- rpmisms 5y ago
  It's the cherry on top. Between cherrypicked statistics, obvious and tremendous political bias (Both sides, but we all know which one benefits more), a complete abandonment of balanced coverage, and tinting the faces of politicians to make them appear less healthy (happened to Trump and Bernie), I'm just about done ever trusting any mainstream media source again. When Ben Shapiro's news website does a better job of admitting their own biases than any of the three-letter networks, we have a problem.
drewrv 5y ago
“Polls in summer 2020 estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in U.S. history.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests Given the sheer scale of people protesting they were, by all reasonable definitions, mostly peaceful. When news reports prefer to show things like broken windows and trash cans on fire, but it’s impossible to show 15 to 26 million people spread across 50 states, emphasizing that the protests were mostly peaceful and the violent images are the outlier is responsible journalism.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  Sure a head count of all protests from the whole country buries the problem from view. Using this logic Jan 6th was peaceful. The problem is they mentioned protests, not protestors. The more relevant way to look at it is how many protest events led to rioting as it progressed?
- idoh 5y ago
  The journalist is literally standing in front of a burning building: https://youtu.be/igzNAzcXNBA https://youtu.be/igzNAzcXNBA It’s totally fair to lose faith after seeing that.
  - wyldfire 5y ago
    > It’s totally fair to lose faith after seeing that. Nah, not IMO. The video you linked to has the reporter claiming that the current state is "in stark contrast" to the day's earlier protests. BTW, the term that I stated originally ("Mainstream media") may include CNN but it also includes AP, Reuters, and many more press agencies that are much more dignified. CNN used to be 'headline news' but has transformed into the same nonstop opinion shows in order to compete with Fox. So it's not the best source IMO. But don't lose faith. Don't base things on the worst example. Instead judge Mainstream Media by the NYT, Washington Post, Reuters, NPR.
    - EricE 5y ago
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Ditto. It was the news moment I realized: The Emperor Has No Clothes!
shadilay 5y ago
"Fiery but mostly peaceful" https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-caption-with-video-of-burning https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-...

ipaddr 5y ago

What makes you put your full trust in the mainstream news? What makes them more trustworthy in your opinion and safe?

oogabooga123 5y ago

You must have missed the year 2020

EricE 5y ago

The NYT just overstated the amount of COVID infected by 800,000. 800,000! How many people only saw the original article and not the "correction". This happens ALL the time. An even better perspective from someone who is NOT a conservative: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/10/11/continuing-bizarre-decline-in-science-reporting-at-nyt https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/10/11/continuing-biza... If you aren't looking at the traditional news with a skeptical eye, you are getting an extremely filtered and heavily slanted view of the world. This whole mythos of journalism being unbiased is a recent fabrication. Look how many newspapers across the country had "Republic" or "Democrat" in their mast head. Bias was expected - and proudly advertised. Far more refreshing than the games currently being played by the "traditional news" organizations today.